Double Digits

My favorite blonde -haired blue eyed little girl just turned 10!
Katrina had us wrapped around her finger the second we found out we were having her.
There are many wonderful and unique things about her:

• Anyone would be completely entertained just watching her play with her stuffed animals every day. These stuffed little creatures have had talent shows, played school, gone to the hospital, had fights over who got to sleep with Katrina each night, dealt with the pains of adoption, had birthday parties, gone on vacations...I could go on and on!
  
• She's a professional bed maker.
• Always always always says "love you mom" each night as I tuck her in, even if she's mad.
• Opened her own business doing nails and facials, which has sadly closed due to the economy.
• She's quite the athlete but doesn't like to play on teams necessarily.
  
• Loves to make up her own songs on the piano. She's getting better and better.
• Can clean a room like nobody's business! When she wants to that is.
  
• She would love her very own dog for her birthday. She's not getting one.
  
• She's the sneakiest kid in the house. She sneaks out of her room and can be feet away from us watching TV or listening to our conversation without us detecting a SOUND.
  

For her birthday this year we had a Halloween Birthday party. We played games, made these super cute trick or treat bags (that turned out to be the most frustrating thing ever). BWD told a scary story called "Beware of White Eyes". And for her actual birthday, mother nature decided to dump a bunch of snow on us causing all the schools to close. Pretty nice to not have to go to school on your birthday! She ended the snow day going night sledding with her dad and brothers at the high school. She came in and said "this has definitely been the funnest but coldest birthday I've had!"

Dear Tall Friends,

Being short has had it's advantages in the past. I never had to worry about towering over a guy while dancing. I was always at the top of the cheer leading pyramid instead of having a heavy shoe dug into my back while squatting. Maybe there's more advantages than that, but that's about all that comes to mind right now.
Today I'd like to invite all tall(er) people to do me a favor:
Next time you see a short girl in your aerobics class trying to reach up to grab THE only stability ball that is left on the very top row, please, I beg you PLEASE help her.
Or else that petite girl may jump up to try to knock it down and not even come close to moving it off the edge (embarrassing). Or worse; she may out of sheer desperation, get a weighted bar to push it up from the bottom and you may find yourself dodging a 3 foot diameter stability ball as it bounces it's way across the aerobics floor leaving havoc in it's path (utter humiliation).
Yes, please help her next time.
Signed,
Never arriving late to aerobics class again!

Breaking Fall

After asking the fam what they wanted to do over fall break, here are some ideas they came up with:

• Stay the night in Glenwood Springs and hike Hanging Lake the next day.
• Go to a haunted house (Coby has no idea what he's getting into here).
• Do a corn maze at Anderson Farms.
  
• Eat a caramel apple at Rocky Mtn Chocolate Factory (my favorite is apple pie apple).
  
• Make many many Halloween Crafts (the girls are adding to the list constantly).
• Have a family sleepover upstairs in the library in sleeping bags (Katrina's idea).
• Sleep in every day (Ace's contribution).
• NOT do boring stuff (Sydie's comment).
  

We'll see how many we end up doing. The sleeping in suggestion is looking better and better the more I go over the list of activities. I wish we could go to Hawaii or California or anywhere actually but having a husband without vacation days is a real bummer.
2010 will be our go away on vacation year!