Elena is 8 years old! How did that happen?? The past year of her life has had some serious disruptions, but she has come through it all even more impressive and sure of herself than she was before. We are having so much fun watching her turn into her own person.
The Goerss grandparents had sent a present quite early, and it was too big to really hide it, so I had left it in our room, and Elena had been counting down the days until she was allowed to open it. I was proud of her for starting with the card though, which turned out to be a lot of fun just on its own.
Upon finally opening the present, she was thrilled to find her very own dog. She has been asking for a real dog for years, and we've told her no because of how often we move, but this was the next best thing.
She also got lots of great workbooks and board games. I got some fun pictures of her reaction to her new Jenga game, and the subsequent match with Vivian.
The birthday queen triumphed!
She had also used her Christmas Disney gift cards from my parents to buy a Beauty and the Beast tea cart, and it showed up just in time to be opened for her birthday.
Jeff and I then spent a large portion of the morning wrestling it into the proper configuration.
We're not big birthday party people, but Elena, like the rest of her family, loves a good meal in a restaurant, so we took her to our local favorite, Alexis. The girls decided that lunch out meant dressing up, so they put on lovely dresses.
Vivian had just bought a new dress with her cat sitting money, so she changed into yet another dress for cupcakes. We had invited a few friends over to help sing and eat the cupcakes, so the girls worked on training Elena's new dog while we waited for the guests to arrive.
I had gotten Elena some fun birthday balloons the day before,
so she had those and a couple more presents framing her birthday seat.
Of course, the most important part was the cupcake.
The next day my big eight year old was up bright and early for her first swim lesson with a new teacher.
She's such a big girl. She's working on learning proper swim strokes, and she's graduated to regular size Lego instead of Duplo.
One of her friends had a party with animals, and she was front and center to check them all out. She loves all kinds of animals.
I'm so proud of her that I even let her try out my brand new chair.
It's reassuring to see that it's still a bit too big for her, but it won't be for long. She's growing up fast, and she never ceases to amaze us.
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