oh, how I love her.....

and what fun it is to share birthdays with

this beautiful daughter.....

she hit double digits today.....

10 whole years.....

wow......

special days always begin with present

unwrapping and card opening in our bed
{though not before 6am we pleaded.....}

then move swiftly on to cake presenting

and admiring with lots of

'oooooohhhhhing' and 'aaaaaaahhhhhing'.....

these are a couple of the little traditions

that our children cherish and have come to

look forward to over the years......

this years' request was a red velvet cake
in a heart shape, with red icing on top,
silver balls all round and
'happy birthday' written on top......

so not too prescriptive then......

another of our traditions is that the person whose
birthday it is gets

to choose all their favourite food
FOR THE WHOLE DAY....

evie had given this much thought and when we
went to the supermarket to buy the 'birthday food'
she proclaimed that she wanted a 'nudie smoothy'
{miss manners don't you know}

and a sweet granola cereal.......

rather healthy choice I thought.....
better than iced doughnuts or
coco pops.....

the cake, of course, had to accompany breakfast eating too.......

followed by a ceremonial

'blowing-out-of-the-candles'......

{actually there were two or three such

'blowing-out-of-the-candle'
times during the day,
after all it is only once a year

that you get to blow out the candles on 

your birthday cake.....}

the 'birthday bunting' made its

debut appearance this year..... 

I really enjoyed making this and practicing
my 'free machine stitiching' -

{note there are no 'up close shots' for the
very reason that this is one of my first attempts
at said 'free machine stitiching' and was
rather 'free-er' than I would have wished
for on numerous occasions.......}

evie, however, thought it was 'fantastic'......

then at morning tea time 

{evie had chosen lemon slice as her 

morning tea treat}

she was able to use our 

'special' plate for the first time.....

I made this plate after seeing a number of similar ones 

and thinking how lovely it would be for the person 

whose special day it was to be able to use a special plate
which declared their specialness......

evie loved it and reminded me that we will need 

to make sure we use it for daddy's birthday on Monday......

and finally, when daddy came home from work, 

 we all went out and accompanied evie for her 

'ear piercing extravaganza'.....

this is a day that she has looked forward to

for at least 3 years and when it came down to it 

she was both excited and nervous.......

she said it 

'hurt more than she imagined it would' 

but she still looks very pleased that she will
now be able to wear all the beautiful earings
she has been admiring.....

happy birthday my beautiful princess.....

you are my sunshine.......