What Some Might Consider an Abnormal Birthday for a 10 Year Old Girl

This past weekend was a whirlwind of fun as Brynne turned 10 years old. I could get all sappy here and post pictures of her when she was an absolutely adorable 3 year old (and, OH MY, was she an absolutely adorable 3 year old!). I could show you how we used to dress her up in all of the fashionable boutique outfits with matching shoes and a hair bow ... always a hair bow. She was precious.

But that is not who she is now.

Brynne is a crazy mix of tomboy and video gamer who absolutely adores to play with her puppies and stuffed animals, is most comfortable in running shorts and a t-shirt but loves to wear a nightgown to bed. She is a sports fanatic, playing every sport all throughout the year, but also loves to sit and color. I am not sure I can really describe her fully. She is unique.

She had a few very specific requests for her birthday this year.

1. She wanted to have a family fish fry. She loves Collin's fried fish, so he and Papa delivered! With it we had potatoes, corn on the cob, homemade macaroni and cheese, corn bread, pea salad, and fruit salad.

And we had Dr. Pepper cake. Yum!

2. For her birthday she wanted a Pokemon game for her 3DS. Dawson and Brynne are obsessed with Pokemon and wanted to be able to play their games together and trade Pokemon.

3. She desperately wanted an Xbox One. Those are expensive! But we lucked out and were able to purchase a used one from a friend for half the cost. She actually had birthday and Christmas money left over from last year, so she paid for half of the used cost and we paid for the remaining. With it we gave her the game she wanted the most, and Dawson bought her a headset.

4. She wanted to have a LAN party with Dawson's friends. This means that several of Dawson's friends bring over their Xbox's and tv's and set them up all around my dining room table. They start playing their video games sometime in the evening and play ALL. NIGHT. LONG. munching on cheese balls and Pringles and drinking Mountain Dew. Dawson usually has these parties when the little kids and I are gone. This time Eli and Brynne stayed to participate and they kicked me out. I spent the night at my mom and dad's. They got to bed at 7:00 this morning. They will sleep all day. She had the time of her life. The best day (er .... night) ever! Just her and the boys.

5. She wants to go back to Oklahoma to go to Big Splash. When we lived there we had season passes to the waterpark every single year (11 years!). So we are driving to Oklahoma tonight and going to Big Splash tomorrow.

6. She wants to have a swimming birthday party. Next Friday we have rented our local public swimming pool for her birthday party. It will be a lot of fun! Then she is having a sleepover with a couple of her friends.

We do birthdays big around here. We don't give, buy, or do too awful much during the rest of the year, so we do birthdays and holidays big.

I can't believe that my little girl is all grown up. If you have older children then you know that by age ten their childhood is over in the blink of an eye. I wonder what she will become, what her future will look like, where she will live, what she will do. But until then I will soak in every minute of her quirky little self, making sure that even if she would prefer to hang out with the guys that she knows that she is still my little girl and that I love her to pieces.