She's 8...

...again, I ask, "When did that happen?"...

I thought it was rough when JK turned 5. This is much worse. As excited as I am that she's growing up, the reality is that in 10 years she'll be graduating from high school. Now that's a punch in the gut.

I know...I'm such a downer! Just can't believe that the little thing that we brought home from the hospital in an outfit that was WAY too big is now 8.

She is turning into a beautiful young lady. Full of life, compassion and plans. Our prayer for her is that she'll know the plans that the Lord has for her and that she'll be excited to follow them.

One of her little friends called her tonight to say "happy birthday". His birthday was yesterday and the two of them have always laughed about their birthdays being 1 day apart. One gift she received from my parents was an NIV Student Bible. I overheard her telling him that she had gotten a student Bible, "but I don't know why it's called that". She's a hoot!

Here are some pics from the highlights of the day. 8 is the magic age for ear piercing at our house. She was very excited, but we didn't know just how nervous she was until we were at Chuck E Cheese for dinner and she about shared her pizza with the place. Poor thing. She had worked herself up and her stress level was through the roof. She told me that she had been nervous since we left the house at 9:30 this morning. Didn't eat lunch. Wasn't interested in much dinner. Gotta work on this stress thing with her. That may have been TMI, but that was the end of our day. She's in bed now in our room at the SpringHill Suites in Atlanta (cuz when you live in a small town, you have to drive 3 hours to do anything fun), snuggling with her daddy, getting some rest for our day at the American Girl store tomorrow.

Okay...now for the photos.

First stop - Sweet & Sassy for nail painting and ear piercing. JK and AA chose red polish and LB chose dark blue. No shocker there. (I probably would've chosen the blue too!)

JK sitting the pink ear-piercing throne

Now for the nails

The Grand Finale

All done!

Close ups of her earrings and nails

Here's a pic of JK with the earrings she received from Billie's mom and dad. She opened these while everyone was still at the house this past weekend.

Here are the pics of her gifts from my mom and dad.

And finally, all of us at Chuck E Cheese. (This was before all of JK's stress finally came to the front.)

All in all, we had a wonderful day together as a family. Christmas post is coming...but there are so many photos to go through! I'm working on it though!