Breaking News: Our family has the ‘Rona! All impacted are dealing with mild cold-like symptoms and those not affected are enjoying the extra screen time immensely.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

To round out this event I just need to recap all the Layna 10th birthday shenanigans that happened before or after the party. We shall begin with cake. All things should begin with cake. Especially in a time of love and Corona Virus.

I was so happy she wanted a rainbow cake. They are kind of involved, but well worth the extra effort. The recipe I went with this time makes a pure white cake (no egg yolks) so it takes color beautifully. She wanted a “Dragon Prince” cake and after my last attempt at a fondant character, I wasn’t about to try to make Callum out of fondant. So I sprung for an edible printed cake topper and the birthday girl was over the moon. I enlisted the help of my apprentice cake decorator and she did a fabulous border. The leftover cake bits went into the food processor to be made into crumbs. The crumbs got mixed with leftover frosting to become freeze dried cake balls…and more on our freeze drying adventures will be coming. We also made homemade chocolate ice cream (to use up all the yolks that didn’t go into the cake) and it was brilliant all around.

Breakfast was classy as ever, and the rest of the day was simple and nice. Her younger sister insisted on giving her some presents and she got to get birthday wishes from her reading teacher. Dinner was McDonald’s. Shocker. But our local McD’s has had its dining room closed for about exactly a year now, so drive through it was. But we didn’t just get dinner and head home…oh no. We had a “Hairy Monster Attack!” on the way. That would be a drive through car wash for all you lot that don’t watch Bluey. It was pretty much a perfect day.

We finished up celebrating ten years of having this beautiful monkey in our lives with a dinner at Grandma’s. We read stories, opened presents and had our second round of rainbow cake. Another pretty much perfect day.

The day after her birthday she was already counting down to 11. Did you know she hates pirates? And that one of the only things she wanted for her birthday was stickers? Did you know she only likes stickers so she can peel off the bits in between the actual stickers? She is starting to read and she loves math and writing letters. Did you know that Corra is starting to stop feeling like she has to compete? It’s a bitter sweet thing to watch Corra learn what Down Syndrome means and move from peer to caretaker. Ten years is a long time, but I’m thinking it’s just a start to all the ways Little Feisty Pants is going to teach us deeper means of living and loving. And also the proper uses of office supplies.