So for starters...The Munch turned five in September. Five. Half a decade. A fifth of a quarter of a century. AND she's now school-age, and we're officially homeschooling. In ten years she'll be in high school...or maybe sooner, if she keeps going on the whole strong-in-academics thing that she's got going on right now, who knows? All I know right now is that she's growing up way too fast...and she knows it and is proud of the fact!
Labor Day Weekend, the Munch's birthday weekend, was a very, very busy time for us. Grandma M came into town on Wednesday as a surprise for the Munch. I was working with my nanny family that day, so Daddy brought his mom over there for a short time as soon as she got into town, and what a huge grin of delight spread across our little girl's face when she saw her!
We spent the next couple of days shopping and preparing for both the Munch's and Little A's parties, eating out at Grandma's favorite restaurant Portillos, then eating out again at a breakfast diner to celebrate her own birthday on the 4th.
The Mini really liked the taste of Portillos...table-cloths...
We also had to take time out of both of those days to celebrate the life of an adopted-by-the-heart uncle, who had lived to be just a few months shy of 101. He's in heaven now celebrating with the Savior he would praise even during Happy Birthday songs. :) It's hard to be sad when I think of him, because I know it was what he wanted most, and all he was waiting for, but he will still be missed here. He's buried beside Grandma's parents, so it was extra special for her to be able to be there--not only could she say a 'see-you-later' to her uncle, but she was able to visit the graves of her parents as well, which isn't something that has happened often.
We took a family photo while we were there.
The Mini was not super-well behaved for the internment...
but she sure was super-cute!
So, shopping, funeral, dining out, more shopping, more dining out, and suddenly in the span of about 12 hours, 3 days had passed and it was Saturday. I'd love to know how that timing works too...and would also love to be able to reverse it so I could get more done! But Saturday meant it was time for Little A's 5th birthday party. Her mama had gotten some face paint and had asked me, the artistic one, to be in charge of it. Oh darn, twist my arm. :) When I got there, I found not only face paint, but also glitter tattoos: Basically you put a stencil on a hand, put glue over that, then dab glitter on and pull the stencil off. It makes for some beautiful artwork, and does it ever stay put!!! Two weeks later, baths and handwashings galore, the Munch STILL had some on her hands, because you really have to scrub to get any of it off. We did eventually do just that, but not until most of the glitter was finally gone on its own. But anywho...you can guess what was the most popular among all the little girls... They each got two, one per hand. I wouldn't have even touched the face paint if it hadn't been for Little G, and even then, he took some convincing...offering him an airplane on his cheek did the trick. :)
We all enjoyed a tasty lunch, endured the laughing screams of 4 excited little girls (not counting the Mini, who loves to 'sing' for her supper) and 2 little boys with great patience, and finally settled down for the cake and gifts.
If you can call THIS 'settling down'... :)
Little A blew out the not-backwards-to-her candle with ease.
After every gift Little A opened, she would turn instantly and hand it to her mama. This was the result. :)
The Mini busied herself with pulling out every single toy she could find while the rest of the party-goers were distracted by the gift-opening.
Our annual picture...except this year, they refused to take a good picture until Little G got included with the 5 and almost-5-year-olds.
From last year. The girls don't seem to have changed much, but Big D has definitely been doing some growing up in the past year!
The following day was prep for our own party, which would take place on Labor Day. It was a...very busy day. I find it frustrating that after several years of doing relatively big parties, I still haven't been able to figure out how to get everything done at the right time so that I'm not rushing around frantically at the last minute. This year's parties were no exception, so Sunday was crazy. But come Monday morning, the Munch enjoyed as great a party as she could have hoped for.
All year long, the Munch has been telling me what kind of birthday party she wanted for when she turned 5. It never changed too much--yellow was always a part of it, but narrowing it down from there was a little harder. She finally settled on having a yellow-kitty-cat birthday. Except that the cat stuff needed to be black. Makes perfect sense, right? This actually ended up working really well for me though, because I was planning on having a busy-bee party for the Mini the following month...so I just got a little extra of all the yellow and black decorations, and I was set for both parties! If only I might be so lucky every year...
I got online and poked around for cat-theme ideas this year, and found some fun ones... Name tags for cat collars that the kids could wear, an easter-egg-mouse hunt, cat books to read, and a couple of kitty treats:
Swedish fish in blue jello, and chocolate truffle mice. I used corn pops instead of almond slivers for the ears because one of our guests has nut allergies, and they turned out beautifully!
The kids later decided that the plastic cats I found and used as decorations ought to be hunting the fish and hanging hungrily over all those 'aquariums'... :)
The Munch decided to make her birthday her own personal costume party. :) She got this costume as a hand-me-down from some friends of ours shortly before her party. Talk about perfect timing! She also named herself "Meow" for the day, and wrote it on her collar.
We had lots of friends come to celebrate!
Superman is growing up so fast! A friend of ours from our small group.
Auntie S. enjoyed lots of Mini-time. Our ballet friend and her mama.
We enjoyed our usual birthday-for-the-Munch meal of hot dogs and mac and cheese, then sat down to open gifts. There were a few things that she'd been asking us for recently, or that we'd noticed she really enjoyed at other peoples' homes, and Daddy and I had settled on getting her a scooter. Then Daddy made the perfect find--A YELLOW scooter. Suffice to say, she was thrilled, and so were we. Who needs princess stuff when you've got yellow? :)
Mountains of More-ness. Always a little scary to see, but it gets absorbed into the house as other things leave or get stored for the Mini. The art stuff especially has been such a great pass-time for her. Our Munch was a very spoiled little kitty cat.
And finally...the cake! I'm so proud of my basket-weave. It's been years since I did this for a friend's cake, but it turned out beautifully. The cake itself ended up being heavier than it should have been, but it was still fun to make it and pile it up with frosting.
The following day was the Munch's actual birthday, and also the start of her year as a Kindergartener!
I've bought a black whiteboard, and use it to make little messages like this one...
To celebrate the day, we had pancakes for breakfast. I made a '5' pancake for the Munch (remembering to start it backwards this time!)...and then later deleted the picture I took from my camera before I realized I hadn't transferred it to the computer. Sigh. But at least I didn't lose the picture of the Mini enjoying her first bite of pancakes...
She loved them!
The Munch spent her birthday doing her first day of Kindergarten, which of course she loved, and decorating a jewelry box she'd gotten at her party.
She loved decorating this box so much, and I enjoyed leaving her to herself to decorate how she pleased so much, that before I knew it, she'd glued the thing shut. Oops. At least we were able to get it open again later.
That evening after the girls were in bed, Daddy found a little package from my mom by our front door. The people who delivered it never even rang the bell (a consistent problem, regardless of who delivers, it seems), so it was lucky Daddy happened to use the front door that evening. We let the Munch open her package the next morning, and how perfect a gift for our new Kindergartener! A pencil case with crayons, colored pencils, tiger scissors, and other goodies. We used it that very day, when I started my new job helping a friend with her homeschooled family.
That prettymuch covers the first week of September...and the rest of the fall really didn't slow down...Now you know why I disappeared from my blog for all this time...Life is good. But kinda crazy...
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