Kaylee's 8th Birthday!!

Happy 8th Birthday to my beautiful, smart, sweet girl!!  One week ago Kaylee turned the big 8.  I have to say I think this Birthday has been one of the hardest on me.  Now anyone who reads my blog knows that any birthday seems to be hard on me with any kid and I just want everyone to stay little, but this is the first year that I really feel like she is getting older and I see it in her from the way she dresses, talks, cares what others think, wants her privacy, takes on more responsibility....just overall seems like a big kid now.  No longer can be classified as a little kid any more.  I remember talking with Ryan about all this the night before when I was getting everything set up for the big day...still set up balloons, streamers, etc.......(you bet I will do this even when the eyes start rolling!!!)....and I remember it really hit me hard this year....got teared up and everything.  I think this was the first year I almost felt really truly sad the night before one of my kids birthdays.  Now I know she is not moving out yet but I start thinking thoughts like, she only has 10 more years until she is 18, and lots of kids want to move out at 18 and go to school...ahh!  10 more years is almost half the time that she has been alive and I started thinking all those crazy thoughts and how fast it has all gone.  I realize that I need to try and learn to embrace the change and cherish each time, and learn to celebrate each phase even though it means getting out of the little kid phases that I know and love so much....because face it, none of us or our kids are getting any younger.  So with that said, I talked myself out of the pity party and we had a great weekend celebrating Kaylee!



We started right after school when I picked Kaylee up.  I told the kids that if everyone cooperated and did not complain with the few errands I had to run, had a few things I still needed to pick up for the Birthday weekend, we would go somewhere for a treat right after.  We made it through our few errands and then the girls had fun guessing where we were going.  Alexa asked the question, "Mom, can Nolan have ice cream yet?"  They are still so used to him not being able to eat anything.  When I said yes, Kaylee was able to guess, "Are we going to ice cream?"  She was right, at 4:45pm we were heading to 31 flavors for her free Birthday ice cream without having dinner.  I told them we were having ice cream for dinner and they thought that was the coolest thing ever and a good start to a birthday weekend.  Then we headed home to have our dessert of left over chicken pasta.  :)

The girls and I then had fun getting the goody bags ready for tomorrow:

The next day Saturday we had what I call her little party.  Little in that we decided not to do a big party this year.  Kaylee is my only child up until now that has had a big Birthday party every year.  Alexa only had one when turning 3, and every other one has just been a smaller family party....which is fine but I thought maybe it was Alexa's turn to have a bigger party in April.  Now still wanting to make it special for Kaylee we had her pick her two best friends and we went bowling at Dave and Busters on Saturday afternoon.  Real low key but had so much fun!  Sometimes I think smaller can be better.  :)

Alana, Kaylee, and Sam

This one cracks me up with Alexa trying to lug the big heavy bowling ball....I am so glad she did not drop it on her toes!

Uncle B, Auntie, and Asher

Peak a boo!

My sweet birthday girl!

I gave the girls all matching socks in their goody bag

My kind of cake.  The bowling ally only let you bring in a store bought cake.  We stopped to get it with the girls on the way to bowling....talk about no stress!  And Kaylee had fun getting to pick it out.  :)

The actual big day on Sunday: 

New bike!  She was so surprised!  She was in need of a new bike so  bad.  She could hardly ride her other one as she had just gotten way too big for it.....and I think she did not like that fact that it was Barbie anymore either. 

She just looks older in this picture to me

Breakfast of choice: Lemon blueberry pancakes and Sunrise Punch

First Happy Birthday of the day

Out front to try out the new bike....Lex too was excited as she now got Kaylee's old bike......Lex had also really outgrown hers.  

Love this picture with my birthday girl!

For dinner she wanted strawberry daiquiris....she loved when we did this for Cinco De Mayo........

and Hot corn chili dip......and back to tacos for the main meal again this year.  :)

8 going on 13!!

And her cake of choice this year was not so much cake but the Flower Pot Dessert.  Cake on the bottom, ice cream, gummy worms, topped with crushed oreos.  She saw this on the Pioneer
Women last summer and she has wanted it ever since!  Everyone got their own flower pot.

Happy Birthday sweet girl!!!!