Amanda turns 10

10 years old... I can't believe Amanda is in the double digits now. Praying for a nice day, we decided to have the big party out at our cottage (the weather gods were listening and we had a beautiful, sunny day!) If it were up to Amanda, it would have been a whole weekend affair - did I mention that she started planning it 9 months ago?

We succumbed to getting a giant bouncy castle - Dean luckily plays hockey with a guy who could get us a deal. She had a long list of other things on her wish, list, but we thought we'd call it a day with the 2-story castle that took up half the back yard. A can of pledge made the slide super slippery we were told – by the end of the day, the entire inside of the castle had been "pledged"! The kids enjoyed the tree fort as well – Dean's nephews have been building it for years – when they had to wait for their turn to bounce. Many freezies, water bottles and prize hunts later, we had 16 exhausted 10 year olds.

Last step - birthday cake. We always make our cake because of Amanda's allergies (celiac), so a doll cake held centre stage. Amanda wanted a "Rocker Girl" theme and she did most of the decorating herself. Everyone loved it and couldn't tell it was gluten free.

The pick-up time finally came and mommy could finally sit down and have a cold beverage... and a few bounces on the castle...

A trip down memory lane...

While looking for an old picture in my photo album recently, I stumbled across this little picture of myself at about 5 years old. We were living in Sarnia, Ontario at the time and I was showing off my new dress-up outfit complete with plastic hat and purse, plastic heels with elastics across the top to keep them on and the finishing touch, the fake fur stole.

Now anyone that's known me knows that I've had fairly muscular arms my whole life (otherwise known as the "pipes") and although I've been involved in many sports, I've told everyone I was born that way. The picture above pretty much confirms that. In fact, the running joke in our family is that when I was born, the doctor said, "Here's your little football player!"

PS. Oh, to have that blonde hair again....