Welp, this post is an entire week late but better late than never, yes? Last week we celebrated our biggest baby girl turning TEN FREAKING YEARS OLD 😱 omg, I don’t know how an entire decade went by but here we are.
As usual, the birthday festivities started off with a bouquet of balloons waiting outside of E’s bedroom door along with her stack of presents.
E tends to be an early riser and knowing her, I wouldn’t have put it past her to wake up at, like, 5 am and open the door so that she could see her balloons and presents. I wanted to be able to capture her face in the morning and have her dad & I greet her on her birthday morning (especially because 10 is such a milestone birthday!) so I told her she NEEDED to wait until we opened the door for her.
She was so excited 🙂 She (like her sister) also requested bacon & waffles for her birthday breakfast so as soon as we woke her up, J & I got to cooking her breakfast spread.
Ten candles for our ten year old. E had told me that she wanted mermaid themed things for this day so I had some really basic decorations ready for her. Peep the painter’s tape holding everything up 😂 This is what happens when mama is limping towards the last event of what has been a very busy month.
After breakfast, everyone had to head off to school for the day … wanna hear a funny story though? So, you know – our family always does candles & Happy Birthday song at breakfast as well as after dinner with proper cake. When it was D’s birthday and A’s birthday, their big sister was the most excited for them and would sing at the top of her lungs and cheer for them. THESE TWO LITTLE BRATS, THOUGH. When it was E’s birthday, they were both SO GRUMPY (probably because it was the morning, but still). They would not sing Happy Birthday to her. WOULD 👏🏻 NOT 👏🏻 DO 👏🏻 IT. D kind of half mumbled it super quietly under his breath and A was just 멍 (staring off into the distance). I literally stopped the Happy Birthday song mid-way through, gave the other kids a pep talk about being happy for those who have happy things going on, and restarted the song THREE SEPARATE TIMES. THREE TIMES YOU GUYS. And you know what? They both still had bad attitudes about it. The candles were starting to melt so by the third time through I gave up but you can totally hear D’s voice wobbly and sniffly because he was crying from getting in trouble. Big eyeroll. I’m happy to report that both kids were much better at singing after dinner.
Still can’t believe that J & I have a ten-year old.
After school, I picked E up from school and saw that she had this wacky Happy Birthday headband on that one of her friends gave her at school.
Immediately after school, can you guess what E wanted to do? She wanted to change into a fancy dress and (duh) open her presents!
Her favorite color is blue if you can’t tell LOL.
She got lots of clothes, art supplies, and fun little pre-teen things like jewelry and lip gloss 👀 After she finished opening her little stack of presents, though, her dad & I had ONE MORE very special thing to give her.
Look at how uncertain she looks …
So, this past Christmas E had asked us for an iPhone. We obviously said no … not only is she way too young for a cell phone in general but she also probably won’t be getting a smartphone once she is old enough for one (good ole flip phones for our kids!). But at her age, I know why she had asked for an iPhone. She doesn’t know what social media is or have any friends she’d want to call but she loves listening to music on my phone and taking pictures/videos. So as a happy compromise, J & I settled on getting her an iPod touch for her birthday! It’s actually perfect because she’s limited without the cellular access but can do all the fun things I know she wants to do.
After gifts, E & D both had extracurriculars to go to so I dropped each of them off at their individual schedules … and then it was time for dinner! E requested Cheesecake Factory for her birthday dinner so we did takeout from there. With the extracurriculars schedule, it would have been too late to go to the restaurant and eat-in (although I DID give E that option, too. But she loves to eat an early dinner and wanted to eat “on time” but at home instead of “late” but at the restaurant).
Kind of a random aside but .. these days, I feel like D is looking a little more like his dad? Just me?
After dinner, we did E’s official birthday cake and like I said, EVERYONE joyfully sang Happy Birthday to her this time around. I added some fun sparkler candles to her cake but I think they freaked her out … she looked really nervous around the huge sparkles.
The cake was a pistachio chantilly cake and was SO YUM. I think I accidentally created a new birthday cake tradition on A’s birthday where … I don’t slice & serve the cake. Since it’s usually just our family anyway, on A’s birthday I plopped her cake onto the coffee table, passed out forks, and told everyone to go to town. It was so much more fun that way, I did it again with E’s birthday cake. It’s less dishes for me to wash too so WOOHOO.
That’s it! I can’t believe we have a ten year old … guys, having a big kid is AWESOME. She’s such a great help with her brother & sister (especially her sister if I’m being honest). She is easy-going, responsible, and reliable. I love her so much!
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