Paige's Birthday

Paige's birthday came as it always does in the midst of a lot of activities.  The week of her birthday we not only had Halloween, class parties and parades, we also had Ashley's choir concert and the Fun Run.  It was a little crazy but we always have time to celebrate the birth of our little spitfire--Paige Carolyn Smith.

On her birthday, Paige took in a little favor to give to all the kids in her class.  Our school has a ban on bringing in treats so you have to bring something like pencils, stickers, etc.  Honestly, it's pretty hard to come up with something small and inexpensive.  A number of times, we have just skipped this tradition because it is so close to Halloween that the kids don't even care about getting something for Paige's birthday when they are going home with tons of Halloween goodies.  This year Paige really wanted to bring something to her class.  Of course, we started discussing this while sitting at Ashley's choir concert around 8pm the night before her birthday.  Fortunately, she decided to make every kid in her class a Rainbow Loom bracelet using her new loom.  Phew!  Saved us a frantic run to the store at 9pm at night!

Here are some of the 24 bracelets she made.  We
stretched them around a cup so they would
keep their shape.

Hot chocolate and powdered donuts with a long candle
for a birthday breakfast.

After a fun day of school, which included the Fun Run, she came home for a family celebration.  She was dying to open her presents, but we told her she had to wait until Daddy got home.  You can imaging how happy she was he came home early that day!  She got a some cute Toms shoes, 2 new outfits for her American Girl dolls, Rainbow Loom bands, and an iTunes gift card.  She was a happy gal.

Paige couldn't decide what she wanted for her birthday dinner.  She did not want to go to a restaurant, but she was torn between Hawaiian haystacks and crepes.  I came up with the perfect solution and suggested we have both---haystacks for dinner and crepes for dessert.  This summer, Kelley gave me a food magazine that featured a "crepe cake."  Now was the perfect opportunity to give it a try and make Paige a crepe birthday cake.  It turned out great.  I stacked a bunch of crepes together layered with pastry cream and raspberry freezer jam.  It was delicious.  Definitely have to make that again.

Happy Birthday Paige!  You are now in the double digits!  The BIG TEN baby!