Feliz Cumpleanos a Claudia (6 years old today)

Here are the pictures first, since I know that's what everyone wants to see anyway...

Here she is with her cake

She's pretty pleased with her candle blowing abilities (I don't know why Tim has a fist in this picture, he didn't hit her... really)

Claudia with her new 'Viewmaster' and Mayerly (don't know exactly what she's looking at...)

Just in case you didn't think the other two (Oscar and Diana) made it home with us, here's a picture of them too

So you are probably asking, "What happened to Claudia's hair???" To protect the innocent and the guilty, we will just say that there was a little problem and we had to cut it all off. If I (Anne) don't dress her in pink and put barretts in her hair, she looks like a little boy - I hate it. Here's hoping it grows out fast...

Back to the Birthday. We went about the day just as we normally do, get up, get dressed have breakfast, do our school thing, eat lunch, play all afternoon... point being - no one had any clue that today was Claudia's birthday. We had dinner (ham and bean soup and cornbread - 'rico' according to the kids... that's good in case you don't know) and then I brought out the cake I baked earlier while they were playing upstairs (only Mayerly saw me because the TV is downstairs...). It was kinda like a surprise party because everyone was surprised... too funny.

We started homeschooling with 'Abuelita' (Grandma Schoemig) last Monday. The good news is that the kids are doing well, and are even starting to pick up some English words. The bad news is that they are all very far behind where they should be scholastically. My hope is that we can get Mayerly and Claudia in school by September at a grade level not too far below where they should be for their ages. I think Oscar and Diana will be working with my mom longer than that.

I also found a preschool close to our house that will take Claudia (even though she is now six years old and doesn't speak English). I'm going to take her on Friday to see how she does there. If she looks like she will be okay, we will enroll her for the 1/2 day classes (5 days a week).

That's it for now. Hasta luego.