rolling into year nine

On May 4, my first born turned NINE YEARS OLD!!!! I have no idea how he was born, I blinked and now he's turning nine...but it happened!!!! My mom was right...time flies. Ash wanted a Sonic the Hedgehog themed birthday party AND a skating party so we combined the two. I made Ash a Sonic the Hedgehog cake and we strapped on our roller stakes for a fun party!

This year at school, in P.E., the students had roller staking lessons. Ever since then Ash has been obsessed! He's gotten really good (and brave!) on skates! He loves it!

Maddox was a bit more nervous and cautious about skating but Uncle Casey was able to get him in the rink.

Noah didn't skate...but he loved "driving" race cars in the arcade!

Ash was excited to blow out his candles, eat some cake and open his presents. Poor Ash always gets a bit nervous when all eyes are on him and he almost wasn't able to open all of his gifts because the attention became overwhelming but he pushed through and was very excited about all of his new toys!

When my boys were toddlers I preferred to have their birthday parties at our home. Now, though, that they are getting older and are inviting more and more friends to come to their parties I don't mind one bit that they prefer to have their parties outside of our house. It's less chaos and WAY less clean up for me afterward.

Like I said before, it's so hard to believe that my baby boy is now nine years old. If he wasn't standing before me every single day I wouldn't believe it. Ashtyn is growing into such a sweet young man and I love that he loves to be himself. We always say he kind of "lives in his own world" and I truly hope that's a quality he carries with him throughout his life. He is who he is and he doesn't let others influence that. I'm one proud mommy for sure!