Adelaide goes to school full time, but this was an extra special day - First Day of VPK!
Adelaide's teacher is Ms. Sarah and Adelaide is trying her hardest to transition away from her 3 year old class. It took a few weeks and a whole lot of laundry, but she did it. The classroom is small, around 10 children but Adelaide is of course the smallest and youngest. In an effort to help A catch up we have also enrolled her into a private phonics class.
The difference between the old school and new is tremendous. Everyday Adelaide comes home and will actually tell us what she did that day, the letter she learned and who forgot show and tell. The days that we are the ones that forget show and tell I definitely get the guilt trip. I am sure there is a lot of that to come.
This is the first year we let Adelaide decide what kind of party she wanted and of course she needed to keep sister in mind. Her first response was an orange party, she really is a little Vol at heart. The second request was a castle, not to be mistaken with a princess party. We aren't quite sure why but when we went on vacation to Hawaii, Adelaide became completely fascinated with castles. She told everyone that she had a castle in Florida, Alabama and Hawaii. We of course had to throw a little pink into the party for little sister and there it was, an Orange and Pink Castle Party.
We've been preparing for this birthday for weeks and it's finally here. After a week of constructing the main attraction and an evening of baking it is time for the guests to arrive! The girls had their matching monogrammed dresses (love etsy) and they wore their hats too (surprise).
The castle was made with appliance boxes courtesy of Grant's job, a bunch of zip ties and Target had a bunch of angry customers if they were looking for orange or pink tissue paper that week. We were really nervous about the castle withstanding a dozen kids, but surprise it stayed fully intact for three months after the party too.
We had friends and family from all over join in the castle fun. The biggest fear with throwing a party is that no one shows up, not the case here. The kids all seemed to have a great time and everyone was super generous and loving with the girls.
On to the important part of the day...CAKE! Each year I torture my dear Mother-In-Law Stephenie with cake baking and decorating the night before the party. This year I did help the cause by baking the cake in advance which was a good thing since we were also trying to clean up the construction mess while we should have been decorating. We did it again...a homemade castle cake! Penelope wasn't a real fan of her cupcake, but cousin Brooke did an excellent job painting her hands with it.
Last but not least there was one BIG surprise gift from Mommy and Daddy...a Jeep. We have learned that it's a good thing keys aren't going to be in A's hands for many years and that P doesn't easily get whiplash.
At the end of the day everyone was exhausted and there was one happy Mommy.
Oh and thanks to the little photog for the day, I didn't pick up the camera once.
