It took a long time fore Em to decide she was Anna (because Elsa is the only one who has any special powers) but when I put these stickers up, it clicked in her brain that she was the same size as Anna and she exclaimed, "Mom, I really am Anna! Look, we are the same size!" She has embraced it ever since.
Actually doing the pose...see K's fingers and them leaning back to back with Em's hands behind her back...
Once friends showed up, we began taking pics of everyone, though I won't post all of them. It's mostly the usual cast of characters though we have added a few new faces.
Our neighbors
We decorated cookies in the kitchen. There were snowflakes and Olaf's to be created. Olaf is the goofy, adorable, fun-loving snowman in the story.
This is the girl they did the dance with at Christmas, from church.
My new friend Christina's kids, well, two of them, she has five. We have bonded over Christ and kids. Emma has been losing her hearing and they just found out she is deaf. They are headed to UCLA to look into cochlear implants but aren't sure what all is going on. Pray for her!
Since we are in a drought and haven't had rain in forever, it was actually a nice day to play outside...on Kylie's birthday, in January. It saved my house!! There was so much less cleaning this year. :-)
The bouncehouse is always a hit.
This is the birthday cake that I made. Yes, egg-free with fondant. I am quite proud since I didn't have any cookie cutter shapes for those snowflakes so I made them by hand.
And this was our general set-up. Pictures with Anna and Elsa on the left, cake in the middle, food on the right. The stickers and poster are going to move into the girls' room as their new decorations. They wanted a Frozen room and a Frozen party...check, check.
Back outside, I caught some pics of the littles who didn't want a pic with the princesses.
I am fairly certain the sand has always been wet this time of year so it was both fun and strange to see everyone playing in it.
These two little monsters had the same idea...decorate their tummy as Olaf.
There is a completed Olaf...well, without the orange candy-slice nose.
We played pin the snowflake on Elsa's hand and estimate the number of kisses in the jar. Auntie Krista won the jar and Em, yes, the only one we know didn't cheat cause her glasses were off, won the snowflake. :-)
Awwww, there's my baby girl.
Then we opened presents...
And there was a whole lot of this...
And this...
I finally got him in a picture, smiling...this is my neighbor's son.
And this...yes, hugging inanimate objects.
After the party, K put on her dress and wig and posed.
We ate lunch with our cousins.
And Em turned into Anna. My little Anna and Elsa holding their little Anna and Elsa dolls and standing next to Anna and Elsa on the wall. Yes, it gets to be a lot. :-)
Saying 'bye-bye" to Nana and Poppy.
Oh my, look at the time, I better sign off this post!
But first a little word about my oldest...she is amazing and I am certain I could not love her more than I do now, though I have thought this many times and each day my love somehow grows yet again.
Kylie is artistic, genuinely good at drawing freehand and always found coloring unless her sister has made her play. She is crafty too. I can show her a craft on google and she goes and makes it, asking me for help only when she needs it. She learns so very fast and retains an inordinate amount of information. She is curious and needs to know about everything. Today I had to decide how much she needed to know about how babies are made. Yep, she asked. (I started from the egg in her belly and left the guy completely out of it, for those dying to know how I answered it. Then I showed her a video of fetal development on the ipad).
She is a girly, girly, girly girl. This makes her emotional but also means she is filled with compassion and emotional understanding, especially for Emily and I. She can calm the storm in both of us with her tender love and care - and she is only five! Her compassion makes her amazing with animals and she still claims she is going to grow up and become a zoo vet.
She has learned to read basic books and often writes me notes all spelled phonetically, which is adorable to me. For instance, she spells giraffe, jraf, and zebra, zebru, and butterfly, butrfi. I told her today that now that she was five I should start correcting her spelling and teaching her the right way to do it and she replied, "No you don't need to do that Mom, just sound it out." She has always been verbal but now she can calmly voice her feelings and this has opened my eyes to the complexity of who she is. She is amazing and I can't wait to see what a new year of her life brings to all of us!
God Bless! And thanks to all who sent presents or came to the party!! She has been having a great week of birthday! I will send pics soon...I hope!
