Happy Birthday #4 Jane!

 Oh, the excitement for this one!! Gotta say, the funnest part of birthdays really is the countdown, at least for me as the mom. Although, the excitement the morning of when she realized it was in fact her birthday and that we had some decorations and Treat Cereal downstairs waiting for her was pretty great, too!

And then she went and put on her 3 year old outfit I made her last year, I guess cause it was birthday clothes. I told her she was four now, and so she asked for a 4 shirt. So I whipped one up, and there was much four year old enthusiasm over it:

 Then Daddy took her to the fair to watch her cousin show her cow and then get ice cream and a few more things for the birthday party later that afternoon. We were having a "swim, art, science party" as the invite said. That's what she said she wanted, so we went for it. I was just glad it wasn't a princess party ;-)

Before that, however, she went over to her "Darlin's" house- my best friend from High School's mom is in our ward, and she's always been a second mother to me, so she's something of a grandma to my kids, anyway, she went over there to make cupcakes with her daughter Aubrey, who's 15ish. They did this last year, and I requested it again since I REALLY didn't want to worry about a cake in my clumsy condition. She loved it! Ironically, however, Aubrey had orange and pink fondant all ready to go with fun shapes to cut out and put on top, and Jane just wanted to put white pearl sprinkles on everything...

For her party, we invited the girls in her Sunbeam class and one older girl from her singing class. And, of course, she had to give an invitation to Emiline. 

The swim part of the party was great, I sat and watched them jump through the hopscotch sprinkler, go down the slide into the kiddy pool, and throw splash bombs, the 4 four year olds, 2 year old, and five year old enjoyed it all equally.

 

Then we moved on to Bubble painting, the art part of our party Jane and the 5 year old enjoyed this the most and/or the longest. Half the kids got bored (or frustrated they couldn't have all the colors at the same time) and went back to swimming before I could get pictures of them all blowing colored bubbles out of bowls, which was quite pretty.

 

 The last activity was the science part, which I left up to Eric to "teach." We basically made Gak/Slime stuff but we talked about liquids and solids. Guess what was Jane's favorite part? The science part! Warmed Eric's nerdy little heart ;-)

Then it was cupcakes and presents and the party was over. We let our girls play with the new toys  while Eric and I cleaned up, I made dinner, and wrapped her family party presents.  Her favorite toy she got was the Cinderella Barbie she insisted her Ariel Barbie needed as a friend. (She only has two Barbies, and Ariel is a new one she earned for following the nap rules, took her six weeks, but she did it!)

It was a great day! Even though Emiline was sick with a fever and puked 5ish times (including all over the #4 shirt on the way home from Darla's), she perked up enough to go to the party. I didn't realize how stressed I was about Jane's birthday, making it special and worried in the back of my head that we'd have a baby before or during or something. But I'm good now.

I sure love you, Jane! I can't wait to keep watching your grow and learn and discover. I hope I can be the best mom for you. Happy Birthday, "my honey."