My birthday girl! Oh, how I love this kid. This special, special kid. Taylor swears she’s my favorite … not true … I truly love them all … they are all just different and hold different places in my heart. Does that make sense?

More on that later … let me first tell you about Piper’s birthday party.

I love birthday’s and try to make each one special for the girls. I start asking them a few months out, what kind of party they’d like to have. First Piper told me a roller skating party … of course, that’s cuz she’d just been to a friend’s skating party. So I went ahead and booked the skating rink, had the invitations all set to go … planned to get a cake in the shape of a skate {been there, done that … I think it was Taylor’s ninth birthday party?}.

But then Piper changed her mind. She wanted a ‘gymnastics’ party instead. Okay … scratch all that. Now we’re planning a gymnastics party. Rented the gymnastics center, got new invites, favors … cake. Yeah, I couldn’t find a theme cake, so I tried to match the design of the invite … after all, I’m all about themes and matching. Even if no one else notices, I feel good knowing I’ve got a flow … I’m a dork like that.

Anyway.

Piper counted. down. every day til her party. Not her real birthday … her party. Beyond excited!

So the day finally came and I had one happy girl on my hands. Following are a few photos and you can see more here.

This is her cake from Sweetness by Alice … it was absolutely yummy!!

Piper with her friends as the party is starting.

I love how Hunter is right in the mix … everyone’s listening to the do’s and don’ts of the gymnasium.

Having just a little bit of fun!

Lunch, cake and wishes …

And now for some photos from her real birthday! When she woke this morning, we sang her Happy Birthday and CJ pulled out the infamous candy bag {that’s another post!}. She picked out a giant 3 musketeer bar and got to eat it after breakfast! Lucky kid and the envy of her sisters too!

Then a traditional morning crab hunt on the beach.

I love that I caught her in these quiet moments. It’s so Piper. Her mind wanders off easily …

Then we went to a bio reserve for a jungle walk. It was pretty cool … except it was extremely hot and Wynter was having a few crazy meltdowns! We saw some howler monkeys and another species of monkey, but I can’t recall the type {and am too lazy to try to research it right now}. We also went to the beach as part of the reserve and it was filled to the brim with crabs … the girls were having a blast chasing them! Kinda reminded me of Taylor chasing the pigeons in Venice when she was a toddler.

So here are my girls … who I had to beg to get this photo. It was the best one I got. Hot, tired kids … ya think?

And when we got back to the house for lunch, the staff had decorated for Piper’s birthday. She loved the surprise! Piper takes after me and my love of birthdays, and she takes after her dad and his love of chocolate!

After lunch we took our turns at the pinata … the girls were hilarious! Wynter had quite the technique … she’d kick one leg up in the air each time she hit it. And unfortunately, looks like Piper got her athletic skills from me. I used to close my eyes when hitting a baseball {shh, don’t tell!}, although my coach may have been hip to the fact, given that I never got played!

After dad finally beat the thing open for them, they dove into the jackpot.

And no birthday’s complete without a cake … and this girl loves her cake!

So let me tell you what’s so special about this kid that Taylor claims is my favorite …

I love that she has the most soulful eyes. I’ve said it before, but anything Piper is feeling you’ll see in her eyes. Excitement, sadness, fear, happiness, thoughtfulness … just look into those big brown eyes. And if you happen to catch her when she’s got a big ol’ crocodile tear coming out of one of them … well then, she’s got ya good!

I love that she loves. She loves deeply. She cares deeply. She thinks deeply.

She shares.

She cares.

She has empathy for others and tries to include everyone. Our famous line for Piper is, “you sad daddy?” I once {only once …} happened to raise my voice, or get a tad snippy towards Curt, and of course Piper caught it and asked right away, “you sad daddy?” I learned a lesson, but we also got a fun reminder on how to check ourselves every once in a while when one of us does something unfair to the other … we just throw out a little, “you sad _____” and we start laughing.

Piper is brave. She’s adventurous. She’s forgetful and absentminded.

She loves her friends. She loves her family.

And I love her. Happy birthday my Piper J.

{see more pictures from Piper’s birthday here}