Kylee turns 12

Kylee's aging keeps sneaking up on me.  I was just fine having elementary school / primary kids.  But Kylee hit 12 this year, which means young womens, middle school, makeup (apparently), trek, girl's camp, etc, etc.  In short, she's not a little kid anymore.  I know I still have a year before she's officially a teenager, but I feel like this was quite a pivotal year.  The good news is, she doesn't ACT like a teenager.  I checked her out of school and took her to Kneaders (she's a big fan of their chicken noodle soup, and free birthday pastry) then we brought donuts to her class.  As I was gathering up the rest and leaving, she ran over to me and gave me a hug.  There's no worrying about looking cool in front of her class.  I mean, I'm a pretty cool mom and her class likes me, so maybe that helps :-P  But truly I love her as a 12 year old.  She's good company.  She's a big help.  She's funny and enjoys music as much as I do (and has pretty good taste in it).  She's pretty darn awesome.  

We opened presents before school because she really wanted to.  This year she got a "dumb" phone with service and text capability but not much else.  Smart phones for teenagers are not a great idea.  Mostly Social Media is the problem, but I don't like how kids constantly have their faces in their phones and I didn't want her to do that.  This works for now, and the phone looks normal enough that she was pretty excited.  She also got some clothes and a hammock!  This was my idea and it was a good one!

Birthday lunch

When the weekend came, we got to celebrate with a party!  I had her write up her invitations and texted them out.  It's so simple these days.  No more hand-delivering them.  She helped decorate too.

 We went swimming and then watched The Greatest Showman!!  It came out on DVD just in time for her birthday.  The best show!

 She asked for cheesecake brownies for her "cake".

 I love her friends!  We tried to keep it smaller this year, which is hard because there are so many girls her age in my neighborhood alone.

 Emory May, Averi Summers, Ky, Sydni Green, Anna Lambson, Kylie Paskett

 She got to have her two closest friends sleepover.  We keep sleepovers for special occasions and don't often allow more than one friend.  Slumber parties just have so much opportunity for mischief or hurt feelings.  But these three are great.

 She's looking more like a mini-me everyday.  Unless you put Ryan next to her, then she's his exact female duplicate, but that's okay.  We are darn lucky to have such an awesome daughter!