Another family double-digit birthday

Mary Kate certainly milked this year's birthday for all it was worth.

It started on Saturday with our neighborhood August birthday gathering.
Sunday was the only birthday day of rest we had!
Monday, she got her ears pierced.

On Tuesday, she offered birthday cupcakes, watermelon, and lemonade to her neighborhood friends when they got off at the bus stop (at the end of our driveway).


But on Wednesday, her for real birthday, she really lived it up!

We played at the pool for an extra-long birthday swim.
Sweet potato pancakes for breakfast was her request.
She went to lunch with Dad, got new swim fins, and visited a couple of pet stores that had biting bunnies, sugar gliders, pygmy possums, snakes, and a sloth.

Then she went to her birthday piano lesson...and got a jolly rancher from her teacher.

Dad took off work early, and by that time the kids were ready to climb the walls

...until their arms were shaking with fatigue,

they had no more grip strength,

and they became mentally confused and started doing gymnastics.

Just look at this Jello-y blob.

Kathleen, after climbing the advanced wall for 20 minutes.
Thankfully, they regained enough function in their arms to feed themselves dinner.

Miss MK got a set of bigger skates to keep her busy for a while. (These were even too small, so I think I'll have to let her use mine now.)

The sibs gave her Chinese checkers.

Her cake request this year was a beach cake.
I think every spatula, bowl, and measuring cup in the kitchen was used.


We love when someone has a birthday because we all get to have a fun-filled day--

when each of the kids is extra sweet to their sibling,
when they think of special gifts for each other,
when they have such a visceral anticipation of the day's activities,
and when we all end up with a visceral sense of too much sugar in our bloodstream.

Happy birthday to our little MK-Mimi-Cocoa Butter-Carrot-Flibberaloo!