Six Days to Six

Windsyr celebrated her 6th birthday two months ago, and the fact that I'm only now blogging about it should surprise no one. Hey, I take my time, but I usually get there. Here's a shout out to my friend Bobbie whose cake pictures on her blog reminded me that I had never posted this here Barbie cake that was way too much fun to make. (2am fun, to be accurate.)

Windsyr opted for no party this year so instead we did a "Six Days to Six" countdown to her birthday.
Each day for six days she got to pop a balloon inside of which she found a piece of paper explaining that day's birthday activity. The activities were all things she had been hoping to do for a long time, and each day she got to spend time with a different person (we were fortunate to have both sets of grandparents in town for the weekend). It went something like this:

Day One: Pedicure and shoe shopping with Grandma Kippy

Day Two: Ice Skating with Mom

Day Three: Ears Pierced with Dad
Days Four and Five: Dinners with grandparents, Great Park Balloon ride


Day Six (Day of birthday): Birthday lunch of her choice (crepes), cake and presents

I'm sure I enjoyed the week as much as she did, if not more, because I love an excuse to celebrate someone--and six days of celebrating is six times better.

Now, I know I am a proud, biased mother but she was unbelievable on the ice. This was her first time ever in skates, and I assumed we would spend the evening slowly circling the rink a few times, with Windsyr on her bottom more than her feet, wanting to rest with a nice grilled cheese sandwich half way through the session. But that was not the scene at all. The whole "getting used to the ice" thing only took about twice around the rink. Then she was suddenly this little ice princess who could skate quickly, confidently, and couldn't wait to get going on her tricks. We spent the bulk of the time in the center of the rink where she worked intently on spinning around and doing fancy tricks, completely undaunted by the spills. She stuck with it until she was able to spin full circles without falling and she looked like she had been skating for a lot longer than 60 minutes. I was seriously so proud of her. Her attention span for soccer last year was about two minutes total. But put this girl on the ice, and there is a grit and determination in her that I could only stand back and respect. And take pictures of, which of course I did.
Here she is gaining confidence in her tricks.
And here is perhaps my favorite picture. A perfectly captured spill.