Elle turns 6!

It is this crazy mixture of feelings. It seems like life moves at warp speed especially around birthdays. How is my baby six? Where does time go? She.is.six. School starts for her this week and she is thrilled! These transitions are tough for her. She says she is fine, but I can tell she has some apprehensions about a new school, new teacher, and new schedule. There are so many wonderful perks to being a teacher. However, when it comes to your child's first day, you can't very easily "call in late" to your job. That being said, Scott gets to take her tomorrow to her orientation day to kdg at Kettle Lake. I feel like I am more of a wreck about this year than she is. Simply put it is lack of control...on my part. It's not my school, not my friend as her teacher, I don't know all the ins and outs, I don't know the kids. Whew! Good thing I can hide my issues!!
When I look back at Ella turning six the things I really want to remember are: how sweet and helpful she is. She is such a mother hen. Sheeze! I will remember how meticulous she is and how much joy she gets from spending tons of time on her ponies hair and she will spend for-ever doing Ainsley's hair and changing her clothes. She is full fledge into the American Girl Doll stuff. We are bonding over it. She adores all the little accessories, getting her ready, and changing her outfits. This was the main gift theme for her birthday. Even though she picked a My Littlest Pet Shop Theme for the party (decorations only). Most of her gifts revolved around her doll. She was over the moon, thrilled! It is so sweet. I am soaking it up, enjoying these simple joys.
Our party this year was on a more simple and intimate scope. I couldn't believe how easy it was. We had a few friends and family over for pizza on Sunday--her actual bday. It was over, before school began. I didn't have any major projects hanging over my head once school started. WOW! It was nice. I even went commercial and we did an ice cream cake from DQ. Evan's bday is next weekend so we decided to combine the celebration. I figure I will throw her a big AMG Doll party when she is 7 and has local friends who have dolls. Then we will do it big. As for this year, we seemed to celebrate all August long (gifts and cake in MN, party & gifts on bday, Gifts from out of state family this weekend). She is blessed and our family is richly blessed by her. She is so full of life, spunk, silliness, and seriousness. My prayer for her is that she hits a great balance of all of this and lives life to the fullest.
I am behind in blogging (typical of this time of year) but stay tuned for pics from a great Labor Day weekend and the first day of school.