Ten!

My firstborn turned ten on Monday!!! Blessedly, she wore pig tails that day, which made her not look quite as grown-up as she's been looking lately and was good for my Mommy heart ;)

 Layla wrote the sign, I think it's adorable.

For her birthday breakfast, I made these birthday cake muffins from the latest Rachael Ray magazine. I love her magazine, its my one and only magazine subscription. 

Instead of a party, she chose a shopping day, just me and her! It was so much fun and she's so cute. We went to Target, Starbucks, the mall and lunch. She picked several outfits and spent a couple gift cards from Grandparents. She's even still thanking me for how much fun she had, several days later. 

These "mix tapes" have easily become my favorite part of birthdays!! They are SO MUCH FUN and we listen to them in the car all the time. It was really fun listening to hers during our shopping day, she was so excited to see what was coming next ;) Here's what made it onto Natalie's Ten Tunes:

 For her birthday, she asked for a skateboard! She's doing pretty well on it, but she's played with neighbor's several times. She knew she wanted the long kind, not a short one, so I picked this one.

My kids are gonna have a real shocker when we move back to the mainland someday and they actually have to put shoes on occasionally, haha.  Sometimes we drive down to the pool and realize no one bothered putting shoes on, lol.

I don't know if you all remember me almost a year ago asking your opinion on accepting a house site-unseen with no yard and shared walls and a shared driveway and how nervous I was about it and how I mourned our huge backyard in Colorado? Let me just update you and say how thankful I am to be living here! And not just here in this neighborhood where it's so safe for the kids to play, where they have friends, where everyone is a wonderful neighbor, but on one of the best spots in this entire neighborhood! I think the Lord knew how much the views from this hilltop would bless my heart day after day.
These were both taken yesterday, one morning, one night:

 Amazing. And I didn't even hit the "enhance" button ;)

I'm off tomorrow for a jaunt to the mainland! It will be a much-needed break for me and Casey's excited to play "Mr. Mom" for the week. He says he's going to meal plan and do school and the pool, beach and bowling and the Bishop Museum. And don't forget dance! And grocery shopping with all the kids. And I'm sure he'll know now where my spending money disappears to every week, ha!

Cheers to you all and happy Friday :)