Miss Tay turned 12 on June 28th. It was a crazy week for us. Okay, it was a crazy month for us. But it also happened to be her year to have a friend party. Layla was only 4 weeks old at the time and I was still not feeling like myself so I kept her Birthday and her party as chill as I could. We did our normal breakfast and presents routine in the morning and then that evening she invited some friends over and they played games, decorated pillow cases, ate A TON of food, opened presents and watched a movie. They all seemed to have a good time even though it was the most lazy and half hearted attempt at any party I have ever thrown. Luckily tweens just seem to need food and music and access to a cell phone in order to have a good time.
Taylor Sue has had a rough few years. Pretty much every day I wake up and think, "Okay, today is the day! Today she will start her period today and then all of this craziness will be explained."
It has yet to happen.
And I promise I won't blog about it when it does.
I just bring that up to highlight the fact that she is definitely almost a teenager. She has all the stereotypical teenager qualities going for her-moodiness, extreme hunger for all things junk food, spastic-ness, a general dislike for any idea that isn't her own, and a sassy attitude towards her mother. HOWEVER, she has had a lot of changes in her life over the past year or so and she is my daughter so a lot of these behaviors are to be expected.
Taylor really has been such a sweetheart and big help since Layla was born though. It has been fun to watch her and her baby sister. And when she got home from girl's camp-everyone raved about how wonderful and kind and good at camping she was. She has made some cute friends in our new ward and I can tell she is a good friend because of the kind of girls she is friends with. So far she is loving being in Young Womens and going to all the activities. She is also very good with little kids and our next door neighbor's 3 year old thinks she is the greatest person he knows. She is currently at a week long softball camp and it has been neat to watch her overcome some of her anxieties and put herself out there. It is also fun to watch her and Kendrick bond over a sport-I think he has been dreaming of this day for years!
Her Birthday wishlist included 2 things-a desk and a bathrobe. Done! She got a desk, a bathrobe, a cute chair, some desk organizing stuff and a movie.
She asked if "we have to have cinnamon rolls for our Birthdays..." Apparently she is over that tradition so she chose to have Dad make crepes.
I think this little girl should count as one of her Birthday gifts.
I have no idea what made up game they were playing but it lead to a lot of laughs and required that they eat bag fulls of chips and an entire bag of gummy worms in one sitting.
Decorating pillowcases.
Kendrick is in his element when surrounded by females! I think he enjoyed watching Tay open her presents just because of the laughs he got from all the girls after each joke he told.
See? Look at his face.
Such a cute and fun group of girls!
These 4 drove out from Sandy with not a ton of notice just to come to Tay's party. They are such nice girls!
The Young Women's presidency decorated the front door for Tay. Since we live next to a canyon we get fierce winds each night so our door didn't look like this for long before half of those hearts ended up scattered across the lawn. Just this past week we were still finding hearts around our yard.
I honestly think that 12 will be a fun age for her and I'm excited to see what's in store for our cute girl. We love you Tay Tay!!!
