Sue's Birthday 2010

I'm late posting about Sue's birthday this year. Since her birthday fell on the day before Memorial Day this year, we decided to have her party the following weekend. This meant that the actual day was a pretty quiet birthday day, although there were presents and birthday cake.

Grandma Gail and Grandpa Jim bought Sue matching outfits for her and her American Girl doll Emmy. They were a big hit:



The weekend after Memorial Day we had a girls' party for Sue -- eight girls on her eighth birthday. We did finger nail painting, games, a scavenger hunt, pizza and cake. As Sue said, "Eight is great!"

Here are the girls racing to see who can make a mummy the quickest.

Horseback Riding

Sue is making real progress in her horseback riding lessons. She is now riding around the ring without someone leading the horse, and she is starting to be able to really control where the horse goes.

The Running Of The Children

The town of Branford had its local Easter Egg Hunt in Foote Park this past weekend. It was a gorgeous day. Every year Branford cordons off a number of large rectangular areas, strews large handfuls of candy and plastic eggs filled with toys and more candy, and then lets the kids have at it, by age group. This year Nancy Ferlow was with us. She dubbed the event "the running of the kids", and she really nailed it.

We arrived about 20 minutes early, luckily, because they launched the kids about 10 minutes before the official starting time. We ran into a number of families heading in, on our way out.

As you can see, Sue completely filled her basket, and was one happy camper.

Fairy Village

The Griswold Museum asked their artists to create tiny fairy houses all over the museum grounds. They ended up with 35 fairy houses, which were truly amazing. They were incredibly imaginative, detailed, and diverse. Here are some pictures of our favorites.

Halloween

Sue was a witch this halloween. She loved the face painting, but was only OK about her costume (the hat was too small and kept on falling off).

This year we joined Kim Dattilo's girl scouts halloween party Saturday afternoon, had dinner with them, and then went trick-or-treating in their neighborhood. In spite of the gloriously mild weather, and the fact that it was a Saturday night, there were noticeably fewer trick-or-treaters this year. Swine flu effect, perhaps?

I painted Sue's face green, and added a spider web on one cheek and a spider on the other. Sue's favorite part: putting on the black lipstick.



Sue also loved the fake witch nails, for about 2 minutes, until she realized that fake nails are a pain in the arse, and she was having trouble picking up candy from the bowls offered.



Here's a slide show of Kim's Halloween party.

First Day of School, 2nd Grade

Little Sue was so ready for school to start this year! The day before, she had planned exactly what she wanted to wear, she had organized her backpack with all her new school supplies, and she was clearly impatient for school to start.

On the morning of, she got up about 1/2 hour early, and she was a model child: she got herself dressed (she usually wants Mommy around for companionship), she helped with breakfast and preparing lunch, she was cheerful and happy. She was ready to go 1/2 hour before we had to leave for the bus.

After school, she was supposed to take the bus to her after school arts program, but she took the bus home. When noone was there to pick her up, she was not fazed. She took the bus back to school, where they called Tabor, and the director (!) drove over to pick her up. She didn't freak out or get upset. Amazing.

Here is Sue with Tori, who lives in the house right at the bus stop, and is also in Sue's class this year.



Sue is carrying a stuffed whale that her friend Maia left at our house the day before.


The usual crew at the bus stop:


Sue loves to make funny faces for the camera.

A New Coat

Grandma Gail and Grandpa Jim sent Sue a beautiful new winter coat. Sue was so excited to open the box -- she had to put it on right away.