She's 10!

*Editors note: After writing the following post, I went to load the pictures off my camera and add them here when I discovered that every single picture from the party yesterday has been DELETED. By the evil new video camera that I describe below as cute and an awesome purchase. Well I take it all back! That camera is from the devil! Why oh why did I loan Kendall the SD card out of my camera to play with in her new toy at the end of her party???

Off to cry a river of tears now... continue on.*

Kendall turned 10 on Saturday... and partied like a rock star. Without her parents, who weren't even invited to join the TWO work party picnics that she went to with her brother! (Thank you Grandma Tracy and Mum and Dad for taking the older kids all day though, it was actually kinda nice ;)

I'm sure you can guess the fun they had.

a quick pic with Grandma and Papa before they went back home and slept for 10 hours straight to recover from a day of fun with my children.

When they came home we gave Kendall a special gift - a new bible (with a little surprise inside), before making mallow magic popcorn (highly addicting) and watching a movie together.

Note: do not let your children pick "Fred: The Movie" for a family movie night unless you want to be so annoyed by the main character that you would consider shooting yourself just to end the misery. How did that kid get a show on Nickelodeon?!

Yesterday was the official birthday par-tay... a girls-only pool party at my folk's place. And of course the sun didn't come out, nor did it get above 72 degrees. However, the will of 7 young girls prevailed and the swim fun went on. As did numerous games of hide and seek, sardines, and "hot potato".

the cake I made and thankfully took a picture of with my cell phone so I could send it to 3 different people. Sometimes, just sometimes, it pays to be a show-off.

Our big gift to Kendall was a cute blue handheld camcorder that also takes still pictures - and oh.my.word was it ever a HUGE success! Yay me, for waiting till Sunday night to buy her gift and finding it on clearance while looking for something completely different!

Of course, if we had given it to her at the beginning of the party we wouldn't have had to plan any entertainment at all, because if you want to know the perfect age for girls to want to video themselves and each other acting completely goofy and laughing their heads off at it, it's 10.

After the party fun was over we headed to Russ's parents for a lovely dinner and a special gift-giving for the big girl. 

A very, very special gift-giving. 

Grandma and Grandpa sure are wonderful!

In fact, I'm wondering how I can get in on that awesome gift action! You better believe I'm going to relearn how to sew so I can get some use out of that puppy too! 

Oh, it's good to be 10.

Not so much to be a picture-taking mama who loses all her party pictures... whaaaaaaa!