Zina's 7!

What a great day!  

I love my 7yr old, and I'm not going to lie - it's not that hard to believe she's 7.  Sometimes I feel like she's 10 instead!

Zina at a glance:

- She is a huge help at home and when I ask her to do something she is quick to obey.

- She requested pancakes with homemade buttermilk syrup for her birthday breakfast.

- and her traditional homemade macaroni and cheese for birthday dinner.

- She loves to read.  The books in the picture below are the books she read in about 5 days.  During the summer we were at the library twice a week to keep her stocked up on books.

- She loves her barbies (but wishes she had as sister to play with her).

- She loves to play soccer outside with Wilson and Papa.  She is also playing a community league and is having a lot of fun and learning lots about the game.

- She loves home school.  She is easy to teach and very self motivated.  The only thing I sometimes have to coax her into doing is journal writing.  But once she's done it I love to read her entries.

- Sometimes when she's really mad you better watch out.   It might be rare but when the fire gets roaring it's really really hot.

-  She has to be tucked in bed with a hug and a kiss every night - and I always have to make sure the closet doors are closed or else I will be back in for another hug and kiss and tuck.

-  She does not like to get up early.  Hence, part of the reason she loves home school. :)

- Her favorite song is "Call Me Maybe."  She rocks it just like a teeny bopper and knows every.single.word.

- She has a great memory and is always the first to recite the articles of faith or give answers in primary.

- Don't tell, because she'll get really mad, but secretly we still call her "Herzione"  after her favorite Harry Potter know-it-all character Hermione.  The similarities are sometimes just to striking. :)

For her birthday Zina's only request was that the boys leave and her and Mama spend the afternoon together baking/making her birthday cake!

What a sweet girl!  

She picked out one she liked online and then we went to work creating her desired red velvet fondant cake.

I have zero experience with fondant but we had fun watching you tube tutorials on how to make flowers and color it and listened to our favorite music.  

The finished cake and the birthday girl!  

She designed it exactly how she wanted it.

Mark and the boys had fun at the park and had time to mow the lawn (Wilson ran about 30 laps around the yard) by the time we were done!

She was super happy with it and the red velvet was surprisingly good!  

(I just had to mentally forget how much red food coloring it actually called for - yuck!)

She was very happy with all of her presents, barbies, books, and her very own soccer ball.

Since we didn't have friend birthday parties this year we let the kids pick a birthday activity.
Zina wanted to go to Gull Meadow Farms which is about 2 minutes from our house.

So the day after her birthday we invited Zina and Wilson's favorite friend here in Kzoo and headed to the farm.  I was hoping it would be cooler fall weather but we all got sunburns and were exhausted by the end of the day.  They had tons of fun activities and yummy apple and pumpkin donuts that we all enjoyed.

Even the big kids had fun. :)

After her birthday party on Friday Mark was feeling guilty that he hadn't spent that much time with her (she did request a "girl only" afternoon) so he sat and visited with her while tucking her in bed.  He said she was practically bubbling with all the wonderful things that had happened to her that day and told him about 30 different things in the span of about 15 minutes. :)  

That makes me smile. 

 Zina is easy to please and for this very pregnant Mom a girls afternoon spent baking and crafting was just what the Dr. ordered.  

Happy Birthday Zina!  

I love you forever!