Happy 10th Birthday, Emily!

It was not the plan to have Emily's 10th birthday during a pandemic. She had planned on a pool party with all of her friends, but . . . plans change. That said, I think that she had a good day today.

Emily's last day as a 9-year old

She was very excited about turning 10 and could barely get to sleep last night. I checked on her at 10pm and she was still awake. This was a shame because I was exhausted and Abbie and I were patiently waiting until she was asleep to set up her decorations and presents so that she would see them first thing in the morning.

Late-night set-up

As you can see, we finally got everything set up for her. It was a good thing because she was up before both of us this morning. Yes, definitely excited. :) In the morning, we also blew up a bunch of balloons with pieces of gold foil in them. You can see a small one in front of the presents. As I was trying to tie one, I lost my hold on it and it launched into the air, spraying gold foil all over. It made for a festive look. As for the remaining balloons, they made for some good games this morning and are still rolling around various parts of the house. Emily got some great presents this year - a snow cone machine with 10 different syrup flavors, animal puppets from Abbie, lots of books, LEGOs (of course), little glass bottles for making potions, art activities from Greg and Elizabeth, and an art book from Grandma P.

She spent most of the day playing LEGOs, but also made snow cones after lunch, and then got to work on her birthday cake. She decided that she wanted to make her own vanilla layer cake this year with buttercream frosting and unicorn decorations. We didn't have round cake pans, so we made do with rectangular, which resulted in a square unicorn head, but Emily didn't care. She was very pleased with how it turned out.

Four-layer Unicorn Cake

You can see that it has a mane, a candy cane horn, little pink eyes with lashes, a mouth, and little white ears. It turned out really well, actually, and the flavor was good. As you may notice, she is wearing the same shirt in the photo above as she was wearing the day before. That tends to happen in quarantine life. :) We did have a special event, though, that was exciting enough to convince Emily to change her clothes. Her dear friend, Ansel, whom she hasn't seen in person since March came over to bring her a birthday gift. We stood in the driveway with masks on and the girls were actually able to see each other and talk in person!

After 20 minutes together, her friend left, but then she called Emily on FaceTime as soon as she got home. It was fun because her friend ended up singing Happy Birthday with us, and then the girls watched a movie together. It was all very impromptu, but that is about as close as it gets to a "real" birthday party these days.

As you can see, Chad is holding the phone so that Emily's friend can see what is going on. Again, it seems sort of odd, but that is pandemic life. All in all, she turned 10 successfully. Now the only question is whether tomorrow will be too much of a letdown after all of the activity today. Hopefully, all of the LEGOs, arts and crafts, and books that Emily received will be enough to keep her busy for a few days!