Double Digits

Rebecca has reached the double digits.  Can it really be ten years ago that this screaming miserable girl entered the world?  We have some pretty vivid memories of that first year of the crying Rebecca.  The poor girl was not happy with life, she did go through a handful of tests at a young age but nothing showed up.  We strongly suspect if they had tested her for Fructose Malabsorption that would likely have been the answer, many of the issues she had point to that … perplexing that by 18 months she was a happy-go-lucky-fun-loving girl which carried on until she was about 6 years old.  She’s been through a rollercoaster of good times and bad times and life has taken an emotional toll on her at times, but she’s handle each ride in strides and in the past year we have seen much more of our happy-go-lucky-fun-loving girl again.  What a blessing this has been, as parents we can’t help smiling and saying “Our Rebecca is back”.  We know that not far under the surface that rollercoaster still rides, and there will always be hills to travel, but at this time they seem to be less downhills for which we are thankful.

Rebecca’s birthday fell on Tuesday this year, but she still managed to spread it over a few days.  Matthew was quite thrilled with the fact that Rebecca "gets three birthdays”.  Now I’m sure he’s thinking he’s going to have just as many too, hopefully he won’t be too disappointed when the time comes.

On Sunday Grandpa and Grandma came after church and for supper (I will have to chat to Marietta about backlighting and how to avoid that when not necessary as well as taking pictures at the right level as she likes to just stay sitting in her seat and shot upwards at the subject)

A body pillow for the head of her bed and SweeTarts (the fructose friendly candies).  Since she has a double captains bed and a sloped roof in her bedroom that means she has to sleep a bit further down in her bed to make sure her head does not hit the roof when she sits up.  The body will will fill that gap and keep her from sleeping too far up in her bed.

Tuesday morning there was a few minutes before school to open a couple present.  The best one being a camera case for her new camera which she purchased recently

After supper we played hide the present and Rebecca had a chance to unwrap her other gifts.  (You can guess which pictures Marietta took by the angle they are shot ;)

A new schoolbag since the zipper recently went on her current one and Road to Avonlea Season #5.

Can you tell by this picture that she likes what she sees in the present she got from Matthew.

          

She is her father’s daughter and will have to keep these out of sight of Rob or they will disappear quickly.  While she is her father’s daughter, she has more restraint then her father and is able to store them and keep them for special occasions and Sundays.

Before heading off to bed we still had to have some birthday cake.  She chose to keep it for dessert so that Daddy would be home to enjoy it too.

Rebecca chose to have a sleepover with two of her friends for her birthday this year and since her birthday was in the middle of the week we decided to wait until the March Break for her sleepover … making that party #3 according to Matthew. 

The girls came on the Tuesday of the March Break and slept overnight.  They mostly just spent time doing their own thing and playing Farmopoly (like Monopoly) or outside since the weather was gorgeous.  We did play a couple party games in the morning when they seem a bit lost on what to do … could it be that lack of sleep?  They decided to stay up until 1:30am, so I’m sure they were grumpy once they got home.  Rebecca was in bed shortly after 7pm.

The cake Rebecca chose for her birthday was very easy.  She wanted something horse and decided on a pasture with some horses in it.  We added a pond and a creek to that idea.  I tried a new icing on the cake, a meringue icing to try and reduce the sugar content of the cake but still keep it yummy tasting.  It turned out good and we like it and will use it again, but it is not something you would want to use to do cake decorating.  I gave up on trying to use my decorating tips and just smeared it on.  But considering the above cake took over 3 cups of icing sugar (that’s 600 grams of sugar – we figured it out to be about 30 grams of sugar per piece of cake if we cut 20 pieces) and this cake took 1 cup (200 grams of sugar – that’s 10 grams for 20 pieces) we were happy with the result.  The recipe did actually call for 2/3 cup sugar (that’s down to 133 grams of sugar or 7 grams per 20 pieces) but I thought if I increased it to 1 cup it would make the icing thicker for decorating … but it still didn’t work as the type of icing it was just kept jamming in the tip of my decorator … we’ll try again another day.  Anyways … can you tell sugar is an issue in our house … after eating the cake on her birthday we had had enough sugar and wanted less.

  

On the Wednesday afternoon before the girls went home we headed off to Chippewa Creek to go for a walk around the lake.  It was a gorgeous spring day to be out enjoying the beautiful weather.  We stopped at the park for a little bit and took our time walking around the lake.  All three girls had camera’s with which meant they had to stop and take pictures of every tree, bush, shrub, stone, stick, etc along the way  :)

We haven’t had a snowy or cold winter but it’s been yukky and we’re looking forward to spring being here.  I realize we still have to get through the true spring weather of warm and cold days, sunny and rainy days … and more mud … but at least we know summer is on it’s way.