It makes me feel weird to have an eight-year-old. I feel like I need to be more responsible and more adultish. Ashlyn really is perfect for being the oldest, she lets us make lots of mistakes, and doesn't seem to hold a grudge. She is an amazing example to her brother and sisters. She is just a really good girl!
The honest truth is, I can't believe she is eight years old! This is a big one. It is a birthday she will look back on many times in her life. She'll write journal entries about her baptism, she'll want to remember the details, and I hope she has good memories of this particular birthday!
So I made another special cake for Ashlyn's birthday ("special" could mean a few things here). I tried to illustrate a few of her hobbies: dance, soccer, and playing in the water. The new little webkinz dog was obviously the highlight of the cake. She is pretty much obsessed with webkinz, she and Alex get on the computer daily to feed, play with, buy things for, and just check on the webkinz.
I also decorated her room with streamers and made her favorite breakfast, German pancakes.
We had an old-fashioned tea party for Ashlyn. We went to Historic Sorensen Home in Draper where she and her friends shopped in the candy store, played games, and made handkerchief dolls and bracelets.
Of course, they also got to drink from a real tea set (lemonade), and eat chicken salad sandwiches (I even cut the crusts off and cut them into little triangles). The ladies there were dressed in period clothing (mid 1800's), and all the girls were dressed in party dresses!
My mom came to pick up my sister Chelsea's girls, and I wanted to get a picture of them with grandma. Plus, when I asked Ashlyn where she wanted to have a picture of her cousin Alyssa and her taken, she said she wanted it by this mannequin dressed in black! Nice.
My absolute favorite part of her birthday (since we haven't had her baptism yet), is her attitude about presents. I have been on a new kick to try to simplify things. I bought Ashlyn 8 presents for her eighth birthday. I always get her an outfit, then I got her seven $1 gifts: bookmark, decorative barrettes, lip gloss etc.
As you can tell, each present was pure joy to her. She was more excited to open each one then she was of what was actually inside! Later I was asking about how she felt about what she got for her birthday. She said, "I loved it! I got more presents than Alex did for his birthday! I guess he just a couple of big presents and I got eight medium presents, so its about the same." 
