My Favorite Four Plus One!: Emily~my 10 year old

Emily turned 10 and I can hardly believe it! She is so precious and so beautiful inside and out. I'm soooooo thankful for this time with her as she becomes a young woman...it's one of the most precious times in her life and I get to be a part of it. She is so pure and innocent and I want to protect that as long as possible...We are slowly introducing more mature age appropriate issues and concepts to her and once again I am so glad that I get to do it as her parent and do it in the protection of our home. We had a very fun MONTH celebrating her birthday! It started out with a camping trip where we shared in a birthday celebration with two of her best friends....and ended with her Nanny taking her clothes shopping just last week. Pop Pop likes to kid her about how LONG she gets to celebrate! I've saved pictures from the whol three weeks....I think she certainly felt special!

One of the greatest traditions that has kind of started is to celebrate birthdays while camping...this time it was February Birthdays...next time we go camping with these families it will be in June and we are already planning a birthday celebration!

Nothing like a built in birthday party when you have 14 kids with you camping!

Mommy and Daddy's present was a very nice bike with gears!

And a cute dress and jacket

Molly gave her sissy a purse which Emily loves!

The Birthday girl got a flower...her favorite...tulips

John Daniel gave Emily the movie Dolphin Tale

On the day of Emily's Birthday we all ran/walked the Tomato Trot 5K. Emily wasn't super excited about this but made it through :)

Then we rode over to the fairgrounds and went to the Southeast Regional Pig FEST (I'm not so sure our priorities line up)

After the Pig fest we rested and met some of our good church friends at MoMo's for dinner and cupcakes! We all were too full to even eat...

Cousins Angelee and Gavin are moving to South Korea to live with their Daddy finally who is serving in the military...and Granddad's 90th birthday and Emily's 10th Birthday happen to be very close to each other....so the Thornton Family celebrated/said goodbye with cake and candles and dinner together....

Family Movie Night at the church fell on Emily's Birthday so she got to spend the evening with her church family watching the movie Secretariat.

Emily got to pick her birthday dinner. She chose Hurricane Grill with her Grandparents. We all went the Thursday after her birthday to celebrate AGAIN!!!!! Emily's grandparents were VERY generous...Nee Naw and Pop Pop gave her the Ballet Workshop at FSU for her gift, a locket, and a jewelry hanger. Nanny and Papa gave her new ballet shoes, new jazz shoes, tights, money, and a nice spring wardrobe!

And a small sleepover with her besties.....they watched movies, did Karaoke, dressed up, did hair and nails, ate pizza and cake, and had fun! I love these girls so much. I started getting really sick while they were here and they were so kind and sweet! I hope these are friends for a very long time!