Oh boy, it's good to be 9.

 This awesome kid is 9 as of today. 

He is my playful, fun-loving, always on-to-go boy. He is outgoing, silly and feels all his emotions intensely. He cracks us up with his ridiculous dance moves, comes up with the hilarious puns and makes us laugh with his really terrible accents. He is also very self-motivated and will dedicate himself to learning everything there is to know about whatever that interest is. He is proof that you can really learn anything on YouTube. I don't know how many kids teach themselves how to play hockey by watching videos but he found $6 rollerblades at Value Village and now he can't wait till SuperDad comes home everyday so they can play ball hockey together. 

He's a pretty amazing kid and being the youngest in our family doesn't hold him back at all. He's braver than Mama when it comes to mountain biking. On skis, he's happy to wind through the glades on blue and black runs with us. He ran his first 10 km Sun Run this year and finished it in 1:06. He carried his own backpack and trekked to the top of Panorama Ridge. He biked 30km in the Tour de Victoria and finished it in 1:45. He is energetic and competitive and I am sure soon we won't be able to keep up with him. 

Since the first week of back to school is crazy for Mama, we celebrated his birthday at the end of summer with a bunch of amazing things. A week of Whitecaps soccer camp with one of his best friends where there was a visit from Michael Baldisimo and Spike. Plus, he got picked for good sportsmanship and won a signed Whitecaps ball on the last day of camp.

After 5 awesome days of Whitecaps camp, we had a soccer birthday party with 3 of his good friends from his soccer team.  Pretty happy that my Pinterest attempt at soccer cupcakes didn’t completely fail. Plus, that leftover turf we kept from redoing our lawn a couple years ago actually came in handy to display the cupcakes. I knew there was reason to keep random scraps of artificial grass in the basement. 

After dinner we got on the skytrain and went to BC Place and hoped to watch the Whitecaps crush Nashville.

Unfortunately, the Whitecaps did not get the memo that the birthday boy wanted to see the Whitecaps win but at least Spike came by with a birthday card and got his name up on the big screen. SuperDad spent our life savings on cotton candy, mini donuts and lemonade so the kids were hyper and didn't seem to care that the score was a disappointing 0-3.

Everyone must know that this dude is a hockey fanatic now because he was showered with hockey fandom from family and friends - a cap of his fav player (Connor McDavid), hockey cards, a team Canada jersey, a Canucks jersey and tickets to a hockey game next month. This kid was jumping up and down in excitement.

Yep, it's good to be 9. Happy birthday to our spunky, hilarious, determined little dude. Keep rocking and making everyone around you remember to live earnestly and laugh a lot along the way.