Almost 10

MJ's birthday is the day after Christmas and USUALLY we spend it together as a family in a mellow, day after Christmas, sort of fashion.  This year we opted to be a little different.  Our good friends, the Coombs, were blessed with the addition of an out-of-the-womb daughter Wednesday night.  We have an action-packed-plan for the next few days so the idea came up of going to see the new baby and then coming home to celebrate a very special girl's birthday early...an idea that stuck.

 We were very thrilled to meet Silvia...isn't she beautiful? 

 

Getting to hold her and give her sweet kisses was worth the traffic issues of getting there...even with three kids in the backseat saying "are we there yet?; I've gotta go to the bathroom; I'm thirsty," etc.   

Congratulations dear friends...we continue to rejoice with you!  When we came home, we switched gears to celebrate OUR daughter (born 10 years and 4 days before little Sylvia).  

Happy almost birthday MJ...we love you more than words alone can express!

She'll be 10 on the 26th!  

Every year, our tradition is to give the kids presents 

equal in number to their age.

(That is until their 10th birthday, 

so this is the last round of that for this one!)

The birthday person in our family gets to pick their dessert...

she wanted Costco's cream puffs this year.

She was pretty excited about these shoes!

Isn't she beautiful too?

Our family continues to rejoice over her!