Annie's birthday

 Annie is 10! She loves having her birthday so close to Halloween, since it's the holiday all about candy and she has such a sweet tooth. Since we weren't doing friend birthday parties this year, we did a two part family birthday party. Part one with all the cousins and adults in the family, then part two when just the girl cousins would stay. She planned the whole evening out. She also decided to decorate her cupcakes as witch hats and pumpkins. They turned out very cute:

For the whole family portion we had a pizza dinner to start things off.

Then we headed inside for a game of pin the eye on the monster, and some candy fishing in place of a piñata. Annie attached the candy while the other kids threw the fishing line over the back of the couch.

Then it was on to presents. She was excited about this shirt that was wrapped up in a huge box (in a smaller box, etc). It says something about just wanting to eat candy and watch cat videos, I think.

She was also very excited about Grandma's gift certificate to Candy World. 

Then it was time for cupcakes and the end of the whole family portion of the party. 

After the cupcakes the boys headed to Todd and Savannah's house while the girls (and Jared, who managed to convince her to let him stay) watched The Greatest Showman. Jared left after the movie was done so he didn't get sucked into any girly games or activities like painting nails. I think they mostly just played some games and watched Studio C, though, and enjoyed staying up late. 

Annie is growing up. She is very responsible, though she also has anxiety that likes to kick in when dealing with germs or a lot of school work. Remote learning, and sometimes the home portion of hybrid learning can be a bit stressful for her when she sees the workload. She always manages the workload in less time than she thinks it'll take, but she would rather just get an assignment at a time than to see them all laid out in front of her at once where it seems so overwhelming. She is a caring girl and notices when those around her are sad or worried and is the first to respond and offer love and try to cheer them up. She is a leader and while that is a good quality she is developing, it can sometimes have its drawbacks. All our children are "leaders"--it is sometimes hard to have so many people trying to be the leader-aka being bossy- at the same time. :) We love seeing her developing her talents and her caring nature and having her in our family. The last few months have been particularly stressful with a lot of change and while it has been tough for her, she has handled it like a champ.