Once she finally got dressed, she went to check on her seeds.
Then, it was time to show Alice her birthday cake!
I don't know where she gets these poses from. I can't wait until she's a teenager--it's going to be great.
Then, we went to school. Zac and I stayed in her classroom for morning circle and her "around the sun" ceremony. But first, she was doing some work and socializing with her friends.
After the morning circle, they did the "around the sun" ceremony. The teacher who was kind enough to record it for us didn't realize that Zac's phone had ran out of room and cut off the video. Luckily, Zac snapped some shots with my phone.
Each time Alice went around, the class all sang, to the tune of Farmer in the Dell, "The earth goes around the sun, the earth goes around the sun, every time it goes around another year is done." Then Zac would add a candle to the cake and I would show a photograph of Alice at that age and read another paragraph of the text below (it's the Montessori birthday celebration template--I kept this as a googledoc and added to it each year since it would be difficult to remember the highlights of the previous years, even with the help of this blog.) It's actually a pretty amazing way of teaching kids about time (what is a year?) and their personal history. Sometimes Alice will come home with interesting facts about her classmates that she gleans from their own Around the Sun ceremonies. Like, "Mom, did you know Nate liked milk as a baby and he still loves milk?"
After the ceremony, we all sang happy birthday, then each kid came and gave Alice a hug, then sat at their chair and ate their snack. It is quite amazing all the little ways good teachers manage a classroom.
After snack, Zac and I left our five year old in the capable hands of her teachers. Zac went to work and I went to buy Alice her traditional helium balloon (a process that is getting harder as she starts to like more things than just dinosaurs). It probably took me about a half an hour to decide on this balloon.
Then I went home and did a bunch of tasks, including cleaning up the living room and setting out the presents.
Alice had been quite concerned that morning when there were no presents laid out, so she seemed visibly relieved to come home to a table full presents. She kept smiling and saying, "It's perfect!"
But, first we had to eat supper. Alice chose pepperoni pizza and corn on the cob for her birthday supper.
Then it was time for cake!
She's getting a bit silly these days, making lots of faces all the time...
I know it's in the video, but I couldn't resist including these two pictures. Look at that face!
After the cake, it was time to open presents! We took a time-lapse video, but we were having all sorts of technological problems today, and somehow that video got lost when transferring the files to the computer. But never fear! Zac was taking pictures with the SLR the whole time, so the present opening was well documented. To avoid having a million pictures to scroll through, I compiled them into this slide show video. There were just too many great pictures to narrow it down, and I'm letting myself indulge on my daughter's birthday.
After presents, it was time for bedtime snack (which is basically another meal for our kids). Zac made Alice a special fruit plate with five of everything.
She's officially a handful!
