HaPpY BiRtHdAy.....JaYnA!!!!!

It is quite simple....JAYNA is a JOY to our family!
Today, she turned 8!!!! What a great day it was, despite crazy weather....lots of rain, clouds and wind for the OUTSIDE picnic party!!! (More on that later!)
Jayna has been celebrating since the 1st day of summer "Mom! It's my birthday season!" I don't think she stopped beaming all day today! She even got a phone call from her soon to be 2nd grade teacher! Mrs. Koeller was working on the class calendar and realized that TODAY was Jayna's birthday! That was really neat!

Of course, the traditional "wake up" pics...Colin, Ellie, Andy and I got together at 7am to go wake Jayna up. As we opened her door, I heard Ava say "THEY ARE COMING!" Of course, it was one of the many times we sang Happy Birthday to Jayna today!

We let Jayna open 1 gift (Ava's)...she was elated to get rings and an American Girl book. Colin's gift (glittery ball) was not wrapped, but he carried the ball to her, said "Happy Birthday Jayna" and then tried to take the ball away saying "MINE!"

The Cake Fairy came through again:
1 triple layer strawberry cake
13 strawberry cupcakes (for the party!)
1 strawberry pie...for the birthday girl who dislikes cake!

The girls helped me make fruit-kabobs. YUM YUM...they went over amazingly well; I think these will be a staple for parties and treats!

And, Jayna had a party!

We invited all of the girls going into 2nd grade and 1 special friend from church. Only 1 couldn't make the party! It was fun to be together, and then really fun for the new student at NHCS this year to meet her girl classmates before school starts!

Of course, we've been watching the weather all week--most everything was to be outside.
As of yesterday, all of the weather reports indicated "HOT, HUMID, SUNNY, PATCHY CLOUDS." Hmmmm.....it sure was dark all morning....and then we started hearing thunder....
And then the rain came. I had taken Jayna to the library and as I was driving in the rain, I kept hearing her say "Oh no. Oh NO! This is not good!" We prayed about the weather and I assured her that we had a few hours before we HAD to be outside for the party.

At home, though, Ellie was filling water balloons and setting up an obstacle course with Andy. It started raining and Andy was indicating "this is not good" to Ellie
and she said "DAD! God can change the weather!"

It was still raining hard enough to overflow our gutters when the girls arrived, but they were happy just to be together. They started out with the "let's see Jayna's room" activity and then we had them make sun visors (we were supposed to be under heat advisory with hot sun remember?!). The girls each made a stepping stone, and we had LOADS of outside fun with water games, relay races, an obstacle course and just plain "playing fun" on the trampoline, swingset, and some even climbed one of our trees! (We have wonderful pictures of all of this, but aren't really sure about putting so many photos of girls in their bathing suits on the public blog!)

The cake/pie eating at the party:

The party was a huge success--it wasn't overly hot and sunny,
but at least we could play the games outside!!!

After everyone left, we started our family party.....and started with the kids' gifts and cards:

and moved to the gifts that came in the mail and from us to Jayna. She loves everything; a huge thank you to everyone who showered her with gifts! In the photos below, you'll see Jayna holding a green notebook. She's in 2nd grade now, and now she has a notebook similar to Ellie's...these are "mom/daughter" notebooks. It is so fun; the girls write to me about something happy/sad/hard etc and put the notebook under my pillow. Then, I write back to them and put it under their pillow! A fun tradition.

Aunt Megan was once again creative--Jayna now owns 8 "dollar rings"!
And Aunt Rebekah was very generous....Jayna had gotten hooked on one of her DS games this summer. When Grandma went to look for it at the store, it's no longer available! Rebekah decided she wanted to GIVE Jayna her game. Jayna was thrilled...and touched!

Finally, it was dinnertime and we were all exhausted. We asked Jayna WHERE she'd like to go for dinner and she picked....WENDY'S. (There is a story here, of course....)

Jayna was born around 12:14am on August 13th and I had gone almost 24 hrs with no food; I was very hungry. The hospital cafeteria was closed, so Andy went to WENDY'S for me...in the middle of the night. 1st he went to the Neenah Wendy's...they didn't have late hours, so he had to drive all the way to the Wendy's on the SE side of Appleton. (Jayna knew nothing of this story...)

Today, as we pulled into Wendy's, I said "WEIRD! I had Wendy's the night Jayna was born!" and then we realized that the Neenah Wendy's had just closed (for good!)! She really wanted Wendy's and we ended up on the SE side of Appleton again...8 years later to the day.
Weird huh?!

Finally, Grandma tucked a little DVD into Jayna's box for everyone....click HERE to check out this little video clip to see if it was a hit with our little guy...

What a wonderful day....a day celebrating the birth of Jayna!