Brooke's Birthday

The week after school started we celebrated Brooke's 6th birthday. She spent the first 5 days of school as a 5 year old, and then she turned 6. I think she felt a little weird with this birthday, because she suddenly realized that she's older than everyone in her class.

It was kind of a low-key birthday because she had school that day until noon. While she was at school, Camille and I finished our preparations, wrapping presents and getting ready for her dinner. When she came home from school, she helped me to finish up her cake. She wanted a chocolate cake with white frosting, decorated with roses and toy animals. So, that is what we did. She put the animals  on after it was all done. We also had some friends come over to play after school, and in a small way it helped celebrate her birthday. They stayed all afternoon and played outside for a lot of it. She loved having her friends come play on her birthday, and they even brought presents for her, even though it wasn't a party in any way.

She requested homemade pizza and cucumbers and tomatoes for her dinner. I added a little more for dinner to fill it out a little. We sent her friends home for dinner and cake and singing. But they came back to watch her open presents and play a little more. We got her a set of princess figurines and the Princess in Black book series and a new card game, Sleeping Queens (which we've been playing almost non-stop since her birthday). Gramma Holbrook sent us home from Utah with a set of horse figurines. And Elliot gave her an art project and Violet and August gave her a princess beach towel and paint by number project.

A few weeks after her birthday, I took her outside in the yard around our house to do a photoshoot. I'm no photographer, but I've been watching Youtube videos this year and learning the basics of our camera. I want to be able to take good pictures of my family, and not always require a photographer to take our pictures. I'd like to do pictures with my kids around their birthdays so that we can always have good-ish and current pictures of them. Brooke and I had fun at our little photoshoot. She was really cooperative and seemed to really enjoy getting her picture taken. She even had some fun ideas of her own, and she kept asking if we could try different places. I got lucky with a handful of pictures and got some pretty good ones. I still have a lot to learn, but it was fun to practice a little with Brooke. She was a good model.