4th birthdays are magical

My firstborn is 4 years old today!

I woke up this morning with bags under my eyes, worse than any I ever had when she was an infant.

But so filled with love and excitement and nostalgia for my girl.

When you are celebrating your 4th birthday, nothing is more exciting than going to school on your actual birthday!

On Tuesday, I spent part of my day making cookie pops for Maia to take to school for snack time.

I really enjoy doing these things, even though I have to face my perfectionist tendencies head on.

Seriously, the kids are 3 and 4. All they care about is that sugar is involved.

Which is what I kept reminding myself when I wanted to scrape the frosting off every cookie and start again.

(If you ever decorate cookies like this, do the border first.)

When I wasn't piping frosting onto sugar cookies, I made a triple batch of pancakes.

Why, you ask?

Maia had her first big birthday party yesterday.

It was a PB&J party.

It was a morning party and I think it's actually a really good time for kids this age. Everyone was fresh and in good moods.

We invited Maia's classmates plus two other little girls that Maia knows from dance class.

In case you were wondering, that's 12 kids, plus 4 silbings, and parents.

Our house was full in the best way possible.

So, back to the pancakes.

First, get a gigantic bowl and mammoth whisk.

Then start making pancakes and don't stop.

  

"Mom, take a picture of me looking at the pancakes!"

 I made all the pancakes and bacon the day before and then heated them up in the oven the next morning.

Generally I think it worked ok.

If I had 2 ovens, I would have done the bacon the morning of the party, but alas, that was not meant to be.

And you can't have a birthday party without cupcakes!

I found these cute liners on sale with the Easter things.

They are really cute, but the dough crept up the sides, so when then wrapper got pulled off, half the cupcake went with it.

Another moment that I wanted to start all over and get it right.

My fingers were crossed that the frosting would fix everything.

Well, the decorating didn't turn out the way I wanted either, but at this point it was 8:00 PM and I had been in the kitchen all day.

Turns out, I'm less of a perfectionist when I'm tired!

You know what? They were really tasty.

(Cupcakes from Joy of Cooking, pp. 718 "Cocoa Devil's Food Cake", frosting was a generic butter cream recipe from the internet.)

Aleks came home for about a half hour before training and I immediately put him to work hanging streamers.

When anyone has a birthday, we hang streamers, even if there will be no birthday party.

Maia knows that when the "ribbons" are up, it's birthday time.

In fact, on April 1st she woke up and said "It's April! It's my birthday! Can I go downstairs and see if the ribbons and balloons are up?"

After seeing a bare mantle, I cut out and hung the Happy Birthday banner at 9:00.

See, it's that perfectionist thing again.

I've got to get over it, it's really an inconvenience.

Goody bag included stickers, a pencil, erasers, a little notepad, some candy, and sidewalk chalk.

(I just think pictures of large platters of fruit are pretty.)

And then it was party day and our friends got here!

So many little girls in their jammies!

And then we read Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy, in which Lulu and Sam pretend they are bug superheros and save the city from pretend bad guys and then have a parade on the bouncy dinosaurs.

At the 11 hour, after trying to think up a game, or something for all these kids to do, I decided we would make masks and have a parade, like in the book.

Thank heavens for craft stores which have decorating supplies that do not involve glue or paint.

The 5 minutes it took these kids to work on their masks was the quietest 5 minutes of the morning.

And by this point Ruby was OVER it. She hid in the corner with a balloon for awhile.

Group picture?

This is the best we could do; we're only missing 1 guest!

All in all, I think the party was a success.

I take after my mother and made way too much food.

(One time there were 8 of us at dinner and she made 4 quiches. Just to be sure there was enough.)

You know it's a good party when there are half eaten pancakes lying around!

As I mentioned a few days ago, Aleks has been reeeeeally busy.

Sure enough, Wednesday morning there was a meeting he couldn't miss and so he couldn't stay for the party.

He was sad. I was too.

Especially when Maia opened her presents and I was juggling the thank you list, making sure Maia said thank you to each gift giver as she opened the presents, and holding a weary Ruby on my lap.

I don't know how you single parents do it!

Seriously, my hat is off to you. Let me know if I can ever help out. 

Seriously.

I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining.

I really enjoyed putting together the party for Maia and I loved seeing all her friends and their parents, my new friends.

 It was a lot of work.

This morning Maia woke up and I had draped streamers down her doorway to greet her.

I pried open my eyes and we all went downstairs to open presents!

 This year Aleks and I got Maia (and Ruby) a small trampoline.

We're hoping it cuts down on some of the couch jumping.

After school Maia spent all afternoon playing with her new animals, or as she says "animales."

She even read them a book!

I started another tradition this year.

I'm going to write my girls a letter on each birthday and when they graduate high school or get married or whenever I feel like it, I'll give my daughters their own binder full of love letters from their mama.

So, I'm going to spare you all from the sappy stuff here.

I'll just say that it is such a privilege to see this little flower bloom and grow into something more beautiful than I could even imagine.

Inside and out.

Happy 4th birthday dearest Maia.