Charlotte Turns 10!

Last Friday Charlotte joined the double digits club, turning the big 10! We decided that she could have a friends party this year and that it would be on Saturday, so Friday night was the family celebration (and her actual birthday). She kept wanting to do big things like the trampoline park and go out to dinner. I talked her out of it because we were already spending a lot of money on her friends' party and would be buying pizza and other foods for that. We kept it simple and had Flautas from Costco for dinner. Then we warmed up monkey bread for the cake for the family party. We sang, watched her open gifts and ate "cake". Then because Charlotte had just finished reading the book "Matilda" for the first time and had never seen the movie, we all watched that movie together. The girls and I had also picked out individual treats for everyone when we were at the store earlier, to eat during the movie. It was a fun evening with just our family, but we do miss having grandparents there and Nikki.

She's all ready for school on the morning of her birthday. I bought that birthday shirt for her before Christmas and have been saving it until now. I found it at Goodwill. She was excited to take mini donuts and juice boxes to share with her class at school. She carried them in bags on the bus with her because she wanted to, otherwise I would have drove them over later.

Monkey bread for her "cake" with the family. 

Dad was singing dramatically and making her laugh.

She got her favorite candy bars for her birthday "snack" gift.

She finally got some heely's, shoes with wheels on them. She's wanted them for a couple of years.

Her first wallet that she picked out.

A custom yellow t-shirt with a picture of Milo on it that says "My dog Milo". She helped me take the picture, but she didn't know I was going to do this with it. 😁

 A new single strap purse that you wear across your body. She loves it.

A pretty cool book about Egypt that has all kinds of fun stuff inside. Her teacher has the same book, except an older version.

Charlotte wanted a wooden bow. She found this one on Amazon. The tips of the arrows are rubber and they slide through a hole on the bow. That's why there's no feathers.

He said he's Cupid.

Alice picked this stuffed dog for Charlotte.

Jack gave her his ukulele.

She's a happy girl.

They're ready to watch Matilda and Charlotte has her light up shoes.

Normally I like to make the kids something special for breakfast on their birthdays, but Charlotte said it could wait until Saturday since the boys leave early for work and school on Friday. I was so focused on needing to go get her big donut for her friends' party that I forgot about making the German pancakes that she wanted on Saturday morning. She didn't even remember either, so I ended up making them Sunday morning instead. 

Her friends' party was from 1-4pm on Saturday. She really wanted to have a pool party, but it was definitely not warm enough for that. I settled for letting her have a water balloon fight. The weather looked good in the morning but then it got cloudy and windy and cooler. After doing the pinata, I asked if they still wanted to do the water balloons and most of them still wanted to do it. Fortunately, water balloons are so much easier to fill than they were when I was a kid, so it only took a few minutes. At the beginning of the party while the kids were waiting for the pizza to cook, Charlotte took them out back to play a game. She had planned lots of different games, but they only played one. After food and presents and the pinata, they watched an episode of Rescue Rangers (an old cartoon on Disney+). Then it was water balloon fight time. Since it was towards the end of the party, they sat down to watch more shows and warm up. I even made Alice and her friend Laila (who came with her big sister) cider and hot chocolate. It was a little crazy at times with the kids running through the house, especially the boys, but I think everyone had a good time. I'm not going to lie, I'm glad it's over and we're done. I get a nice long break before another birthday. 😂

All ready to party! Her favorite color is yellow.

The last couple of parties I have tried to have some healthier food available besides just pizza and chips and pop. So we had carrots, celery with peanut butter, pineapple, and green grapes. The carrots went fast and not many took the celery but I ate a bunch of it. We also had veggie straws.

Eating their food.

She's ready to light up her huge donut "cake".

These candles had flames that were the same colors as the candles. You could see the orange ones the best.

Time to open gifts.

Some of the kids wanted to shoot the pinata with Charlotte's new bow and arrow first.

Then we switched to the blindfold and bat.

Water balloon fight!

Charlotte with her friends. One of them had to leave early. There were 7 out of the 11 that she invited who were able to come.

Then we added Alice and Laila to the picture. 

One of her friends gave her dog Legos. Of course she loves them and built them right away after the party was over.

She wore her new shirt that day. It's a little big on her but she likes it and says she'll grow into it. It's better to be too big than too small!

Charlotte had a great birthday. In 1 1/2 years she'll be going to middle school. I can hardly believe it. She still has her sassy attitude sometimes, but she also has a big heart and wants to love everyone. She's growing into a wonderful young lady.