How can SHE be 10?!

I don't know how it happened. Just a few days ago I looked into this angel's eyes for the first time and now she is 10! I am so lucky and blessed to be her mommy. She is my friend and my right arm. She is so much like me it is scary sometimes, however she is so much smarter than I was at her age. She loves to cook, sing, organize, design clothes (she will be famous someday), write stories and take care of her baby sister. She is the only person Brinley will go to happily, besides me, and sometimes won't come back to me when she has "her Katie". Her testimony is growing and she constantly gets after her slacker mother for our lack of FHE. (I really hate to admit that. I am working on it.) And she is such a BEAUTIFUL girl! I am always in awe of her in so many ways. Heavenly Father knew I needed her, I don't know how I could function without her! I love you Katie-girl! (Please pay no attention to the exhausted looking mother in the photo below)

Now on to the PARTY! It took us a while to finally decide what to do for her party. Pirates, jungle, purple, polka dots...she finally decided on a pink, black, and white diva-ish theme. Her decorations were fun to put together. I picked words I felt described her (and probably every other 10 year old girl) and made some banners. We love tissue pompoms at our house so we had to have a few of those.

I love the dessert tables that Amy Atlas puts together. If you haven't seen them, you should. So beautiful! Here is just one that I love http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_p2wr5bT9nx0/TA5osebz2-I/AAAAAAAADNg/8XL5nW9Cpl8/s1600/WBP1006101_AA_017.jpg. I wish I could put together something that fabulous! I only have a few things against me, lack of unlimited finances and an entire team of professional food stylists. Someday! But for now I do what I can do. We did some flavored popcorn, licorice and strawberry. (However I did not like the recipes so I will not make them again.) And then we did skewers with chocolate and powdered donuts in pink cellophane bags. Her cake was the centerpiece. I was so excited for how her cake turned out! I made marshmallow fondant and it turned out just like I wanted. So cute!

And Katie loved it! It was a fun day! And a week later we had the "friend" party. Oh wow! When thinking about her "diva" theme we decided that divas love to shop and that was the foundation of this party. The girls came over after school and we decorated their "shopping bags". Brown paper lunch sacks (because I already had them) with diva stickers. Then we played a bunch of games. At each game they earned "diva dollars" to shop at the "diva store" with. The store was cute and the girls were excited to shop. But I made them wait, we had to sing and have cupcakes first!

Then on to the shopping! The "store" was stocked with some cute little tablets and pencils, earrings, lip gloss, candy jewelry, and some bracelets I made. I think they are so cute.

Some of the girls were worried that they wouldn't have enough diva dollars - it really didn't matter there was one of each for everybody. So they all made their purchases and then went outside to run around until time to leave. It was quite the afternoon, we had fun, and I was glad to run them all home! ;-) However that was not the end. Katie's two besties got to spend the night. Last time they stayed over they said they didn't sleep at all. I have proof that they slept a little more this time. At 2:00 they were out and I didn't hear anything until morning.

Only, dumb me! That is the only picture I got of the slumber party. The played Barbies downstairs most of the time. And had lots of red licorice. Such cute girlies, I am so glad Katie has such good friends. I tried to make this birthday a little special for her. The big 10 you know! But I have to admit I was glad when all the partying was done.