Home from holiday and Birthday time for a 5 year old

This is Monkey from Kindy. Just before you turn 5, you are chosen to bring Monkey home to your house for a weekend. Kate was so excited when she realised all the clues the Kindy teacher was given, pointed to her. Monkey is somewhat of a celebrity and this was definitley a highlight of Kate's time at kindy.

Visiting the Lion Park was one of the highlight of our holiday and since we have been back, Kate has been building Lion parks with the blocks and toy lions. The parks come complete with platforms for the Lionesses to jump up on, caves for the pride to rest in out of the sun, and seasaws and climbing frames for the cubs.

When we got home from holiday, Kate had one last week at Kindy before the school holidays and starting school. On the Friday Kate had her Kindy birthday with Anika, who will start school one week later than Kate and in the same class. The girls made birthday hats and cakes. Some of the Mums had painted all of the kids' faces for the last day. They were amazing.

This is Megan, Kate's small group teacher at Kindy. She did mat time for the Kindy birthday.

Kate gave Kindy a Lion costume to say Goodbye and thank you.

Liam and Kate, very best of friends.The princess birthday cake.

"I am 5". Kate was awake very early on her birthday morning. She got lots of lovey gifts from people all centered around Princesses,Barbies and making things. This is her new princess dress.

Lachie thinks the Princess Sleeping Bag is awesome too.

Kate had a birthday party that afternoon. It was very exciting waiting for it to start.

Birthday guests and party food! A big thank you to everyone for coming and for the lovely presents. It was such a great day.

Blowing out 5 candles.

All those people were quite overwhelming. Lachie kept a watchful eye on proceedings from the safe arms of Grandad, Nana or Dad.

Then he thought he would give cutting the cake a go too!

The next morning, the kids were still partying, singing and dancing and dressing up.