Bekah: Double Digits!

Bekah's birthday was last Saturday, and I am still getting over the fact that I have offically been a parent for TEN YEARS now. I remember so many details about being pregnant with her:

Being desperate to wear maternity clothes

Not telling any of my college-class-mates that I was pregnant until I was 20 weeks along and had already found out we were having a girl. I was the only married girl in all my interior design classes and I remember that the other girls were pretty shocked.

Walking miles and miles with my mom and Rus, trying to make my baby girl COME OUT!

Telling my mom that in ten years I would have four kids and be done. She didn't seem to believe me.

Having some of my male coworkers at Lumbermen's turn surprisingly mushy as my belly got bigger and bigger - and having them ask to rub it. (Still weird.)

Anyway, I'm being incredibly self-centered. This is supposed to be about BEKAH. 

This year, Bekah wanted to have a birthday party, and as we researched themes, we decided to go with a TEN theme. We sent out an invite that said this:

TEN IS MAGICAL

TEN IS COOL

TEN IS DOUBLE DIGITS

TEN RULES!

TEN IS FANTASTIC

TEN IS SUPERCALAFRAJALISTICEXPIALLADOCIOUS

TEN IS ON THE CLOCK

TEN IS EXTRA INNINGS

TEN IS A SAWBUCK

TEN IS METRIC

NOW YOU HAVE TEN REASONS TO COME TO 

BEKAH’S 10TH BIRTHDAY PARTY!

DINNER, CAKE, 10 FAVORITE THINGS, OF COURSE

(LIKE SWEETS AND GLOW IN THE DARK GAMES!)

Sadly, quite a few of her friends were out of town, but the girls that came had a great time! We had Libby and Emma (cousins), a friend from church and a friend from school.

Rus took the other three kids and my mom came up to help me. Us girls had a blast! So here are the ten things we did that night:

Um...first, before the girls came, Bekah and I had a little photo shoot:

Isn't she so pretty?

We took the shoot to the trampoline:

Bekah cracks up every time she sees this picture:

Okay, now the ten things we did that night...
1. Pizza
2. Red Velvet cake and vanilla ice cream

3. Eat Watermelon
4. Whipped Cream Fight! We took it outside for this one. Good thing, because those four cans of whipped cream made more than a little mess...on us and on the ground!

Yep, someone tagged me in the head. At this point I started double squirting the stuff. If I could add sound to this picture it would be the sound of five girls giggling!

There was only one way to clean up a mess like this: Some sprinkler-trampoline jumping!

5. Next we did a DANCE PARTY! This included some silly-fun glowstick glasses...which were still fun even though it wasn't dark yet. The girls went wild for Black Eyed Peas "I've Got a Feeling" and Katy Perry's "Roar!"

6. Open Gifts! Bekah was thrilled to get some money for her nook, Phase 10 and some gel pens, a sweet little Lalaloopsey, and some cash in a piggy bank from Cutesy.

7. Face Painting! Bekah started this off with some rainbow eyes, and the rainbow theme was carried out by the rest of the girls...including a rainbow cat, rainbow tiger, and rainbow butterfly.

8. Don't Eat Pete! Bekah loves this game. We usually play it with m&ms but used smarties this time. Some of these girls were wickedly good at eating all of the candy except for Pete!

9. Games at the park! We had hoped for a cover of darkness, but it turns out that the sun doesn't really set until after 9 right now. The girls enjoyed playing hide and seek and toilet tag and throwing glow in the dark frisbee things (like the pink thing Emma is holding in the picture). We also lucked into a beautiful sunset.

10. FRIENDS! At the end of the night we gave the girls a little party favor "thank you" gift and sent off balloons and exactly 8:56 pm - which was when Bekah was born.

It was a really fun night! I'm so grateful for Bekah. Some things I love about her:
*She is really good at asking for help or advice, and she always says thank you when you reply. Even if you tell her she has mud on her face she'll say, "oh. thank you!"
*She is an avid reader. In the last two and a half weeks she has read two and a half novels (Septimus Heap series), each of them with no less than 500 pages. She has also read the whole Series of Unfortunate Events, most of the Little House on the Prairie, the Sisters Grimm, Kim Little's Flight of the Butterfly...
*She is a wonderful helper with the other kids. She is great at getting all of the kids to play the same thing, distracting Marianne from sadness if she is having a hard time, and negotiating with Beau and Jacob if there's a disagreement. We've had some hard times this year with her attitude and temper, but I can honestly say that Bekah has been a huge blessing this summer with her calm and helpful attitude!
*Bekah is super responsible. She had a dog-sitting job for three weeks this summer and she never forgot to go take care of Bailey and she never complained. (She was thrilled to be earning money!)
*Bekah is always there to ask, "should we bless the food?" or "Should we say a prayer before we go?" She is a great help at keeping our family on track!
*Bekah loves to serve others. A few weeks ago her Sunday school teacher had his appendix out, and she wanted to make him some cookies. So she did, from scratch, by herself.

Bekah, I love you and I'm so proud of you and the beautiful young lady you are, inside and out. I'm blessed to be your Momma!