It's hard to believe that Natalie is now a full decade old. How did that happen? She is growing up fast. I think she had a pretty good birthday. It was a school day so it was a pretty normal day. She picked a yummy breakfast--crepes with raspberries and nutella. Delicious. Eli and I took some chocolate Coscto muffins in to her class since they are pretty strict about store-bought food (boo).
I finished working on her cake after school and we had an early dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy. She opened her presents early, too.
Here are some of them:
She was excited to get another bow and arrow set from Nate.
This one's a lot better and shoots pretty far. The kids even managed to shoot one over the house!
She also loved this new big stuffed dog:
She loves her stuffed animals and always wants more.
Eli gave her this snow globe since he had dropped her other one and broken it.
Sadly, Elizabeth later dropped that one and broke it, too. We don't have very good luck with snow globes, I guess.
We did all that stuff early so we could drive over to Menlo Park for a book signing with Natalie current favorite author--Shannon Messenger. We were regretting the decision a bit during the drive. We decided to all pack into Joe's Honda since it was only a few days after our accident. That was a miserable drive. Especially because Natalie had probably had a bit too much junk food (it being her birthday) and wasn't feeling great. We didn't have her cake until the next day because she wasn't feeling well when we got home.
But, I think we were glad we went in the end. She even got to ask her a question:
It was fun for the girls to get some inside information on the series they love so much (Keeper of the Lost Cities). Sadly, it was late and we didn't really have time to stand in the very long line to get their books signed but we were able to purchase the new book in the series pre-signed.
The next night, we enjoyed Natalie's cake:
That's supposed to be the Hufflepuff crest. It got a bit messed up when I transferred it. Natalie took the test for which house you'd be and got Hufflepuff and she's proud of it. She is definitely kind, hard-working, loyal and patient. :)
Natalie has had a great year. She has learned and grown a lot. She finished up a great year last year in 4th grade back in Idaho. She was able to be in the gifted and talented class and really loved it. She had some great teachers and loved the freedom she had in that class. She came really far in math, loved teaching her class about the language roots of different words during her spelling bee studying, and really improved in her technology skills since they were on the computer a lot. Her teacher told us that she recognized in Natalie a natural leader. We can see that, too. She considered running for student council here in CA but then changed her mind while I was in Hawaii. Maybe next time.
Natalie is an excellent public speaker. She has a lot of confidence and projects well. She is great at reading out loud and read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to all of us in the car recently. She played some more soccer this past year and improved her skills, but I think she's decided to move on from soccer. We're trying out swimming next. She still is a voracious reader and an excellent speller. She sadly got out in her class spelling bee on the word "coarse" because she didn't ask if it was a homonym and spelled "course". She was bummed but had a really good attitude about it. I was probably more upset than her. :) Anyway, one of the girls who advanced in her class ended up dropping out so she got to move on (she was 3rd). Then, she ended up winning her school spelling bee. So, she is on to the district bee next. She hasn't been working quite as hard to study this year so we'll see how she does.
She still loves food and cooking. She is getting better and better in the kitchen and helps me a lot. She especially loves Mexican food and makes really delicious guacamole and pico de gallo. She eats nachos almost every day. For being as adventurous as she is with food (she will try anything) she is a creature of habit, too, and loves her nachos. :)
She is still a great sister and loves planning treasure hunts for her siblings to find prizes, often giving away her media time to them. She still doesn't love video games much but she will play to make her siblings happy. She still loves Studio C and knows every skit. She still makes us laugh all the time and loves singing and playing the piano. She has a beautiful voice and can hold her part really well when we try singing different parts. She loves listening to music, too, and loves Hamilton with a passion. :) She also loves twenty-one pilots. She still has that way of sitting and taking in music when it's playing, like she used to when she was a baby.
We sure love Natalie. Our family wouldn't be complete without her.
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