Celebrating a special girl

My first born, precious baby girl turned 10 today! We celebrated her birthday with family before we left B.C. so it had been feeling like she'd already had her birthday. She was starting to worry that we weren't going to celebrate on the actual day, but I assured her we would mark the occasion with birthday festivities.

We started the day with pancakes and fresh fruit, and stories about the night she was born. Her prezzies were wrapped in towels and pillowcases! I'm so glad my kids don't mind the eco-wrapping! I picked up the colorful placemat she's using here at a thrift store earlier this week. (Yay! Molokai has two thrift stores!)

One of a her presents....a beautiful rainbow wind twirler made here on the island at a local kite shop. John and Thor got this for her! She said today that it made her smile everytime she saw it. Me too! It's gorgeous!

New art supplies... everyone enjoyed painting again. It's been awhile! Most of our art supplies have been in storage since May!

Lemon cupcakes with rainbow candles.

Served with vanilla yogurt and fresh passionfruit (here it's called Lilikoi). Yum yum!

Zara and I spent some time this afternoon at the beach closest to us (Papohaku Beach) looking at shells and just admiring the ocean. Everyday the beach and ocean are different. Today the waves were smaller and the shells were down lower, closer to the water. We just breathed in the ocean air and felt happy to be here. Zara got lots of birthday phone calls today which she so appreciated! After the call from Grandpa she said "And I didn't even cry". I asked "What made you want to cry?" She said "This is the first birthday I've ever celebrated without Grandma and Grandpa." There were twinges of sadness and missing her family, but she had a smile on her face most of the day and felt excited to be celebrating here in Hawaii.

Happy Birthday to my beautiful girl!