A decade for Sadie!

I remember Chase and I talking about Sadie when she was a baby and saying "how weird will it be when she's 5 and going into Kindergarten?"  Then we'd get all tripped out thinking about how far away her getting baptized seemed.  Now we have a girl with double digits!  She'll never have a single digit age ever again.  She may look like she's still 7 but my wrinkles definitely say otherwise.  One look at my forehead and it's easy to believe we've got a tween roaming around our house.  How did  we all get so old?! 

This is the last year I'm throwing a "party" for Sadie. I've decided to "cap out" at 10.  I just can't keep these parties going, especially now that we have 4 kids!  Sadie says next year she wants to take some friends to go get pedicures.  And so it begins.  Sigh...

My friend Kjerston made the birthday cake.  I've decided that it's WAY easier to buy a pretty cake than to attempt at making one.  Worth every blasted penny I tell ya!

I had the grand idea to copy and Activity Days party and basically do the same thing for Sadie's birthday party.  We thought a mystery meal would be fun and came up with a lot of silly names to put on the menu. Pimple Pie for Pizza, Tube of Joy for a straw, Dirt for Oreo crumbs, and Exotic Blubber for jello were just a few of the items they could order.  It was also possible to order utensils.  So if you put jello down on the menu but no spoon, you'd have to be pretty creative at getting it into your mouth!

The girls had a fun time trying to figure out what everything was on the menu.

Chase and I would take their filled out form and rush into the kitchen to assemble 10 plates with four items each.  And we did this 4 times since there were four courses.  40 plates of food total.  It was crazy!!  Everything was labeled and laid out on the counters for easy access, but it still hurt my brain a few times.  There was one little girl that mentioned I put something on her plate she didn't order. I totally ignored her.  Sassy pants better be careful I don't accidentally sneeze on her next course!

Brooklyn ended up having to eat her jello with a straw.  Very creative!

Presents and cake!!

Everyone had a great time and I am always amazed at the noise level when 10 tween girls get together!

Sadie's party was on Saturday and the next day was both her real birthday and Mother's day.  Very befitting to celebrate being a mother with the little lady who made me one.  Chase was a darling and made us both breakfast in bed!

Then off to church to be sung to by my crew. 

Then Sadie opened her gifts from the family.  She was very excited to get her very own turbie twist.  She's always borrowing mine so I thought it was time to get her one of her own.  Now that she's 10 I've noticed she's started "borrowing" more stuff from me.  My ribbon elastics are always missing, workout headbands and she loves my wet brush.  It's like having a sister in the house again! I'm actually thrilled about the fact she's been more interested in her appearance.  For a while she was going to school looking somewhat homeless, but I've noticed she gets up a little earlier in the mornings to brush her hair and her teeth.  She lays her clothes out the night before.  She's become extremely organized and her room is always clean.  She's moved into Jack's old room and before I wouldn't touch his toilet with a ten foot pole, but now it's always so clean.  

She's really learning how to take good care of herself.  I find her studying "The Care and Keeping of You" book I gave her for Christmas.  She's very interested in what's in store for her cute little body and how she can best take care of it.  I just love having her around these days because she's such a good helper.  If I'm ever stressed out with Eliza, she will whisk her away and take her on a short walk outside or swing  her in the swings.  We've also been leaving her home alone with the kids (with Eliza asleep) so Chase and I can go on dates from time to time.  THIS HAS BEEN LIFE CHANGING!!  I can't tell you how nice it is to just leave whenever we want to and not have to take a babysitter home when we get back.  It also feels soooooo good not dropping $50 every time we want to go out.  She's a great little babysitter.  She makes sure teeth are brushed and the boys are usually pretty obedient. I have a feeling she LOOOOOOVES being in charge of them.  

Something I've wanted to do for a while was give Sadie horse riding lessons but I wanted to wait until she got older and could really appreciate them.  I also recognize the fact that having multiple horse ranches within a few miles of our home was an opportunity I needed to take advantage of.  If we ever decided to leave Austin (which might be in the cards soon), I wanted to give her this unique chance to ride horses so close to home.  I talked to my mom and she said she wanted the lessons to be her gift to Sadie for her birthday.  So Mimi gave her 6 lessons and we gave her 3.  She got to ride around every week for three months in the beautiful blue bonnet fields of spring.  Pretty sure I've never seen her so happy.  When she would get in the car to go home she would express how hard it would be to wait a WHOLE week until she could go back and ride Penny (her favorite horse) again.

She and her friend Avery took lessons together which made it even more fun!!

Sometimes we drive by the horses when we're going home  and she once yelled out her window 

"I wish all horses could be free!"

I absolutely love this girl's enthusiasm and zest for life.  I love that she sings lullabies to Liza at night and would give anything for a snuggle from any of her siblings but especially her sister.  I love that she loves to climb trees.  I love how funny she looks rollerskating.   I love that she reads Anne of Green Gables and watches the movies with me.  I love that she knows when I'm having a rough day and will try her best to help me out with the other kids or cleaning up.  One day I came home from dropping Jack off somewhere and she had cleaned the whole kitchen while I was gone.  

She seems to be the only one who can calm George down when he's having a tantrum too.  One night he was screaming and crying about not wanting to  eat his dinner and I was really losing my patience.  It was escalating pretty quickly and I was basically just yelling at George to stop screaming.  Sadie got out of her chair and walked over to his and just have him a big hug.  She turned to me and said "Mom, sometimes when George acts like this, he just needs a hug to settle down."  She was absolutely right!  He calmed down and ate his dinner after that! She's a keeper and I'm so grateful to have such a lovely, beautiful, spunky, smart, talented little girl as my first born.  She's been a good guinea pig and I hope we haven't made too many mistakes in raising her.  So far I think she's turned out pretty amazing!!  Happy Birthday to my fantastic little Sadie Lady!!