Preschool Graduation and Party!

 Emmet is  a chipmunk graduate. He had a great time at pre-school. Even though he claimed to be bored, and complained about swimming. He really enjoyed his teacher, Miss Jan, and liked learning sign language.
I have mixed feelings about kindergarten next year, but we'll see what happens at the kindergarten round-up in June. I wouldn't feel any qualms about it except that lots of parents are 'holding back' or 'red shirting' kids that are older than Emmet. They do have a late cut-off date in MI- Dec 1, so I can understand it, but I do think he is ready.
We had a small party to celebrate the end of school and for Emmet's half birthday. Since his birthday's around Thanksgiving, I thought it would be fun to have his classmates over. We had a circus theme, which was probably more fun for me than the kids. They all wanted to go exploring in the "forest" behind the house and play in the sandbox.
I felt like I was steering them back to the trampoline and feed the elephant and lion tamer games I had planned.  We didn't even get a chance to use the parachute I borrowed from school.

They all had a good time making and decorating clown hats, and playing with the balloons. A few kids had their faces painted. But I spent so much time keeping Reuben out of the face paints, I wonder if I made the other kids think they weren't supposed to do it either.
We had sno-cone cupcakes, which I thought looked rather amateur-ish and joked to Orrin that at least no one would be confused that they were real sno-cones. But then a few people were surprised I had sno-cones sitting out in the sun.

I also served watermelon, popcorn, animal crackers/cookies and a giant tank of lemonade.
Emmet said his favorite part of the good food. "That's all you really need to have fun, Mom. Some friends come over and you eat some sweet stuff together. It's fun."
We ended the party with a circus parade around the house. Everyone grabbed a drum, kazoo, harmonica, accordion, or whistle, and donned their silly hat "It's not a clown hat, it's a marching hat!"
They all ended up in the sand box at the end of the parade, and then the hose and water were introduced so everyone went home a little messy. But, that's the mark of a good party too, I think.