Celebrating the Fourth

No, not that fourth... We celebrated Hadley's fourth birthday this weekend! It was nice that we could celebrate it on the actual day (a Saturday), and we were able to have a pretty good group despite the holiday weekend. She wanted a Hello Kitty theme, so I attempted a cake, which turned out pretty well, but nearly killed my hand.

And it's easy to enjoy summer birthdays outside, so we did a backyard water party with pools, squirt guns, bubbles, and sidewalk chalk.

Once the kids got cold, we did "Pin the Bow on Hello Kitty"

and a pinata!

The wind extinguished our outdoor candles, so we took the party inside to sing Happy Birthday. (The birthday girl had a lot more trouble blowing out her candles than the wind did!) All in all, a great party for our little girl.

And don't forget the family celebration! (We discovered that someone has difficulty giving his sibling the full spotlight or solo pictures on her special day.)

This year's notables:

• listening to her preschool teachers better than she listens to mom
• cleaning up Owen's room (if he's pre-occupied), in addition to her own, so that they can watch their shows sooner
• phasing out naps (yikes!)
• making her own friends
• becoming interested in "girly" things, like dresses, dancing, Barbies, etc.
• dancing very seriously during in-home performances (mostly jumping with a stoic face and splayed arms)
• creating her own songs (her birthday song was called "It's All About Me!")
• writing her name and counting to 39 (after that it goes to 80)
• still pronouncing Ls and Rs as Ws. I need to get this on film as much as possible before she stops doing it! Some of our favorites: "ceweal", "Hidiho" (Idaho), "cuduh" (color), "cawots", "Wittle Einsteins", "Cindawella", fork tenderloin, b-nana, b-structions, b-nastics, "gortilla" (tortilla)
• wanting to be an artist/dancer when she grows up (a change from Supergirl a few months ago)
• She measured at 3'4" (60%) and 34 lbs (40%)