My baby turned nine on Sunday! Can you believe it? NINE. She was nine months old when I started this blog, so if you’ve been following me since then, that’s a REALLY LONG TIME.

Also, as many of you have let me know on Facebook and Instagram, this birthday was Mazzy’s golden birthday, which means that she turned nine on the 9th. Add that to the fact that she was born in 2009 and I don’t know what that makes it. Her golden unicorn birthday? Yep. I’m going with that.

For Mazzy’s birthday weekend, we took her skiing at Okemo in Vermont. Skiing is one of our favorite things together, so she was so psyched when I told her that was the plan. I grew up skiing, so it makes me so happy to see Mazzy learn to love it as much as I always have. And it just gets better as she improves and can keep up with me! When I was a kid, I got better than my parents pretty quickly, so I hope I’ve got a bunch more years before Mazzy starts out-skiing me.

Other than skiing, I did not have much planned to acknowledge her birthday. The hotel put a birthday balloon in the room that was there when we checked in Friday night, but that was pretty much it. I had small presents for both Mazzy and Harlow for Hanukah (that was over the weekend too) so that seemed like enough gifts.

They got to spend Saturday night in the pool and hot tub, so Mazzy got to do her two favorite things over her birthday weekend— skiing and swimming. Wasn’t that enough?

But on Sunday morning, I woke up and realized that Mazzy would not be waking up to a homemade birthday sign like previous years. We had no cake planned for later or even a card. I ran down to the store next to the lodge, but it was really more of a ski shop and had no stationary or anything that could be interpreted as a thoughtful gift. My gift is really her sleepover party that is happening next weekend, but still, I felt like I had dropped the ball.

She didn’t complain though. We all jumped on top of her in the morning, singing happy birthday. Mike brought up breakfast (per her request) from the buffet. Then we got dressed and went skiing. On Saturday, the kids were in ski school while Mike and I skied on our own. On Sunday, we all skied together as a family.

Well, we almost skied all together as a family. We went up the lift once and quickly realized that Harlow really needed a few more runs on the bunny hill. We ended up splitting up. Mike went with Harlow to practice and I got to take Mazzy up on my own. It is SO FUN skiing with her now. She thinks she’s faster than me, but really, I just know she likes to lead. And I like to watch what she is doing from behind. Also, I prefer to be behind her if she falls or needs my help, rather than lead her where to go. She’s pretty cautious, and has a good memory for the trails and I trust the routes she takes.

After a couple of hours, we met at the base and swapped. I skied with Harlow while Mazzy skied with Mike. Then we met in the room and packed up for the four hour car ride home.

On the drive back, Mike had the idea to stop at our cousins’ house for dinner. It was 4:30pm and we would be passing through their town at around 6:30. Robyn and Adam were home, were happy to host and said they would order out Italian for everyone.

After Mike hung up, I texted our cousin Robyn, “Just an FYI, it’s Mazzy’s birthday.”

She texted back, “I’m on it.”

In that two hours, she picked up a present, a card, unicorn plates and napkins, a 9 candle, and a Carvel Cake with rainbow writing that said “Happy Birthday, Mazzy.” She even got the girls gifts for the last night of Hanukah. Robyn ended Mazzy’s birthday perfectly, like we had it planned all along.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” I told her.

“Both my kids are in college,” she said. “It was my pleasure.”