Kinley's real Birthday and Questionnaire

On Kinley's real birthday we had candles at breakfast like we usually do. 

 

We used her same birthday party decor for the house but had a little 7 year old photo shoot in our front yard before we set it up. 

She looks SO big to me!

  

 Her poses :) 

 

Then we had family over for dinner and cupcakes and opening presents. It was such a fun night celebrating our big girl! 

 

Kinley has always been nervous and cautious about the fire from birthday candles but Honey's firecracker candle took it to a whole new level. 

 

Piggyback rides by Gram to bed.

 

 Kinley has been loving her new "active wear" she got from Honey. 

 

And my favorite gift she got is her new polaroid camera. 

 It is so fun to have instant pics of family and friends when they come over to play.

  

Her school had a closed campus to visitors on her actual birthday for state testing, so Dylan and I took her lunch the day after and she had the most fun table of friends that got to sit with her. 

These are the sweetest girls!

 

Dylan at lunch is always a challenge for me and a hit with the kids at school lunchtime.

 Kinley loves showing him off. 

 

Have to keep up the birthday questionnaire tradition.

 For previous years see here, here, here, and here. 

1. What is your favorite color? FUSHIA

2. What is your favorite toy? ROLLER BLADES

3. What is your favorite fruit? STRAWBERRIES

 4. What is your favorite tv show? FULL HOUSE (the original, not Fuller House) 

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? NUTELLA SANDWICH 

 6. What is your favorite outfit? A LONG DRESS 

 7. What is your favorite game? JENGA

 8. What is your favorite snack? GOLDFISH

9. What is your favorite animal? LEOPARD for wild animal and CHICKS for a pet

10. What is your favorite song? SHAKE IT OFF 

 11. What is your favorite book? THE BOXCAR CHILDREN

12. Who is your best friend? AG, MILA and ELLA 

13. What is your favorite cereal? THE FROZEN MARSHMALLOW ONE

 14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? SWING 

15. What is your favorite drink? DR PEPPER 

16. What is your favorite holiday? MY BIRTHDAY

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? TY

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? CINNAMON ROLLS

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? LAVA GRILL (HIBACHI)

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? A VET

Kinley Gay,

You light up my world.  

Each year that you grow older is another year I celebrate being a momma.  You made me a mom and it is the GREATEST gift.   You make it such a fun experience every day.   

You have the sweetest, servants heart. 

 It is a gift given to you by God himself and your dad and I have not one bit of claim to it.  You are gifted at knowing and looking for ways to serve everyone you are around.   The only two times you got in trouble this whole year at school is when the teacher asked you to line up and you were too busy cleaning up the book area or closing everyones ipads for them on their desks so they wouldn't lose their batteries and didn't line up fast enough.  

You look for ways to serve your brothers and me every day.  

You are my BIGGEST helper and I literally could not get through one day without you.  

I have to remind you that you don't have to take it all on yourself.  

I am your mommy and I LOVE being your mommy.  

You can just be friend, sister and daughter for now.  

I love when I still see moments of your babyness but they are fleeting quickly.  

 It is very rarely you play in your dress up clothes.  

It is not too often that you want to watch a cartoon tv show.  

You don't have to ask me to read you a story anymore because you  can do it yourself.  

Thankfully, you still love to role play and live in that creative world of yours still.  

When you do, I never want to pull you out of it.  

It is precious.  

You are such a good leader and I see it all the time with your brothers.  

You love to tell them what to do and how to do it.  

But, you really aren't bossy.  

You have an idea and you go with it but if they want to change course, you let them decide and run with their idea too.

You love school but mainly for the social aspect of it.  

You are a great friend and have made some precious friends at school.  I will never forget when a mom came up to me and said how thankful she was for you because you made her daughter, who was brand new to the school, feel so welcome.  

She said her daughter came home from school around Thanksgiving and said she was so happy because you had said out loud in class that you were "thankful for your new friend Abby."  

She had tears in her eyes just telling me about it.

The academic part of school is growing on you.  For the first time this year, I saw you come home and say "I'm not good at this and I don't want to try anymore."  That is way too much pressure for a 1st grader!  We are working on making school and learning FUN and I am hoping that this summer and next year we can get your confidence back.  You are so smart and I know you can do anything you love well.

More than anything, I want you to know and love Jesus.

  

I don't care if you are the best at math or reading or spelling. 

 But, I DO care that you hunger for God's word.  

I DO care that you love learning about the Bible and about Him.  

I DO care that you learn who Jesus is and his characteristics and attributes and want to be more like Him and love like Him.

I am so, so thankful for you Kinley.  

I learn more from you each and every day about how I want to be as a mom, a friend and just a person. 

 I am humbled and so, so grateful God let me have you in my life.

Happy Birthday Angel Girl.

Love, 

Mom

Kinley's Rainbow Rollerskate 7th Birthday Party

Kinley is SEVEN!

 It is surreal. 

Each year that passes by and my oldest gets older, I realize how quickly their childhood is going. 

Just yesterday I held that precious baby girl in my arms and carried her home from the hospital.

I can't believe it. 

Kinley got some new roller blades earlier this year and from the moment she got them she has not taken them off. 

 She puts them on from the minute she gets home from school until she goes to bed. 

So, when she asked for a rainbow-themed Skatetown party, we rolled with it. 

(haha, pun intended) 

Kinley got to scroll through Pinterest and pick her own invite and she really went for it! 

 Lots of color on these. 

We didn't actually get them all printed and sent out, per se....many received just a picture text of this invite...but, I mean, whats the difference, right?  

Who has time to actually mail things?  

 

Pretty early on, Allison sent me this link to Oh Happy Day's giant roller skate pinata.
I immediately shook it off because I couldn't buy it and it was DIY and I knew I had no time to work on a project this huge.
 But, I just could NOT shake it.
 My love for cardboard creations at birthday parties mixed with my inability to say no and to always overcommit to everything all at one time, was just a bad combination.
 So, I went for it.
 I did not follow their tutorial really at all.
I used an appliance box from Alex & Mendy and just did what I could with it.
No way was I going to make it an actual pinata if we couldn't use it at Skatetown nor was I going to "fringe" all of the tissue paper.
So, really, do not compare my roller skate to the Oh Happy Day one in any way. But, it is what inspired the largest cardboard roller skate ever.

I just roughly drew theses shoe-like things on the back of some cardboard and cut it out with a kitchen knife.
(Laughing at myself as I even write that...I am the best DIY-er...do not EVER follow what I do)

Then I cut long strips of more cardboard for the depth in the middle and packing taped it all together.




My plan from here was just to paint it...but, since I just run with things and do not plan them out at all, the paint did not stick at all to the packing tape so I had no choice but to wrap it with something.

Allison was over at my house one day and she decided to help me try some tissue paper and we just folded whole sheets in half and started hot gluing them on in rows.

Then I did try some fringe for the rainbow part and the wheels.
 I didn't have mylar paper, so I just used good old fashioned hot glue and glitter.


The ONE thing I paid attention to on the Oh Happy Day tutorial was the shoelaces and they just made a world of difference.
Once I got those in, I just loved it.


The work was pretty much worth it because it was the ONLY thing I did for Kinley's party and I pretty much FORCED every person there to take a picture with the "Giant Roller Skate"

 

How many poses will we see around the Giant Roller Skate??


See I told you....this was not an optional photo opp
 

There were other things at the Skatetown party....

For instance THE CAKE!!!

What on earth.!?...How can I go on anymore than I usually do about a Mendy cake?
It's impossible. \
Truly.
If you can even begin to find a cake more beautiful than THIS rainbow petal cake, I challenge you!
 It was gorgeous.
 Truly outdid herself once again! 


My vision for the food tables was a rainbow...can you see it??

The table when guests walked in had socks for everyone to wear with their skates, some glow sticks and the party favors.  The cardboard happy birthday rainbow is ONLY cute when Shea and McKenna are inside.  

 

Got these straight from Pinterest.
What would fit better than Rainbow Twizzlers with Rolos for a rainbow rollerskate party!?

 

 We limbo-ed, hokey-pokey-ed, and put Kinley in the middle and sang Happy Birthday. 

You can tell she just hated the attention from everyone. :)

   

Our family party shirts were on point! 

 I have the best resources at my disposal and luckily no one loves a rainbow t-shirt more than my best friend, Kristen from Celebrate-Always. 

She busted these out and they looked fantastic. 

Kinley had her own vision for her t-shirt. 

She wanted to play off Taylor Swift and wanted it to say "Skaters gonna skate, skate, skate, skate, skate" I Loved it! I totally thought she made it up...and she could have...but, I saw a few more on pinterest after she mentioned it. But, she did write a whole song about it and how some people roller blade and some people roller skate but even if you fall, you just have to "shake it off, shake it off." 

Love her. 

And for sure no one has a shirt this cool! 

 

The boys said "Skater Boy"

 I know Avril really says "Sk8er" but Ty was so confused because "Kinley is turning 7 not 8??" 

Touche. 

So, we spelled it out. 

 

Keeping with the roller-skating-song-shirt-theme, Ben and I's shirts said "Rolling with my homies" as a nod back to Clueless and the 90s. 

 Every shirt was perfection. 

We still wear them all the time. 

More party pics 

 

 

It was SUCH a fun party! 

 Thanks to all who came to celebrate Kinley and make her day so special! 

And just for fun, why not end it with another Giant Roller Skate Pic...