Happy Birthday Kayla!!

We have had a full day of birthdaying and tomorrow we shall continue. Saturday will bring more of the same and maybe even a little on Sunday. Now that Kayla is the ripe old age of 12, her face will be sporting make-up. I predict lots of eyeliner-just like her big sister. As a matter of fact, the two of them have more in common than eyeliner. For two full weeks they are both 12. Oh yes, I DID have two babies without even a year between them. Erika really hates being the same age as her younger sibling. Kayla loves to tease her about it. Sisterly love is alive and well.

My favorite Kayla memories:

• The Kayla haircut. Everyone in our family and lots of our friends know exactly what I am talking about. As a toddler, Kayla had long hair. It was cute, curls and looked really sweet in dog ears. However, she wanted a haircut. Soooo, I took her in and she got her hair cut into a bob. Oh my word, she was the cutest thing ever and her hair just naturally curled under and it was oh so sweet. The Kayla cut was around for as long as we could keep it.
• Tot School. I had a newborn baby, Lilly and Erika got to go to kindergarten. Kayla was a devastated middle child( a role she still maintains!). So, I enrolled her in preschool. She loved it. And, every so often, 3 or 4 tot-schoolers got to travel to the college and film Tot school for the public access channel. Once a month or so, it was her turn. However, her turn came around often when they realized how much she loved being on TV. In fact, we toyed with the idea of renaming it the Kayla show. Most of the kids just were quiet and did their little craft, ate their snack and waved good-bye. Kayla knew this was her 15 minutes of fame and she milked it for all it was worth. And we loved every minute of it. And we still do when we watch the tapes. That is some good TV.
• Batman. Kayla loved Batman. All superheroes really but Batman was her favorite. The best we can figure is that one year for our anniversary, Erik and I went to St. Louis without the kiddos. While there we went to Six Flags, rode the Batman and brought back a picture of us on the Batman ride. This is about the same time the Batman obsession started. It lasted a long time and made Kayla very popular with her boys that were friends and cousins. She could play action figures with the best of them and had a nice collection. It made for very tough Christmases because Batman had not become so mainstream as he is now. He's everywhere now-then there were only actions figures and vintage items on ebay. We have a few Vintage batman items we have saved as keepsakes.
• Plug-in girl. Kayla invented her own superhero-Plug-in Girl. Thankfully no plug-ins were involved, just a snazzy costume from the dress up box including a cape.
• Suggest. Her imaginary friend was named Suggest. I still draw a blank on this one but it was an early indicator as to just how smart and creative she would become.
• There are so many more memories. Kayla was a bubbly energetic little girl. Then she learned to read and evolved into a bookworm that asked a ton of questions and absorbed as much info as humanly possible. I can't wait to see what new things are in our future...and I can't help but pray that they are all as tame as purple hair.