I can’t believe my little Clara turned five in April. I pulled up some pictures from my first blog post announcing her arrival and am hit that once again I’ll be bringing another one home in just four short months!
She’s growing by leaps and bounds – we’re working on reading and she’s catching on very fast. We’re officially unschooling her…and really consider that we’ve been doing it since the very beginning anyway! While her friends go off to Kindergarten, we’ll continue with Judson Pre-K for 3 days a week for both girls while we adjust to new baby. Fall of 2013 will be a different story – I still have my hopes up for a co-op to get the girls involved in, but unfortunately, the amount of judgement I’ve faced either from not going to church or from no homeschooling the “right” way has excluded us from every co-op I’ve investigated. Ugh. I have a year to find one or great my own.
At this point, we have a lot of randomly connected friends. With preschool, that’s 12 students (not counting parents and sibs), and that doesn’t even include our whole family and other friends.
So, magic solution: an annual Easter Egg Hunt/Birthday party for Clara! We did a big potluck out at YiaYia and Papa’s, and in lieu of gifts, people brought eggs to hide for a big Easter egg hunt for everyone!
Clara opted for a chocolate chip cookie cake. Unfortunately, there were no leftovers.
Party #2 was the day before her actual birthday (moved up spontaneously due to rain)! This was just her preschool class, which turned out great! We had a garden-themed party – worms in “dirt” (cocoa, graham crackers, sugar and a little butter), the cake I brought home from a cake decorating class, and party favors were them decorating a flower pot and planting their own purple petunia to take home.
One of her best buds, Abby Lara.
And the big investment…a pinata. Of course it couldn’t be just any pinata, but a unicorn one. That we decided to do last minute, so I got to pay top-dollar.
It was worth it, though – the kids had a blast, and it ended with the only boy, Harrison, essentially decapitating the poor unicorn.
Days before Ellie gave up her paci for good….
Grammy and Poppa D got Clara her very own fancy camping tent, so the girls had to try it out right away.
Cookie-pops Clara took to school on her birthday:
And here are all the “mamas” in Clara’s life…Auntie Ilea, YiaYia, Mommy…
And here they are with Grammy as well!
Little Ellie is quite the big girl now – potty trained, no pacifiers, sleeping in a big girl bed in Clara’s room, talking 100 miles a minute…. She’s in a language study at Vanderbilt and they were testing her at a 6 1/2 year old level! She is such a big talker it’s insane. Between Clara and her, even I can’t get a word in edgewise!
Considering I just got through April, I’m going to do a few more posts…
Amazing she is 5, and you’re about to have your 3rd kid. Wow. And what a party. Our kids get a big party one year, small party the next and so forth. It’s just a bit much for us. But even their big party isn’t this big! Eager to see my nieces soon.