Eliza's Third Birthday

These were taken at school. I brought cupcakes. Miss Line Leader is all excited it's her special day.

I wish this were in focus. Can you see how she's just eating up all the attention? They were singing to her.

The afternoon party paper-crown-making table.

One of her German friends, Kathi (Andrea's daughter).

Fe did her hair, obviously. (She always curses me when I get it cut.)

This is Caroline and Ben's Emily I blogged about when she was born. She's 7 months now!

Eliza's school friend Rosa (another German) who gave E this uber-girly Hello Kitty dress that she loves! It's very cute.

Opening presents at all her friends' insistence (Oliver, Cleo and Kathi). Normally people don't open birthday gifts at parties here, but the kids had their own way.

It didn't get as pink as I was imagining. I couldn't find any crepe paper streamers. All the little girls had on a touch of pink...boys were in red...so that was cute. And Paige's recommendation for decorating paper crowns was a big hit with boys and girls alike. I regret I didn't get more close-up shots of all of them. We put a table under the olive trees with glitter, stickers, and shiny paper cut into strips and shapes for them to glue on paper crowns. They did that first, so many sported their little masterpieces for the rest of the party.

We tried a pin-the-tail-on-the-pink-pig game...which I'd had my doubts about, and predictably the little ones were not into the blindfold but surprisingly into just sticking the tail on. Eliza got upset that someone was messing with the tail she put on...it was just one of a few melt-downs that day that she's prone to at this stage in her life. Suddenly she'll get an idea of how she wants things to be, and something will prevent it from being that way. Then she'll tuck in her chin, sit on the floor and start howling. It looks to me like textbook toddler behavior. I'm just wondering how long this stubborn waywardness is going to last!

But enough badmouthing the birthday girl! She dressed in her new pink tutu for the party and carried her new big girl doll dressed in a matching tutu. She was happy with the day which she has been looking forward to and imagining for months. (How many times have I stuck candles in her meals and sang happy birthday to her?) She enjoyed it all: the crowns, the friends, the opening of gifts, the giving of party favors, the birthday song and the candles which she blew out with gusto and an apparent feeling of accomplishment.