Hope is 6!

Hope turned six last weekend, and I'm still exhausted from her party! It was probably the least work I've ever put into a birthday party for either kid, but I think the number of kids more than made up for the ease of preparation. In addition to all of her friends outside of school, Hope wanted to invite her entire kindergarten class - and almost all of them came! She was in seventh heaven, surrounded by ALL of her friends!

Hope settled months ago on wanting a science theme for her party. I ordered some supplies from a science catalog, and couldn't wait to try them out. Unfortunately, one of the things that I knew would be a huge riot for the kids - the 50-foot solar wind bag - broke loose from its tether and flew away moments before the party began. It was tragic! But it was also fascinating how quickly it shot up through the sky, beyond the clouds. The instructions said to alert the FAA if it got loose! Fortunately, Hope wasn't very upset about losing it. Grant was more upset, and when I explained that we couldn't get it back because it flew up to space, he kept insisting that the spacemen would bring it back.

All that was forgotten once the kids started to arrive. In lieu of playing with the solar bag, they just ran and played in the yard for awhile, and they had a blast doing it. 26 kids running around made me so thankful that we had nice enough weather to be outside that day!





Once everyone arrived, we settled down to do our remaining experiments. They were super simple kits that made artificial snow and green slime. I think all the kids enjoyed it. I know my freckle-faced science girl did!

 

After we cleaned up the experiments, we had each kid vote for which soda they thought would make the biggest explosion when he did the Mentos volcano. Turns out it was Diet Coke, followed closely by root beet, and orange soda trailed.

All in all, it was a fun way to celebrate Hope turning six. I feel the same way about her turning six as I did when she turned four. Then, she was moving out of being a toddler and into being a preschooler. There were a lot of changes in her level of maturity that went along with it, and as rewarding as it was to see, it was still bittersweet. And now that she's moved on again, into being an official "kid," I'm scrambling to keep up with her independence. She still has the exact same Hopey face that she was born with, but she's matured and grown so much that I can hardly think of her as the same person as that cute baby in the pictures. Maybe I already wrote this, but we realized recently that at 6-years-old she's now one-third of the way through her childhood. The thought made Daddy and  me both nauseous!

I'm so thankful for this blog, so that I can write down and preserve the things that I know I'd forget all too quickly. It's so cliche, but so true, how the days are long but the years are short!