Out of the single digits forever

When Madeline woke up on her birthday morning she said, "Well, I will never be in the single digits ever again!" Statements like that always make me feel a little nostalgic and sad about how quickly time zips by.  How in the world - when in the world- did I ever arrive at the stage of life where I have two teenagers and a ten year old, anyway?

I took Maddie out for a birthday lunch, so her birthday got off to a pretty great start....

but before school was even out, we picked her up and zipped off to a cross country meet for Kami and Caden.  The meet was huge, and went on and on, and before we knew it we were finally arriving home at 9:00 at night! Yikes!  Maddie was a super good sport and let us celebrate her birthday the next evening.

She chose to go for canoe rides for her "birthday event", and we finally had her birthday cake and she got to open her presents.  How many kids would wait that long to open their gifts?!

 I love how cheerful and enthusiastic Maddie is about everything. She takes changes to plans in stride and with a smile on her face.  On her birthday I told her that the day looked pretty crazy and asked her what she would think about doing some of the celebrating on another day.  She said, "Well... it's never really the same when it doesn't happen on your birthday." She never had a pouty moment about it, though, and stayed smiley and optimistic, and the next morning said, "this is so great that my birthday gets to last even longer!!"

close-up of the paper dolls

I thought the gifts that Kami and Caden made for her were very thoughtful.   Kami made her some paper dolls and Caden made her a flower press because she is always pressing flowers between the pages of her books. I thought it was neat that they would spend so much of their free time working on these presents- they really love their little sister!

close-up of the flower press- all lacquered and everything