A Farewell to Preschool

This past week, we celebrated a proud day for our family. Emily has completed all the requirements to graduate from preschool. While her major was snacktime, she also excelled in many areas including pasting, color identification and playground physical science.

Emily's excellent teachers put together a cute program in which the kids participated to varying degrees (Emily had a touch of stage fright that day).

I dare you to find anything cuter than Emily's little class all lined up.

The highlight of the day was when Daddy gave Emily a rose. Since then she has been carrying it around the house, sometimes in the vase, sometimes out of the vase, sometimes singing to it, sometimes pretending it is the enchanted rose from Beauty and the Beast.

I'm not sure who will miss preschool more - Emily or I. We are so grateful that she was able to participate in such a wonderful program with her amazing teachers. I am excited for her to move on, but we will always remember preschool with a great deal of fondness.

Running with the Wolves

Yesterday was my birthday. I'm getting to the point where I kind of like to just ignore my birthdays, but I have a great family who makes sure that no birthday goes uncelebrated. Among many wonderful gifts, I received this fabulous card from my sister:

Finally, my invitation to join the Team Jacob elite in the form of a temporary tatoo. I couldn't resist.

The results were stunning. Now, for those of you who don't read my blog closely and would spread rumors: THIS IS A TEMPORARY TATOO FROM A GREETING CARD. I WOULD NEVER, NEVER, NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS GET A TATOO.

Okay, now that we're clear on that, I'll let you see how awesome I look:

Jealous much? Yeah, I thought so.

Number 5 is Alive

Yesterday Emily turned 5. I still can't believe it. My preschooler has been replaced by a ready-for-kindergarten five year old kid. In just a year, she's become big enough to buckle herself in the car, pay attention while I read her a whole chapter of a book, order for herself at a restaurant, read a book and (most importantly) ride most of the roller coasters at Disneyland. As hard as it is to say goodbye to all the cute baby characteristics, I must admit that I love all the things that Emily is adding to her resume.

You can't turn 5 without a little recognition. There's nothing Emily loves like a blowout party. Unfortunately for Emily, she has a mom who is not a big fan of party planning or large groups of children. So after a lot of negotiation, we pared the guest list down to a few kids and threw a simple party the Saturday before her birthday. Her chosen theme was Toy Story (changed from Princess so she could invite boys)

This cake was my first foray into fondant. Thanks to Chris' help, it turned out pretty well... for an amateur.

Here is Emily sitting and waiting impatiently for her friends to arrive.

Once they did arrive, we had a rousing game of pin the badge on Sheriff Woody.

*Note: The one on Woody's nose is Jane's. We didn't even blindfold her.
 
And then some pizza, from none other than...

Pizza Planet!

The pinata took quite awhile to crack.

In this shot it looks like Emily had just given the star its deathblow, but let me assure you that the pinata had been wounded for a good 10 minutes and was still a good 10 minutes away from meeting its demise. Oh, and just in case you're wondering... A mid-May birthday in these parts means you have to hit the pinata in the garage rather than the backyard. A tragedy... I know.

The party was actually a relatively mellow success, and none of my worst fears realized themselves.

The celebration continued on Emily's real birthday with presents galore.

I told Emily she could have whatever she wanted for dinner. Her menu: blueberry pancakes and bacon with beignets for dessert. She must have been carbo-loading for something, but I'm still not sure what.

Happy Birthday, five-year-old girl!

Easter

I love Easter. It's a great time to celebrate, the kids love our little traditions and it's about a tenth the work and cost of Christmas.

Who wouldn't love some good old fashioned egg dyeing?

And the loot.

(I must add that only about half of this loot was parent contributed and that 90% of the candy is still in the cupboard, being doled out a few pieces at a time.)

I'm pretty sure that no one loved having 9:00 church. That kind of situation results in Easter morning pictures like this:

 Things improved after church when the kids remembered their loot.

While munching jellybeans, Emily announced, "There was a kid in my class who thought the Easter Bunny was real. I told him he's not real". Like mother, like daughter. Still, we tried to instill a bit more sensitivity in her.

We rounded out our celebration with dinner and an egg hunt with our wonderful adopted family.

All in all it was a lovely celebration and the kids even managed to remember from time to time what we were celebrating. I would consider that an overwhelming success.

Ready or Not...

Today I began the registration process for my firstborn to attend kindergarten. As unreal as that sounds, it's totally true. Our elementary school is overflowing so getting Emily a slot involved standing in line for an hour... in the wind. The whole time I was standing there I was thinking, "Is this really what I want? For her to go to school and be a big kid and to learn swear words from the kids of some of the 'higher quality' parents in line with me?"

Then I realized I didn't have a choice. Because, believe it or not, this kid is ready to go to kindergarten.

Whether or not I'm ready to send her is a different (and unfortunately irrelevant) matter. All I can hope for is that she remains the independent girl I know. I don't ever want her to fit in. She's too good for that.

Reading into it

Two weeks with no preschool can be an eternity for a kid like Emily. She loves learning, she loves interacting with friends and she loves snack time. So when Christmas break rolled around a few months ago, we decided that we needed to come up with a way to keep her busy. We pulled out the treasury of Dick and Jane our neighbors had donated to us  - just to see if Emily was interested. She was.

Since then, she's started trying to read everything - street signs, food labels, error messages on the DVD player. She's even beginning to figure out our not-so-clever code of spelling words in front of her.

Despite the few drawbacks, I love having a reading kid. I love that she read her talk in Primary last month. I love the confidence that is coming with understanding so much more of the world. Here is what I love most about having a reading kid:

I can't express how amazing it is for Jane to trundle up to Emily and demand, "Emily! Read it!", and to see Emily actually sit down and read it.

Next stop: teaching Jane that hands are not for hitting. This could be awhile.

Putting it on Ice

As you know, I promised Emily a trip to Princesses on Ice. I bought the tickets a month ago, before I realized that A) it was conference weekend and, B) the show was playing 50 miles closer the week before. The DVR saved the day on the first difficulty (along with a text my sister sent while I was in a concession line that a temple would be built in Fort Collins) and the second difficulty wasn't that much of a hardship since we had beautiful summer-like weather.

Anyway, Emily had a great time. The excitement began to build as she joined scores of other girls changing into princess dresses in the parking lot.

But then, when the princesses took the ice, it was almost too much. She enjoyed every second.

The halftime show? Sublime. Almost as good as the princesses.

And then, more princesses.

Followed by a spectacular grand finale.

Normally, I wouldn't be thrilled to spend the day watching ice skating princesses, but the company I kept made it a great day.