Mariana's 8th Birthday!
Our little girl is growing up -- fast! She loves Jesus, is becoming an accomplished reader, still loves school, is learning to play the piano, and has big teeth coming in. Boy, that changes her look!





We started her birthday celebration last Saturday (Dec.1)with a trip to see the movie "Enchanted" and ice cream with Chloe Sylvester, her friend from church. Cute movie!





















Then our neighbor, Christina, and her mom, Pat, took Mariana for lunch and birthday shopping on Sunday.

Mariana's birthday was on Tuesday, December 4th. We started the morning by waking her up with 8 roses...8 roses for Mariana Rose! OK, actually she was so excited that she woke up 20 minutes before I usually wake her up on school days, and I had to send her back to bed so I could "wake her up". Grandpa Bakker stopped by to wish her a Happy Birthday and Grandma and Opa called.

Good morning, birthday girl!

We had baked special cupcakes for her class. She even said a speech to her class. She has to do one per quarter. Her speech was on Maebe, our Boxer. She did a great job. She got to wear a golden crown and the class sang to her and prayed a special prayer for her.







For our finale -- the one with opening presents and cake, we had hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner with the Esmeyer family (Grandpa and Grandma had to go to a class and came over on Thursday instead).

Oh yeah, got money to burn!

Music box from Opa and Oma

Pretty cake

New ugg slippers

Oh, brother!

We love you, Mariana!