Today is Skyler & Spencer’s birthday. Their 10th birthday. The beginning of the double digits. Smack dab in to their tweens. Just a hop, skip, and jump away from being a teenager. How can my twins be 10-years-old already?

I’ve enjoyed [almost] every minute of watching them grow up to the ripe ol’ age of 10. This continue to be very brilliant students with great senses of humor. This year they started 4th grade and they are both doing very well. At their school 4th graders are the top dogs. The kings and queens of the school. Next year they will be in intermediate school. I shudder at the thought that three of my four kids will be out of elementary school next year. And Justis will be out of school completely. Somebody hold me.

Skyler continues to amaze me with her creativity; writing fabulous stories, drawing awesome pictures, singing, and dancing. She also continues to be a teacher’s pet. She’s always been my super polite and helpful child. She has no problem making friends, even befriending the new kids at school. And she’s like a little mom. She loves to play with the neighbors one-year-old daughter; taking her for walks and playing games in the yard with her. She’s a pretty awesome kid!

She’s also really doing well at dance (ballet, tap, lyrical, and funky jazz) and loves gymnastics. Although she did break my heart a little bit a few weeks ago when she told me she no longer likes the color pink. But she’s still very much of a girly girl who loves to style her hair and dress up in dresses. We took them shoe shopping yesterday and she wanted me to buy her a pair of high heels. HIGH HEELS people! Where did my little girl go? [BTW, I did not buy her high heels. I still think 10 is a little young for hooker boots. Just sayin'.]

Speaking of growing up too fast Spencer already thinks he’s a teenager. His birthday list consisted of an iPod Nano (only because he knew I wouldn’t buy him an iPod Touch…never mind the fact that he already has an iPod Shuffle) and a DSi (even though he already has a PSP). Instead he got a new bike. He seems happy with that. But he wants to do everything Keaton does. He wants his own room…because Keaton has his own room. He wants to wear some of the same clothes that Keaton wears. In fact when we went shoe shopping yesterday he got the same exact tennies that Keaton used to have. I’m so not ready for him to be a teenager, let alone act like one.

On another note, Spencer has turned in to quite a little athlete. He continues to excel at soccer as part of the schools soccer club. He even moved from defender to forward and is doing really well. This year he started playing football too. Last week he was moved from wide receiver to runningback, got the ball and ran for 12 yards (which is pretty impressive for 4th grade football). This week he got put on the 4th quarter team. I’m so proud of the effort he’s putting in and he’s not giving up even though he hurt his wrist last week. He’s really grown up from the kid who once just stood there and let an opponent wrestler pick him up, drop and pin him because Spencer refused to participate since the kid was bigger than him. Now he has problem tackling the big kids. My baby’s all grown up.

We decided not to have birthday parties this year…for any of us, starting with Justis’ birthday in April. Instead we’ve just celebrated all of our birthdays at home, together as a family. But since this is kind of a big birthday, we decided to let Skyler & Spencer have one friend each join us for dinner and a movie.

After we laughed our butts off at Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs at the movie theater and then stuffed our already popcorn-filled stomachs with pancakes and eggs at IHOP, we brought all of the kids home for a mini-sleepover. As I was making my way to bed I eavesdropped on their conversation. Kids have the best conversations when they think nobody is listening.

Spencer said, “[His best friend] is to young to have sex.”

“Spencer! What are you talking about?” I asked.

Spencer proclaimed, “What? I can say sex.” I couldn’t really argue with that. After all I’m the one that told him sex isn’t a bad word.

[His best friend] went on to say, “Yeah, I think you have to be about 25 before you can have sex.” [Good kid!]

Skyler said, “I think you should be 42.” [She's such a kiss up!]