Last Wednesday we celebrated Alyssa’s ninth birthday. I can’t believe my baby is already nine. She was so little (just 3 months old) when she came off of that plane from Korea. Now she is growing into quite a lovely young lady. She is so mature in many ways. We thank the Lord for her every day. She has brought us much joy and we love her very much. She is such a blessing to our family.

We didn’t have a huge celebration this year. I decorated the kitchen with a few streamers and a balloon. It’s tradition in our family that the birthday child gets a mylar balloon for their birthday. My parents came for dinner and we had bulgogi and Korean won ton. My house smelled like a Korean restaurant (minus the kim chee – Alyssa won’t touch the stuff!). We then enjoyed a very chocolatey chocolate cake (that’s my girl) and opened gifts. She loved her legos (looks like we might have yet anothter engineer in the family) and her new boots, though they had to go back to the store because they were too small. Amazon to the rescue – hope they get here in the next couple of days! And she’s already read two of the books she got. All in all, it was a wonderful day for her.