Kaiya's Baptism and Mother's Day

Kaiya turned 8 this year, which means that she is old enough to get baptized. Due to scheduling conflicts, the first day after her birthday that would work for everyone was May 8th, which also happened to be Mother's Day! Kaiya was so excited.

Kaiya was being such a turkey when I tried to take her picture before the baptism---She did not want to cooperate. I kind of liked this more candid shot of her, though.

I threw this picture in to show the back of the dress. Her dress was absolutely beautiful---it was made by a very dear friend who does not want to be named (Here is a hint...if my family was "The Brady Bunch" she would be "Alice")

Outside the church before the baptism: Riley, Kaiya, Rachelle, Jayson, Kassidy, Ryder, Kaydence, Kyndall and Rustin

The whole fam with both sets of grandparents and my brother Ryan who all came for the baptism. It was awesome to have family come to support Kaiya on this special day!!

Kaiya in the dress she was actually baptized in. This was MY baptism dress when I was 8!

Kaiya with Jayson, who baptized her

The actual baptism was very nice. Jayson's mom gave a short talk on Baptism, and then Jayson led Kaiya into the font. I stood on the side by the entrance to the bathroom to help Kaiya when she came back out of the water. As I stood there, I saw all the quints with their faces pressed up against the plexi-glass looking down into the font---it was very cute, I wish I could have taken a picture. Kaiya was beaming as she came out of the water. After the baptism, Andrea Woods, a family friend sang a beautiful solo of "I Think When I Read That Sweet Story" and then Kaiya was confirmed by Jayson.

After the baptism: Kaiya with Mimi and Papa

Kaiya with Troy, Cassaundra and Ellis

I spent so much time behind the camera that I never got a picture of ME with Kaiya--Bummer!

After the baptism, we had everyone over to our house for refreshments---this was the refreshment table.

Kaiya with a baptism gift from Mimi

It was great that Kaiya's baptism fell on Mother's Day----that means we got to spend Mother's Day with both my mom and Jayson's mom---something that has never happened before! We invited a few more of our favorite moms (GG and Cassaundra) and their families over for Mother's Day dinner before the baptism. For anyone familiar with Cafe Rio, I made a copy-cat version of their Barbacoa Pork Salad----it was SO good---tasted just like the real thing! (I used the pork and dressing recipes from HERE and the cilantro-lime rice recipe from HERE, if anyone is interested.)

I was too busy running around and didn't get any pictures of a salad all made up, but this was the buffet line.

The quint table at dinner (the only parts of the "salad" they would eat were the tortilla, cheese and chips)

My brother Ryan, who lives in McAllen (about 5 hours from here) came up for the day. He is still a swinging bachelor, so he isn't quite used to the noise and chaos at my house, but the kids LOVE him :-)

Riley and I (He gave me the frying pan for Mother's Day)

Me and my mom

Kaiya and Riley with Grandma Wilkinson (Jayson's Mom)

Kaiya's Baptism and Mother's Day

Kaiya Turns 8!

For birthdays, the policy at our house is that the kids can have a birthday party with their friends every other year. This was the rule in my house growing up and now that I am a mother, I can fully appreciate it! Kid birthday parties are a lot of fun, but they can be a lot of WORK too! (That being said, I have no idea how I am going to implement this with the quints yet, since there are five of them....maybe the girls get to have a party one year and the boys the next---when I made this policy, I would never have imagined having quintuplets!)

This was Kaiya's year for a friend birthday party. Within about a month of her last birthday party (nearly two years ago) Kaiya decided that for her 8th birthday, she wanted to have a Hawaiian themed birthday party. I thought for sure she would change her mind in the two years she had to wait for the next party, but she stuck to it! That was fine with me, because I could think of lots of fun things to do with the "Hawaii" theme!

Party Invitation

When all the "passengers" arrived at the party, they boarded the "plane" for Flight 306 service to Honolulu, Hawaii.

All aboard Flight 306--10 very excited, very active, very LOUD girls get ready for take-off!

Once the "plane" had reached its cruising altitude, the passengers were served beverages and snacks.

Snack packs filled with macadamia nuts

The handsome flight attendant (aka Riley) serves drinks to the passengers

The flight attendant collected all trash and remaining service items as the passengers returned their seats and tray tables to their upright and locked positions in preparation for landing.

After the girls "landed", they were greeted with shell leis (which I picked up when I was in Kona in January). Then they completed two different craft projects. First they made some fancy flip-flops and then they put together their own candy lei.

Working on the flip-flops

Fancy Flip-Flops--The finished product!

Making candy leis

Riley models his lei (he didn't think it was manly to curl the ribbons like the girls did)

Next the girls learned a hula dance. I used to live in Hawaii when I was a kid, so I taught them how to do the hula to "Pearly Shells". Jayson took several pictures, but they must be on my other computer, so I will have to add them later :-)

After the hula, the girls played a game called "Boolah, Boolah", which we renamed "Hula, Hula" to go with the Hawaii theme. I remember playing this game at every birthday party I had as a kid, but I think it might be a game that my mom made up, because I have never met anyone else who knows what it is. It is basically a hot/cold game. Someone leaves the room and somebody else hides a prize. When the person comes back into the room, every one sings "boolah, boolah" over and over singing loudly when the person is near the prize and softly when they are far from the prize until the person finds it. The prizes for the game were these cute flower hair bows. I looked at the store for a more tropical flower to make the bows out of, but had to settle for these :-)

The game prizes: Fun Flower Hair bows

Goodie Bags for the girls to take home their loot

The evening ended with dinner! On the menu, Hawaiian Haystacks (which is rice, chicken gravy and toppings which included cheese, crunchy noodles, coconut, pineapple, and macadamia nuts), pineapple and cantaloupe skewers, and Hawaiian sweet rolls. To drink: tropical smoothies (with little umbrellas of course).

The serving table

The party girls enjoying their feast!

If after reading this post, you are thinking to yourself "Wow, she sure planned a lot of stuff for two hours!" You would be 100% correct! The girls barely started eating dinner five minutes before parent started arriving to pick up their daughters! We quickly sang "Happy Birthday" to Kaiya and sent everyone home with a cupcake.

Kaiya with her cake. The shape of the base of the cake is supposed to be an "8" for Kaiya's 8th birthday (it was pretty subtle, I don't think anyone caught on to that). The volcano was made by shaping rice krispie treats around the outside of an 8 oz water bottle. I filled the bottle with Cheerios so that the candles would say put and hopefully make it look like the volcano was exploding. The lava rocks near the base of the volcano are mini and regular sized chocolate chips. The "sand" on the beach is brown sugar. I picked up the hula dancer in Hawaii. The rest is frosting....lots and lots of frosting!

Make a wish!

On Kaiya's actual birthday, we celebrated with a small "family" party. We had GG and Ronnie and the Woods family over for dinner and birthday treat.

Kaiya opening her presents. Ryder was upset that he didn't get to open any.

The whole "family" at Kaiya's family party

I love planning parties, and Kaiya's party was a huge success, but I am glad I don't have to do another one for her for a couple more years! Now time to plan Riley's birthday party...

Kaiya Turns 8!

Princess Kaiya Turns 6!

Friday was Kaiya’s 6th birthday! We celebrated with several parties. We started by taking treats to Kaiya’s Kindergarten class. Most of the other kids bring cupcakes for their birthdays, but Kaiya decided she wanted to be a little bit different and bring ice cream sandwiches. Kaiya also wanted the babies to be there, so we all went over with the stroller.

Kaiya's class lined up along the wall outside to eat their ice cream sandwiches.

Kaiya with a few of her friends

Rustin, Ryder, Kyndall, Kassidy and Kaydence. The babies were fascinated with Kaiya's class. They hardly made a peep the whole time we were there.

As soon as everyone finished their treats, they all swarmed the babies. There were two red-heads in Kaiya's class and they were delighted to see that Rustin had red hair too.

Mrs. Hunt's Kindergarten class poses for a picture

After school we had a "friend" party for Kaiya. At our house, we only do friend parties every other year. This time we did a princess-themed party and it was so much fun! My friend Virginia took all the babies to her house for the afternoon so my mom and I could decorate and get ready for the party. She is superwoman! She took all the pack-n-plays to her house and tried to give the babies a nap, but they didn't sleep very well in the new environment. She played with them all afternoon and brought them back after the party was over. My other friend, Cassaundra, went over around 5:00 pm to help feed and take care of the babies too. These women are amazing!! I could have never pulled off this party without them!

The princesses arrived around 4:00 pm and we took a quick "before" picture before sending them upstairs for makeovers.

"Before": Emma, Kaiya, Molly, Mikayla and Ryley (Princess Vivian arrived fashionably late and didn't make it into the before picture)

At the first make-over station, the girls had their nails done by me.

After nails, the princesses had their hair and make-up done by some "seasoned" princesses---Kayla (above) and Holly (below).

Following the make-overs, headed downstairs for their "Glamour Shots"

Back: Emma, Vivian, Kaiya, Front: Molly, Mikayla, Ryley.

Princess Kaiya

Front to Back: Princess Ryley, Princess Kaiya, Princess Emma, Princess Molly, Princess Mikayla and Princess Vivian

Following the photo shoot, the girls played games while I quickly printed off some of the pictures to use as table decorations, then we had a Princess "Tea Party" (minus the tea--we had pink soda instead).

The Cake. Kaiya has been insisting for months that she wanted a tiered cake for her birthday. I have never made a tiered cake before and this one didn't turn out the way I pictured it in my mind, but in the end I think it still turned out pretty cute!

The table (still missing a few frames)

The place setting. We served flower-shaped peanut butter sandwiches, fruit kabobs and jello-cups. I was so excited when I found the crown frames on clearance for 50 cents a couple weeks ago. My mom and I painted them pink and put the girls names on them with sparkly letters and they looked great!

Time flies when you're having fun, and it was 6:00 pm before we knew it! The parents were arriving to pick up their daughters and we still hadn't done the cake! The girls insisted that we could not skip that part, so we sang Happy Birthday and Kaiya blew out the candles.

Following the "friend" party, we had our "family" party. The term "family" was interpreted a little more loosely---we invited Virginia and her family, Cassaundra and her family and our friends the Woods. At the princess party, we were careful to cut the cake in the back, so no one could even tell from the front that there were pieces taken out and it still looked great for the "family" party.

Kaiya with her presents

The whole "family"

All in all, I think Kaiya had a great day!

Princess Kaiya Turns 6!