The Princess and the Birthday Crown

Yesterday I was invited to go to Emma's preschool class with a special treat to celebrate her birthday.  The timing worked best for me to show up first thing in the morning, which made treat planning a snap.

Sprinkly donuts with chocolate milk.  An easy win with every kid.

I stopped at the donut shop on my way to school, and would you believe I got the LAST twelve sprinkle donuts?  They had exactly a dozen left, which was a stroke of pastry luck, and the more I thought about it (all day long) the more relief I felt over not having to show up with plain glazed.  Or worse yet, half a dozen sprinkly donuts and the job of choosing which kids got sprinkles.

Yes, crisis avoided.  The birthday festivities were off to a perfect start.

Thanks to a "deal of the day" special at Michaels, I made Christmas craft party favors for each kid for under a dollar each.

I stayed up super late the night before finishing her teacher's Christmas present.  I made a little table runner.  The pattern called for that giant red ric rac that you see in the photo.  It was quite late when I finished the runner...sans ric rac...and I had to make the difficult decision about whether to move forward with the trimmings.  The runner was fine without it, but I couldn't get over the fact that her teacher would have never known just how cute it could have been....so I pulled the infamous late night/early morning ric rac maneuver.  It was all thanks to Everybody Loves Raymond on DVD and a supersized sweet tea.

These are the things which occupy my thoughts and keep me awake at night.  I had all that good time to worry about the donut shop running out of sprinkly donuts, but that thought never even crossed my mind.  My worry radar was off.  I was too busy hand sewing red ric rac.

I embroidered a little snowman on the back.

I got to school right on schedule, after waking up at early o'clock to wash and dry the runner and admire my ric rac by dawn's early light.  Emma was delighted by my arrival and immediately set to work helping me pass around the reindeer plates and candy cane cups.  It was all very fancy.

Her classmates sat stone silent while the teacher and I sang a "Happy Birthday" duet.  (Do four year olds not know the words yet??)

I was pretty proud of the fact that I managed to scrounge four mismatched candles out of the baking cabinet before school.

Her teacher made her feel SO VERY special.  She got a crown, and the privilege of walking down to Miss Jerry's office.....

.....where she got to pick out a colored balloon and choose a birthday prize from the treasure chest.

Glory Hallelujah for precious preschools that build confidence and character in the lives of sweet kids.  School is such a special place for Emma, and the women who pull off this incredible program are missionaries in action.

Birthday Celebration Day was a VERY big deal for Emma, and her excitement was contagious.

I knew when I left there that our Birthday weekend was off to a very good start.

And I celebrated my joy with a sprinkly donut. ;)