A ginormous birthday weekend

I think Kaiya will remember her 10th birthday if for no other reason, it feels like it just keeps going! The weekend started with her birthday party at our house and ended tonight with getting to request what I made for dinner and getting presents from us.

I only let my kids have an actual birthday party every other year (I know, I'm mean) and this was Kaiya's year. We were going to have her party at Michael's (craft store), but they were busy with holiday crafts until late in the afternoon. So, we just took their list of party craft ideas and found one we wanted and got all the stuff to do at our house. It really turned out great and I was amazed at how into the craft these girls were. It was quite a mix of girls--her two besties from the gym, a handful of school friends and church friends and her buddy from Greeley that she's know since she was a baby. They each painted and decorated a wooden first letter of their name, played Just Dance on the Wii, ate pizza and a cookie pie and just giggled like girls. Kaiya hugged me after they all left and said it was her best birthday ever and almost had tears in her eyes. Made my day! After her friends left, we had a little spa night in which I helped her shave her legs for the first time and did a "green treatment" on her hair to remove the green stripes that continue to plague her blonde locks (from copper in our pipes).

Ready to party

Not a cake fan, so she requested a giant chocolate chip cookie

Hard at work on her craft

The whole gang

Fancy new leo from Sara

Thanks, Josi!

Have known each other since they were 5 months old!

A giant monkey for the Monkey girl

Showing off their finished products

She had a meet on Sunday (which is thankfully her only Sunday meet) and it was down to crunch time with only two meets left to qualify. I had my doubts as soon as we walked into the gym and I saw that the two most evil judges in the state were there. Both of them have been around forever (seriously . . . they both judged in my club and college meets 20 years ago!) and both have a reputation for being nasty. In fact, my college coach Ray once threw his shoe at the judge who was on floor! The other one is referred to as "Picky Vicky". So, I wasn't too optimistic.

The meet started kind of rough--the group before our girls were all tiny little robots and they were getting amazing scores. But, as soon as our group started, it was obvious that they preferred the tiny tikes. Kaiya did a good floor routine, but only got a 7.75. She needed a 33.0 in the all-around to qualify, which is an 8.25 average. Not a good start!

Then, she went to vault and completely screwed up her run into her first vault and barely made it over. Oops!! Luckily, they take the highest of the two vault scores and she nailed the second one for an 8.50--her highest of the year.

Off to bars, which is her best event by far, and she did a great routine and scored an 8.75. It all came down to beam and Picky Vicky. Ugh!!! She has worked so hard on beam during the last month because she has had such a rough time on beam in past meets. I think she probably did a hundred routines in the last two weeks.

My parents were both there and we all looked like we might throw up before her beam routine. I can't believe I'm putting them through this drama twice! I had to actually leave and go stand somewhere else to watch. As as added incentive to stay on the beam, they announced at the beginning that every girl who stuck beam got a cute pink and black bag that said "I stuck beam!"

And that she did--she stuck beam! We had all done the math and knew she needed an 7.95 to qualify. I later found out that Kaiya knew what she needed as well--she had done the math on a little notepad in her bag. Well, she did it! She got an 8.55 and we had some tears all around.

Gymnastics is a stupid, subjective sport sometimes, but she worked so hard toward this goal and it is neat to see her achieve it, especially since she was a Level 4 last year and was able to qualify in her first year as a Level 5.

After the meet, we went to Old Chicago to celebrate her birthday with family and she got spoiled again. What's so funny, though, is despite all these amazing gifts she got, she would tell you her favorite is probably the giant stuffed monkey she got from her gym buddy. Guess she's not totally grown up yet. :)

To round out her big weekend that just keeps going, she had a music concert at school on Monday night and tonight was just us. I took treats to her school class today and she got her presents from us and then we enjoyed a fairly low key night. Sure love this young lady--she is growing up so fast and I'm so proud of who she is becoming. She is going to give me a run for my money in the coming years, but she is a good kid and we love this blondie!!

New luggage from Papa

Guess we will all be listening to her iTunes now

The fan club

So spoiled

Key lime pie--her absolute fav!

iPods rule!

The pressure cooker, state qualifying beam routine!