Happy, happy birthday, Issa!

We had a fabulous weekend celebrating our girl turning 15:

After pandemic birthdays, I was truly overwhelmed by watching Issa's people love her well on her birthday--including a few that were surprises even for me!

Saturday morning, Issa actually got to have a birthday party! Her competition dance team joined us at AR Workshop:

I had so much fun painting pillows with these girls:

They are truly just fun people to hang out with! Our teacher had also been a competitive dancer, so she jumped right in--watching their videos and laughing with us:

And the gifts were so incredibly thoughtful. A butterfly necklace:

A World's Best Mom candle because she is the one who is always prepared with the Band-Aids and snacks:

A photo album of them over the years:

I kept tearing up all morning just watching them love each other so well, and the final pillows were pretty great, too:

Saturday night we had birthday dinner number one at our place, and Issa opened Evan's gift:

He had wrapped it in 15 layers of tape, and she was not amused:

But it was worth it:

She now has her very own copy of her favorite movie, In the Heights:

We were supposed to go to a dance performance, but Issa had been mildly glutened and opted to just stay home and watch the movie and have cake:

She woke up on her actual birthday to the usual decorations:

She also got a surprise visit from her dance student with an Easy Bake Oven cake:

She had dance rehearsal, where they sang to her and had brownies from the local bakery:

I sat in the car and snapped a picture of their celebration before they yelled at me to come join:

Issa and Nana went shopping, and we all met up for Maggiano's. She came home and blew out the candle on her cake so she could send a picture to Etta:

I am so, so proud of this girl, and it makes me so happy to see her celebrated so well.