Happy Birthday Kristina

8 years old and loving it. This girl is happy, loving, caring, appreciative/grateful, obedient, determined, funny, charismatic, considered, clean. We just love to watch her enjoy life. For her 8th birthday she wanted a "suprrise pary" (still a bit accent there). So we decided to invite her friends from the park. It was supposed to be a day at the park with ladybugs and fun running around their favorite daily playground but IT'S RAINING in SoCal, lots of rain. It did not stop us and we all gather around the house and waited for grandma to bring Kristina over: "Surprise"! She was really surprised. She appreciated the decorations, she appreciated the guests, she appreciated the food, the flowers, every little bit was admired and recognized by her. "You guys did this for me. Thank you Daady! Thank you Mama!" She thanked us all day.

She even counted the kids to make sure she was not missing any of the daily crowd that plays together at the park everyday. I enjoyed watching the interaction between her and the kids. Most of this kids (5 out of the 6 kids) are between ages of 3-6 but she will not trade them for older kids. They all admire her and look up to her and she in return is gentle and loving with them (may be a learned trait or may be it is her personality). I saw her making sure they were all hugged so they can see she knew they were there, she got at their eye level and talked to all of them with them around her. She looked like snow white and her dwarfs. LOL. Mama loves her choice of friends. No need to grow fast. Enjoy being a child.

Clockwise from back left: Nicole (8), Nikki (6) and Kristina (8) in cheerleader position, next to them Galvin (5), in front Jackson (5), Connor (5) with his back to us, Karina (4) against wall and Lauren (3 1/2)in red shirt.