Somehow we now have an eleven-year-old in the house. She's made a great start to fifth grade in a new school and had a nice group of fun girls to invite over for her birthday party.
She chose to repeat the movie-themed birthday party of a few years ago, but this time with a more "grown-up" movie than Tinkerbell. We borrowed a projector and set up the family room for true big-screen viewing of "Mirror Mirror."
The concessions stand was supplemented by pizza, carrots, apple slices, and drinks in the kitchen.
Adah really wanted a root beer cake for her birthday. She'd had root beer cookies and had heard of a root beer cake, but none of us had ever had one, and I'd certainly never made one. I asked advice of a friend (the source of the root beer cookies), scoured the Internet for recipes, and finally settled on a root-beer-extract-heavy (versus using actual root beer, as some recipes called for) concoction. The only way to make the brown cake fit the cinema theme was to make it the foundation for a "movie screen" with birthday wishes.
It turns out that Adah and I were about the only ones that liked the root beer cake. We think that most of the party guests were sugared out by the concessions stand, but even post-party, Damon declared the cake "weird" and opted to not eat it. Adah thought it was "awesome," so I guess that's what really counts.
Adah's birthday was on a Tuesday this year, and since she's now a big 5th grader and has homework every night, we had her party on the Saturday before the actual day so that everyone could really kick back and relax. That means that when Tuesday rolled around, it was time for more celebrating!!
We usually make the kids get all ready for school before opening presents, but Adah did get to open one early since I gave her this blue shirt and wanted her to be able to wear it. Then, after everyone was dressed and ready to go, we let Adah open her other gifts, which included a book and pens & pencils from Nana and Gumpin* and a little pillow sewn by Maggie. Then we sent her on a brief treasure hunt with directional clues through the house...
. . . until she found her NEW BIKE in the garage!! She was getting too tall for her old bike and now she's got her first bike with multiple gears and hand brakes, which have taken a little adjustment, but provide a much-improved ride.
Adah is a great daughter. We're so happy to have her as the big sister in our family since she has become very responsible and helpful. She can do dishes and clean up the whole kitchen (and willingly chooses that job when there's a list of chores to be done), cook spaghetti, get herself to and from piano lessons, make her own breakfast, and always gets her homework finished without being asked. She's growing in her understanding and testimony of the gospel and it's so wonderful to see her insight when we discuss the scriptures or to hear her share something that she's prayed about.
We're proud of the young lady she's becoming. She's really growing up. One of the first things she said on the morning of her birthday was, "Only one year until I go to Young Women!!"**
*Grandma and Grandpa were at our house earlier in the month and brought presents then. They gave her a painting of a horse and a drawing book.
**Young Women is our church's program for girls aged 12-18.
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