10 things...

... about Clara turning 10!!

1. She was extremely excited about turning 10 for some reason. This is probably the most excited I've seen her for her birthday EVER!

2. The Friday before her actual birthday, she had her party. She decided that she would like a 50's bowling party, so we contacted the little bowling alley Alex had gone to this summer with his camp and arranged to rent all of the lanes. She had three groups of friends there... her school group (we drove them over from school... man, was it a riot listening to them all in the backseat!), a group from where she takes ballet now and a group from where she previously took ballet. Here she is opening presents....
She had a blast! Since we had the whole place reserved, parents and siblings were welcome to stay. Alex brought a friend so he was able to handle being surrounded by so many girls... the two of them did their own thing and were occasionally joined by one of the little brothers.

3. Clara got an Angry Bird from her school BFF...
It went everywhere with us!

4. The next morning was another birthday treat! Since she was officially turning ten that weekend, her ballet instructor gave her permission to go ahead and purchase her first pair of pointe shoes!! We went for her fitting first thing Saturday morning (she was still 9, but she wouldn't be wearing them until she was 10... possibly 11 if I don't get around to sewing the elastics and ribbons in soon).

She was so excited...She won't get to wear them much. They're trying a new approach where instead of waiting until later and going from flat shoes to doing a whole class en pointe, they start earlier and do only a little at a time until they build up to a full class. She's scheduled to start actually wearing them in class mid-November (again, only if I manage to get them sewn :-).

5. That night she went straight from Nutcracker rehearsals to a haunted house party with her friend. She was quite the party girl her birthday weekend.

6. Saturday night she was so wound up about turning 10 the next day that she had trouble going to sleep. She became obsessed with the fact that she *needed* something to wear the next day that would let everyone know that it was her birthday. We didn't have anything, so I handed her a sheet of mailing labels and told her she could make her own birthday sticker. This is what she showed us the next morning...
(spelling is not Clara's strong subject)

We had to vote on our favorite so she could wear it to church.


7. And wear it she did...
Fancy party dress, check. Angry Bird, check. Homemade "I'm 10 today" sticker, check. Ready for church.

8. She didn't know it at the time, but she had a big daddy daughter date that afternoon. For her birthday Jeff got season tickets to the Joffrey for the two of them. He took her to see Don Quixote straight from church. She loved it!

9. That night we had our little family celebration. Jeff and I had picked up cupcakes from Sprinkles while they were in rehearsal at church...
red velvet, lemon, vanilla with milk chocolate icing, carrot cake, caramel apple and peanut butter chocolate chip... yum!

10. Another birthday present from friends was a new hat and glove set. She wore them on Monday for her school birthday party. She was wearing a grey poncho that day which made her look a little like a flying squirrel...
:-)

Well... I think that's about all for now about Clara turning 10! The celebration is still continuing though as the grandparents still are coming in to celebrate over the next couple of weeks. I'm pretty sure that Clara doesn't mind dragging it out for as long as possible!