Ben, Becky, Kara, Kiersten,and Evie: My TWELVE Year Old

Little Bear is 12. TWELVE. This year I pulled out some old Minnie Mouse decorations from her 3rd birthday and put those up. I told her for weeks she was too old to have her door decorated. She gets up at 6AM for school, so it was just me and her on her birthday morning. She was a happy girl.

I did put 2 balloons on her bedroom door so she would think that was all she was getting this year, being such a grown up, big 12 year old. Then I went out and put streamers on the front door so she could be surprised when she left for school. It was really cold, and my fingers all went numb. When I was almost finished, I was startled to realize I had streamered myself out onto the front porch with no way to get back in without disturbing all my hard work. So I called Ben over to let me in through the garage.

Here is how it looked from the outside. By morning it was a little saggy, but all still there.

I forgot, Jingles was up with us too. So it wasn't just Kara and me after all. She has started showing up next to my bed every morning when my alarm goes off, and then we go wake Kara for school together.

I also put up Kara's birthday decorations from our first Disney cruise on her 7th birthday. She wasn't as annoyed with all the Mickey and Minnie as I thought she might be.

She really wanted a Fairy Tail cake. I came at her with several ideas, but she was insistent on white frosting with rainbow around the edge and a pink fairy tail emblem. She was very pleased when she saw the cake. I made the emblem out of melting chocolate. I printed it out, and then put parchment paper over and traced the design with a piping bag of the chocolate. Luckily, it was a simple design.

I also did her name and a #12 with the chocolate. I was glad I had because the frosting ended up a little soft, and would have been hard to write nicely with. I really struggled with the rainbow design, but ended up with something acceptable.

I told Kara to leave for the bus stop in 2 minutes, then I snuck outside to be ready for a picture. She didn't come out for 4 minutes, so rang the doorbell so she would come out. She was distracted by playing with the cat, and by Evie who had woken up and come down stairs full of birthday salutations.

She ducked when she burst through, which left a good amount of streamers up top for me to crash through later to Kiersten and Evie's delight. Our neighbor walking his dog was pretty happy about it too.

For dinner, she weirdly wanted mac and cheese from Outback. Ben and I couldn't figure out when she'd even had it before to know she liked it. But we obliged and the way Ben ordered, there were small sodas for the little girls, and 2 large sodas. Since neither Ben nor I wanted a soda, Kara got to have 2. She was pretty happy, but I don't think she was able to finish both. Probably for the best since she had to go to Tae Kwon Do that night.

Ben was home early enough that we had time for her to open her gifts after dinner before she was picked up for TKD.

Evie gave her a Kagome keychain and an Inuyasha skin for her 3DS. She was pleased with that.

Kiersten gave her a pack of Fairy Tail emblem tattoos with various colors. She wanted to put them in a big box so Kara wouldn't guess what the gift was. I thought it was a long shot that she'd ever have guessed that. She likes to wear the tattoos in the same place as certain characters from the show. She even shared a few with her sisters.

I tried to talk her into wanting a "Happy" cake, which is a blue cat from her favorite anime. But she really wanted the cake her way, so I instead crocheted her a hat that looked like Happy. Kiersten was my model, and was so excited for her to see it. It did not take me very long to make, so Ben was surprised to see it when I was wrapping her gifts. I guess I hadn't even mentioned that I was making it. Though I'm certain I had told him that I needed to run to the store for yarn to make it.

She was happy with her Happy hat, and I was happy about that.

She has been complaining about her purple flower bathroom rug and barbie toothbrush holder a lot lately. She was asking me to get all new stuff for her bathroom for Christmas, and I did not come through. When I got started looking for her birthday, I became concerned that I would pick out things she didn't like. She is still sort of in the "if Mom likes it, it can't be cool" phase. So I had Ben get her a giftcard so she could go pick out what she liked. She did use every penny to get new teal bathroom accessories. Everything I pointed out at the store was deemed "babyish", so it's good I let her pick. It was also fun to make the giant laminated card.

She was pretty eager to open her new bike. Her old one is very small, maybe too small for Kiersten already. She knew she was getting this. She had asked for some specific bike qualities and the box was in the garage for over a week. It was still exciting to open it though!

Ben made her help put it together so she'll know better how to fix it if anything goes wrong and how to maintain it. I thought it would be more fun to have already assembled it and have it waiting to greet her on her birthday. Let's be honest, if it ever breaks, Ben will be the one fixing it.