Kiersten-Baby turned 9

Can you believe that our little Kiersten-ator is NINE YEARS OLD?!? She is such a sweetheart, and we couldn't even get her to ask for any particular birthday gift. She's just a happy kid all around. 

Of course they love waking up to a decorated door. She loved Kara running through the streamers last year, so I wanted to do hers that way. I think I did a pretty good job of it for once. 

Though I did a good job on her doorway, I may have gotten sloppy with the streamers by her gifts, haha. 

Love that little blur bursting through! Evie came to wake me up in the morning, and said that Kiersten was knocking on her door wondering if she could come out. What will happen when I don't put anything on her door one year?

She was just sorry that Kara missed it. 

She was eager to get at all those birthday gifts!

Evie gave her a new diary. She asked if she could get it at the book fair, and we said no. Then I distracted her while Ben took Evie back to get it as a birthday gift. 

Kara got her a little stuffed dog. She loves stuff like that. 

She needed a new softball bat. She was still using a 26. 

She was happy to get Moana on DVD. 

But not as happy as Kara was. She absolutely loves that movie. 

Since she didn't really ask for anything, and we couldn't think of a "big" gift, we gave her a coupon for a shopping spree. Her sisters were pretty jealous. 

We had a fair amount of Kohl's cash, so we decided that's where the shopping would take place. 

For the 3rd year in a row, she requested tortellini for dinner. She also got root beer, and Kara made a throne for her glass to sit on. 

Since we just had cupcakes at her party, I made her a brownie with candles to blow out. 

Here's a pic of her getting ready to get some new stuff! Shopping with her is like shopping with a mini Ben. She definitely wanted to make the most of her money. 

Kiersten's Hotel Bash

Kiersten has been wanting to have a sleepover at a hotel for a few years. This year we finally decided 9 was a good age to let her plan it. We got 2 rooms at the Wildwood Hotel. I brought Kara along to help out. Evie got to stay home with Daddy.

They enjoyed a pizza dinner with root beer and cream soda in.. wait for it... glass bottles! I truly had no idea how fun and exciting the glass bottles would be for them. 

They were pretty chatty and squeal-ly, but very well behaved. I talked to them about the surrounding rooms, and the need to not be running or jumping or screaming. They did well. There was a little bit of jumping from bed to bed, but they didn't jump up and down on the floor or anything. 

Kiersten went back and forth on her cake request. For a while we were planning on a sleeping bag cake. I tried to convince her to do cupcakes and was ultimately successful. Maybe I'm losing my "fun" as I get older, but I thought these were cute. She saw a picture of multi colored frosted cupcakes, and requested teal, pink, and white. Luckily I got a tri-color icing kit from Katie for Christmas, so we got the result she wanted. 

She thought of a few different ideas for decoration, but ultimately decided to make suckers to stick down into the cupcakes. I let her pick 4 colors of chocolate, not the colors I'd have chosen to go with the frosting colors, but she was happy with them. Kara actually did most of the suckers. 

To use up the remaining chocolate, Kara made a tray of chocolate roses for the party as well. 

They ended up looking pretty fun! The girls were definitely happy with them. 

She also wanted pink and teal for the favor boxes. I thought I had a great idea for all her friends to get a small stuffed animal as a favor, but couldn't talk her into it. She really wanted spa party favors. 

To be honest, the girls were really excited to get the spa favors, so Kiersten was right. I still think they'd also have like a little stufty just as well. 

They played some board games, and several rounds of "MASH". It was interesting to hear them talking about their life goals. 

After dinner we went down to play in the pool. They sure had a great time in there, and were able to be loud as they wanted. 

They impressed each other with their various tricks. 

They sure loved the hot tub. (Or tepid tub) We did make them get out a few times when it was clear there were adults waiting their turn. 

I let Kiersten use the waterproof camera, and they had fun taking silly selfies. 

There were a good amount of toe, elbow, bubble pictures to delete. It was kind of funny to look through them all. 

It was an ordeal to get everyone dry and dressed. Some took longer in the bathroom/closet than the other girls thought they should. But we eventually got everyone ready for bed and Kiersten opened her gifts. 

I put them to bed at 10:30, and was in the room next door with my friend who blessedly came to help out. Ben picked up Kara before bed since she had a math competition early in the morning. He left Evie and her buddy to sleep in with us moms. We only had to go in to tell the girls to go to sleep a couple times. I woke up a few times during the night to go check on them, but they were all sleeping peacefully. I had thought they'd be staying up later talking, etc. I was pleasantly surprised. Some of them had a soccer game in the morning, so I'm sure their parents had issued go to sleep warnings. 

Breakfast was included with the hotel stay, so we all had breakfast together, and Kiersten handed out her spa favors. They were just as well behaved at breakfast, and very excited about all the options. I was asked if they were all my children, and wasn't quite sure how to take that. 

I made sure there were cupcakes saved for the 6 year olds to have in the morning, since they didn't get to be there for most of the party. They really just saw the girls for a few minutes before we took them in the other room for bed. They were happy to sleep over and get breakfast and cupcakes though.