Kiersten Turned Eleven

My lil Kiersty-kins had an 11th birthday. She is such a sweet face, and I love having her in our family. 

She had just returned from the Smoky Mountains, so she was super tired. I was able to get her door decorated fairly early, so that was nice. 

Jingles couldn't reach the balloons, haha, I win!

She was a happy girl when she woke up on her birthday. 

She got to look at the gifts a bit before school, but we didn't have time for opening. 

Excitingly, I signed her out of school to go have her stitches removed. What an awesome birthday present! She was cheerful on the way back to school. 

I made a simple cake for her. She just requested that it be pink. 

Ben ordered a handless crutch for vacation, and it arrived during the day. The cat and I were anxious to see how it would work. 

After dinner, she finally got to those gifts. 

She wanted to try on all of her new accessories. 

Here is a rare peek at Mr. Scooty, Ben's main mode of transportation for 3 months. 

 Looking stylish in her new sun hat.

Ready for some cake. 

Eleven years that flew so fast. 

The cake was Evie approved. 

And Karalee approved. 

Most importantly, it was Kiersten approved. 

I guess that's all it takes to go from being a baby one day, to an eleven year old the next. 

Smoky Mountain Kiersten

March started out much the same as February, in my spending the day at the ER with one of my kids. This month's lucky injury victim was Kiersten, who flipped her scooter, and jammed her jaw. She ended up needing stitches in her chin, but we were glad that her jaw was not broken. 

The doctor did not approve her to play basketball, but she suited up to cheer her team on anyway the next day. She was still in quite a bit of pain. 

But she loves her team, and wanted to watch them get that win!

The following week, she was signed up for a trip to the Smoky Mountains with her fifth grade class. I gave her the option to back out, but she really wanted to go. She still had the stitches in, so I just made sure she had bandages, and begged her to keep it dry. 

Drop off was quick and easy, and boy, were the kids ever excited!

I watched her climb aboard, and headed out. I figured they didn't really need me there waving them off and getting in the way. It's still hard to drive away, though. 

I can't really describe her pictures from camp too much, since I wasn't there. She said she had a great time, so I'm sure that is true. It rained most of the time, but from the pictures it looks like the kids didn't mind all that much. 

Kiersten is not an outdoorsy type of girl. I was nervous for her in the woods, but she did great. I'm not sure if she'd sign up for something like this again. 

She said that someone else caught a bug for her. She refused to touch it. 

I was pretty happy to see her face after a long 4 days without my Kiersten-baby. 

She got very car sick on the ride home, and when they called her off the bus, it took a minute to locate her in the bathroom, puking her guts out. Poor girl!

As happy as she was to get off the bus, she wasn't too thrilled to be getting in the car. She held the trash can in her lap the whole way in case she got sick again. 

While big sis was away, Evie had a sleep over with her little buddy, who brought a cake. That's my kind of guest! They had lots of fun.

We also spotted a cat in the yard that looked a lot like Jingles, so I made sure to get a picture to show Kiersten upon her return.