It’s hard to say things about the age of your youngest child and not sound like a quasi-senile old person. “I can’t believe you’re so big” “seems like you were just born” “But you’re my baby” etc.
But – there she is….six years old.
First grade.
Lost her first tooth last week.
For her birthday she decided to have a “Bunny” theme.
in fact the day even started out with a birthday breakfast
Later in the day the festivities commenced with (nearly) everyone dressed up as a bunny. Some costumes appeared to have a bit more effort put into them.. Darth Vader with a bunny mask …. I guess we’ll allow it.
Races where you hop like a bunny.
And then … there were races where every kid chose a bunny – and let them run.
Now maybe it’s just that we were starting the races from right next to the chicken coop in our front yard….or maybe it somehow felt like we were on a slippery slope towards gambling on dog races. But sometimes things feel like our very-rural-African-tight-community can feel like we’ve actually started to become some kind of hill-people. 
No, on second thought, I’m pretty sure kids racing animals for a 6-year-old’s birthday in the front yard (never mention the fact that we have enough rabbits to have such a contest) means we’ve past the fine line between ‘rural-African-mission-community’ and ‘hillbilly-compound’ so long ago that we can’t even see it in the rear-view mirror any more.
Well – anyway…happy birthday Alma. Hopefully when you reflect on days like this birthday party (perhaps with a counsellor) it will be with fondness.
Just to give a bit of a picture that isn’t all animal-racing and races-in-flour-bags, here are some more pictures of Alma from the various things she’s been up to over the past few months:
