Nine

Lily’s nine.

Every year I feel the same way, that I can not believe Lily could have grown so fast. Nine seems impossible. But then when I look at my girl, I see that it’s not only possible that she’s nine but she could even be ten by the way she looks and acts.

It’s a tradition that at some point on Lily’s birthday, we’ll listen to Frances England’s song You and Me. I blogged about this years ago, sharing the lyrics and audio for the song (don’t mind the missing images which were at one time hosted elsewhere. I haven’t caught up on replacing them yet!). We listened to You and Me again this year but I’ll share another of Frances’ wonderful and still apt for the moment songs here:

I wasn’t sure how we would celebrate Lily’s birthday this year, especially after Leif had THREE birthdays! There was some chance that we’d be in Oona River around this time which would have been a really fun place to celebrate her birthday. Lily’s very dear friends and fellow unschoolers, Maya and Lily live there. Alas, it wasn’t going to work out since they were up working in the Khutzeymateen. Imagine our surprise and Lily’s excitment to hear they got back to town the evening of the small family party we planned. Thank goodness I adjusted my cake recipe to make more!

I made Raspberry Topped Chocolate Torte but doubled the cake and made them in 9 inch round pans. Then I put a couple cups of defrosted frozen raspberries between the layers and topped the cake like usual. Damn, it was good.

Lily had requested Black Bean Quesadillas, which we shared with Erin, Hayden and Lucy. Maya, Lily, Shannon, Ben and a neighbour friend, Fiona helped sing Happy Birthday, eat cake and watch Lily open her few birthday presents!

Best birthday ever? Lily will tell you so.