11 Things About Kayla

1.   This girl loves to read.  She starts the day with a book in her hands and usually ends the day with a book in her hands.   She has had made the million word club every year since second grade and this year she made the two million word club.   I often have to tell her to please stop hoarding books from the school library because others might be waiting to read the same ones.  She always has atleast three to four checked out at a time piled up on her nightstand.

2.  Soccer would be Kayla's second favorite thing.  She plays it constantly, every day at recess and lunch she is playing soccer on the fields and more than often she is playing with all boys except for maybe the few girl friends she might talk into playing with her.   She loves to play which is great because she is pretty darn good.

3.   Kayla is an amazing writer!  She loves to write stories and has notepads full of her stories collected from over the years.   We've kept them all and I love hearing the stories that she comes up with in her head.  She is so imaginative and creative.  

4.  She drives me bananas with her stubborn nature!   She does not like being told what to do or will not accept help because she knows what she's doing always!   She has been this way since the day she was born and there's nothing we can do about it except bite our tongues and try our best to handle it better every day but boy does she drive me crazy.

5.  Kayla's favorite book series is The Wings of Fire series which is all about dragons.   She is obsessed with this series and has read them all and is now patiently waiting for the 11th book to come out this June.  She has become obsessed with dragons and loves everything about them.  Some are obsessed with unicorns but our Kayla is obsessed with dragons.

6.   She loves her sister dearly.   Their bond is amazing and even though they are two years apart they are the best of friends.   Kayla and Brooklyn play together, write together, read together, tell stories together.  They do everything together and get along so well and hardly ever get into any fights or arguments.  Kayla will hug and squish Brooklyn's face and tell her how adorable she is just about every day.   They giggle, run around like crazies and get into trouble together constantly and I couldn't be more thankful for their relationship.

7.  She wants to be a  veterinarian when she grows up but not just a cat and dog vet she wants to be an exotic animal veterinarian.   Her favorite show is Dr. K's Exotic Animal ER and while Brooklyn and I can barely watch it at times because, surgeries, Kayla doesn't mind one bit she enjoys learning all she can about animals and says she can't wait to have a ton of animals in her home when she moves out.

8.  Kayla used to draw and do art all of the time but for awhile she had stopped drawing saying she was never that good but for Christmas we got her a, How to Draw Dragons book and since then she has been drawing again a whole lot more.   She is a great artist and always has been so I'm so happy she has been spending more time drawing and enjoying it once again.

9.  Learning comes incredibly easy for her.   Her brain is a sponge and she remembers everything she's ever read, seen or learned in the classroom or out of the classroom.   This does not go wasted because she is like our random fact girl and she's always following me around and saying, "Hey, Mom did you know...?"  She loves to share all of these facts she learns with us all and I can't tell you how many times we've been someplace and we look to Kayla if we don't know the answer, especially if it's about animals.  

10.  She is our not so easy to please child!  She complains A LOT!!!  At times and as a parent this is extremely hard because she acts like whatever we have planned our whatever we are going to do it is not going to be fun.   She's always been this way and after years of getting angry with her we've gotten better at handling it.  She does not like change and I think this is one of the ways that she deals with it when she knows we are doing something new or changing things up a bit she gets uncomfortable and complaining is just her way of dealing with the change in her routine.  We know she's going to complain but once she is where we are going she gets over it and ends up having a great time. 

11. Kayla loves orange chicken and if we ask her what she wants

 for dinner it is always orange chicken. This is one of the reasons we have Panda Express on Friday nights.  It's become our tradition because Kayla requests it so often that now even Brooklyn requests Panda Express as well.   Every Friday she'll hope in the car after school and ask what's for dinner if I say Panda Express she knows she'll be eating orange chicken and she's one happy girl!

 She is 11 today and it is hard to believe that it's gone by this fast!  She is beyond excited to be starting Middle School next year and all of the extra work and classes that comes along with that doesn't seem to scare her one bit.   I know she will be able to handle it all because she is good at just about anything and everything she has ever tried or done.   She has done so well at keeping the right kinds of friends and ignoring the drama that is going on around her.   She makes me beyond proud to be her mom even when she is driving me crazy!   I know that her stubbornness and strong willed personality is what is going to get her exactly where she wants to go in life.  I know so many kids struggle day to day with learning so her ease at life does not go unnoticed to me and I hope that she will always be grateful and never take advantage of all of the gifts that she's been giving.  She's definitely been a huge gift to me!

~Happy 11th Birthday Kayla~