Birthday Surprises!

Elena turned 6 today. She's quickly moving from little kid to big kid.  She received many lovely gifts.  Her least favorite was Seth's. I know this because when I asked her what her favorite part of the day had been, she said, "My presents....except for the one from Dad."

I can't blame her, though.  His gift was an empty box ("April Fool's!").  She might as well get used to that joke now. She was a little disappointed at first, but when I told her that it was "a box full of air!" she though it was funny enough that she wasn't mad. But my personal favorite was Charlotte's gift.

We had mentioned to our exchange student that we wanted to add some green to her (Elena's future) bedroom since that is Elena's favorite color, but we didn't want to repaint the whole room.  Charlotte offered to do something, and knowing her artistic ability, we got her some paints and told her to go for it.  She started this in the afternoon and stayed up until it was done that night.

Sam discovered it and did his best to keep it a surprise.  Unfortunately a 4-year-old's idea of keeping a secret is to say, "Elena, there's a surprise in Charlotte's room, but I'm not going to tell you what it is." Then, after we all shush him and tell him not to give it away, he oh-so-cleverly covers up with: "The surprise is not a painting." (Just like our 3-year-old nephew who likes to hide his clothes when he comes over, thinking we can't send him home without them.  We just ask where his clothes are and he points directly to the place where they are hidden and says, "They're not here. Don't look here.") 

Luckily, Elena is also young enough that she doesn't catch on quite as quickly as we adults and she was still more or less surprised.