Nine

Her Cuteness turned 9 a couple of weeks ago. Her birthday was 10 days after I got back to India, so I didn’t have much time for organizing. We had a little party for her at the bowling alley on the embassy enclave. Her school friends came and had a great time. I was all intent on decorating the room where her party was going to be with streamers and tissue paper flowers. Some of her friends were already there when I started and they really wanted to help, so I let them. They ended up doing all the decorating and had a ton of fun in the process. Then they had pizza and bowled. After that they decorated cupcakes. Nia wanted to have cupcakes at the party and take some to school as well, so I ended up making 100 cupcakes that weekend. I was going to decorate the ones for the party but then I was kinda running out of time and decided to let the kids do it instead. Best. Idea. Ever. I just made a couple of kinds/colors of frosting and brought several different types of sprinkles and the girls had a blast. They were definitely sugar high as a result but they needed the energy to help me take the party decorations down when the party was over. So, admittedly, I was a bit hands-off with the party this year but it turned out great. It could be that Nia and her friends are growing up and are at an age when they actually want to do these things. It was nice to see the girls helping and having a blast at the same time. Wonder how long this phase will last?

Anywhoo, here’s the birthday girl bowling. It does look like she’s aiming for her feet but that’s how she rolls and, believe it or not, her feet were no worse for the wear.

 

And here she is making a wish

Instead of gifts, we decided to ask her friends make a donation of their choice and help Indian girls in need. We stole borrowed the idea from one of her classmates, who had recently had a birthday. We collected about $200, which Paul and I are going to match and donate the whole amount to a girls’ school in Uttar Pradesh. We’d very much like to make the donation in person, so Nia can go and meet with the girls but have to see when we can make that happen as the school is about 4 hours away. It should be a neat experience and we look forward to it.

She did get gifts from us, of course, and her favorite was her new scooter. She’d been asking for one ever since we moved to India because all the kids on the compound use scooters to move around. We had sort of promised her and when I was in the US, I got her one. She loves it and is scooting on it all the time.