Luma Solem: Terrifically Ten!

Our darling daughter Dawna is a full decade old now! As a mom, it feels almost surreal to have a kid so big! She is an incredible girl, as anybody who has met her knows--far more than I could ever have imagined she would be!

Dawna is always so aware of having healthy, yet still special and fancy, treats for her birthday. This year, she wanted to make apple swans for her class. Jon and I made these a month ago for the Mormon prom dinner based on this YouTube Video. We were all up late Tuesday night carving 18 of these babies (I insisted that the kids in her class could share them...).

All the kids in Mrs. Chapman's class were impressed and enjoyed their swans! Especially when they dipped the wing slices in caramel and peanut butter! Mmmmm....

Dawna also loves naturally beautiful things! She asked for fresh flowers and an exotic fruit--so we found this Santa Claus melon! It was quite delicious! Very light green flesh with a good sweet taste--though I couldn't tell you if it was ripe or not...but we loved it!

And since Dawna's mom couldn't get her head on straight enough to figure out a birthday party, the primary presidency did it for her :) Sis. Ringlein invited the activity day girls plus a couple extra to come over after school to escape the heat in her pool!

I made this watermelon "cake." It's literally a cylinder of watermelon frosted with heavy whipping cream--whipped almost to butter status to make it thick enough to stay on the wet melon--and then topped with fruit and coconut cookies.

Just for proof--once it was cut through, you can see that it's just solid watermelon! (you can tell that I didn't exactly get a straight cut... so I filled it in with some whipping cream...) It was refreshing and delicious on a hot summery afternoon! And MAYBE healthier than cake... definitely