Sweet Caroline

My little girl turned five today - FIVE - holy smokes. She's a princess now, but she is going to be a queen before we know it.

We've been building up this birthday into something special, and she's been enjoying every minute of it. On Sunday she got to pick out her cupcakes, and yesterday we had a small party at school. Matilda managed to pull all that off by himself (cupcakes, plates & napkins, gift bags, emergency re-allocation of gift bags due to extra kid in the class, etc etc) since Doc was out of town attending to urgent matters of familial import. Last night, we got some cool gifts from Aunt Rae and Callie & Emma and made them into jewelry in the oven.


Today we all slept in, had breakfast together, and then Caroline and Doc played hooky all day while Sam went to school (Jack is off at Nana-Camp). First they got a check up (but no shots!), then they got their hurh did. Caroline loved every minute of the salon, especially the wash / blow dry part.

We had a great lunch date at Mad Hatter, and there was cake baking and decorating this afternoon, and cupcakes left over. GG came up for dinner and we just had a grand old time. The whole day, Caroline was just glowing, gliding around and glancing approvingly at everything that was happening. Just like all was right with the world, and everything was as she expected it to be, a perfect birthday.

 

It was great to have GG here - Caroline always shines from a special place when she is with either one of her grandmothers. We've got another party slated for Friday night in Sparty with Bud and Nana and Brother Jack.

Sammy played the role of the adoring little brother to the hilt, doting on Caroline and eagerly devouring at least two portions of cake. He helped Caroline open some of her gifts, but not so much as to be grabby. He managed to score a pretty sweet kiss from his big sister as compensation.

Dean Dog even got in on the action:

All in all, another fantastic princess-edition party, one more year down the road. This year has big adventures in store for Caroline: graduation from Children's Corner, starting Sternberger, turning 5, first soccer season coming up. She's really coming into her own - it will be amazing to see what joy the next year holds.

I love you, girl.