Ten!

Laine is 10! Double-digits. She’s getting so old and mature—she’s 10 going on 16. And that’s totally fine with me. I welcome the kiddos getting older. We celebrated at home and then a few days later, with two of her closest friends.

Laine’s actual birthday.

It was a Monday. July 19. Saige and Baby had summer camps, and Laine had gymnastics practice. Because of this, we celebrated the evening before with her dinner of choice, and cake and presents. It was a nice pre-celebration because it was a lazy Sunday, with nothing on the schedule. We could have even called Parnell. (There’s an I’m old reference.) One of her buddies came over for the day, joining in the early celebration.

Ribs were her choice of dinner. Of course they were. She loves ribs. And I think Brian loves that Laine loves ribs, because it gives him an opportunity to use the Traeger. Not that he can’t use it whenever he wants, he just doesn’t. Dinner, check. On to cake. Laine is super easy. Well, easy in this sense… she picked out a cake on Amazon Fresh that we could have delivered. There aren’t many options and she didn’t care. Fresh has a half-white, half-chocolate cake, and she was sold. Easy peasy. Cake, check. On to presents.

One of the benefits of the kiddos getting older, buying presents. Sure, they may be more spendy but it’s not a bunch of nonsense toys to have for them to unwrap. None of our kiddos have ever needed anything on their birthdays. Always wants. And usually stuff they use for a few days or weeks, to never be touched again. Laine wanted an Apple Watch. We told her it was too expensive and not to count on getting one. But of course the moment she said she wanted one, Brian and I were like, easy. And I immediately bought one on Target for a drive-up order. She was super excited opening it up! And she’s still using it months later. I bought her a few other somethings (she’d actually use) just to have a few more things to open. It was a successful birthday eve.

On her actual birthday, it was a fairly normal day. The only difference was she got to do whatever all day. At least until practice. She has four hours of gymnastics practice every Monday. We did buy full-sized Hershey’s bars to take to her teammates. Laine was adamant they were full-size. Apparently another kiddo did the same for her birthday last year, and all the other girls were excited to get candy. Laine wanted to give the same excitement. Brian said at pickup, he looked over at the car next to him and the gymnast started opening the Hershey’s bar, and the parent driving did not look amused. Haha.

Laine’s part-tay.

Another year, another Covid birthday. (For Christ’s sake people, get vaccinated.) Thankfully around her birthday, the case numbers were quite low compared to where they’d been months before. Summer and all. We toyed with the idea of having an official birthday party, at a skating rink. But inside and all—with several people—we decided against it in the long run. Instead, we came up with the idea to rent a hotel room and have a sleepover with her two closest friends. We’d been seeing them indoors throughout the pandemic and trusted being around them. We’re back to outdoor-only with most friends now. Really, the hotel room was probably more questionable thinking about it now. It sure felt clean though. It was really fun! I think it’s a very memorable party for Laine.

The night that worked best for all of us was a Thursday. I rented a hotel suite in Redmond Town Center, giving me my own room. Haha, selfishly. The suite was a two-bedroom with a small family room and kitchen (with wine glasses the girls found to use for water); it’s a residence inn place, where people typically stay a bit longer than one night. The plan was to grab dinner at Red Robin, shop a bit, hit the pool, and then hang in the hotel room, staying up as late as they wanted. And that’s how it all went down. The only downer was the pool isn’t heated. It says it’s heated online; maybe the heater was broken? It didn’t stop the girls from swimming a bit before we went back to the hotel room. They all jumped in the shower with their suits on to warm up. Then it was movie while chitchatting time. Crazy Stupid Love was Laine’s movie choice. It was amusing, listening to them from my room. I wasn’t really listening but occasionally I’d hear a conversation. Girls talk all the time. And I have four. I should know this.

It was close to midnight when they petered out. I wasn’t far behind them. It was too late in my book. The next morning was Friday and checkout was 11am. The plan was to wake up and grab breakfast at the Original Pancake House in Redmond Town Center. Brian met us at Redmond Town Center to drop Maive to me, since he had to work. He drove Saige to cheerleading camp at 9am and then brought Maive my way. The Original Pancake House was unexpectedly closed due to a staffing issue. We decided to head over to the Family Pancake House. Why are pancakes restaurants always houses? We pancake’d and then went back to the hotel for one last swim before checking out. The girls were being picked up at 11am and I had to grab Saige from camp at noon.

Another birthday party down! Only four to go. Laine kicks off birthday season, with Maive ending it on October 30. Right before Halloween and the rest of the holiday season.