My Baby Girl is 5!!!

Five years ago today my precious Sofia Reece was born at 7:57am! She has been a continuous joy in Lee's and I's life and I'm so blessed to have an ally in our family of boys!
She is in Kindergarten, loves purple and pink, loves to play dress-up, loves picnics, dolls, princesses and Chilis!

It has been a BIG year for her and we pray God continues to mold her into a little girl after His heart. We are so proud of how she has handled so many big transitions-heart surgery, moving to Costa Rica, moving back to Abilene, moving to Peru, leaving friends and family, learning a new language and now starting a new school with new friends. She has been amazing every step of the way and I could learn to use a few lessons from her. Just recently she said "mom, there are just too many people here, lets go home!" and my favorite "mom, don't worry! I'll be fine in school, just put your swimming suit on and lets go swim." She is halerious!

Today has been fun for her. She informed us that her class sang to her in Spanish AND English :) Then her ballet teacher let her wear a crown all through class and gave her stickers and a sucker when they were done. We then went to Chilis with my in-laws and some of our teammates to open presents and celebrate, it was a GREAT day.
Thursday I am doing the UNTHINKABLE and having a Peruvian/American birthday party. I say "Peruvian/American" because I couldn't bring myself to follow ALL the traditions of a kids party here. Some of the traditions here are:
Full SHOWS-this includes puppet shows, dressed-up characters, games, blow up slides etc... other things are catered meals, renting out places, servers, magic shows, clowns, bands etc...
I am NOT exaggerating AT all.

We are having what I like to call the "ghetto version" of all that. Ok, well not really but we are trying to do this princess party as cheap as possible. I did get a pinata, I asked my teammates and some friends to come and help paint the little girls nails and do hair, a lady from ballet is making sandwiches, my teammate Alison is making some sweets and then Lee broke down (ok, I did too) and rented a Cinderella/face painter for an hour. It was about the cheapest thing on the list so we decided that considering all these little girls were going to expect a show, Lee and I didn't want to be stuck entertaining them and Cinderella was pretty cheap :)

We've invited 24 little girls and we HOPE some show up. They don't RSVP here so you just never know. Were hoping we can get to know some of the parents of the kids in her class and that Sofia will get to know some of the girls better.
Oh did I mention that you have to provide food for adults, siblings and nannies too. Oh and if they bring siblings you need to have party favors for them too.

Needless to say that between getting Sofia into school and this birthday stuff I am getting BAPTIZED into the Peruvian culture. I'll have a full report on Thursday for all of you. Here are some pictures of Sofia: Man do I love that blue-eyed girl!

The last picture before Sofia was 5! I took this right before midnight while she was asleep

Opening her presents at Chilis-for Sofia it couldn't get any better than chips and salsaSofia opening up Christmas gifts from her Aunt Liz and Uncle Joe- look at her face when she saw it was a Wizard of Oz book!

Mimi and Sofia at breakfast, see the resemblance?