Spunky FOUR Year Old

My Spunky girl turned four yesterday. Four. She isn't a baby anymore. Sigh.

She has had the day planned for months. She would tell me "This year I'm going to have a Tinkerbell birfday and next year a Genevieve birfday"

We do a big friend party when they turn six (because mom is just to lazy tired before then), but we do invite cousins and her best friend and her sisters can each invite a friend...which happens to be Spunky's best friends sister. Follow that? Grandmas and Grandpas and Uncles and Aunts all come too.

I make breakfast for them on their birthdays. I asked her what she wanted. She said "Square Cereal" also known as Golden Grahams. Easy for me. I am all about the easy.

She received a new dress that morning...and refused to let me take a picture.

Then she and I painted.

And her daddy came home and took her to lunch at Cracker Barrel. She LOVES it there. Especially the biscuits.

When she came home we filled her "pea-ah-tah"

For dinner she wanted salad, broccoli, carrots and potatoes. The same thing we had for dinner at my mom's house the night before (sans the broccoli and plus a few other things). I went off of that and for her dinner we had grilled chicken, steamed broccoli, carrots and ranch dip, orange Jell-O, salad, rolls and raspberry lemonade.

The guests started coming as we were cleaning up dinner. We seem to be running late a lot these days. I blame it on being outnumbered.

There's the dress. And the "pea-ah-tah" where the baby swing goes. And all of the party guests. Except for the three babies that were hanging out inside away from the cold wind. The funny thing is at her birthday last year we were all in shorts and dying of the heat. Spring in Utah is a funny, funny thing.

She is revealing her age. And she is going through a funny face phase. It makes me giggle.

She tried hard. It took daddy to whack the heck out of the "pea-ah-tah" to get the candy to fly.

Look at the looters.

Time for the haul. The funny thing about that backpack is she was with me when I bought it. When she opened it she said "IT'S THE BACKPACK I WANTED!!!!" Hmmmmm.

At least this year the token breakdown wasn't from one of my children. Too bad that isn't a permanent thing.

For perspective...the wrappings. DH sat little Bugs in the middle of it.

Spunky just threw the papers over her head. All over the place. She really didn't care about what was in the presents...only about unwrapping them. Next year maybe we will wrap a bunch of boxes together and let her have a go at it.

Her Tink dress up. She received SO many Tinkerbell gifts. I love that she loves Tink so much.

She picked out her own cake.

And then she blew out the candle before we even finished singing "Happy Birthday to You." None of us knew quite what to do once the song was over.

Finally the night was over and it was off to dreamland with her new jammies.

Happy Birthday Spunky!

To Spunky:

Time is passing so quickly. You are growing up so fast. You are controlling yourself much more and able to do more things for yourself. Sometimes you will ask me a question and I am taken aback at the grownupness of it. I still see you as my toddler. My middle child that is never supposed to grow up.

You are growing up so tall and beautiful. I love how silly and giggly you are. I love how much you love everyone. Your personality reminds me so much of my baby sister. You both love so deeply.

You are spontaneous and fun. Sometimes I am jealous that you are that way. I wish I had that free spirit that you have. You aren't afraid to just be. The world would be a better place if we were each a little more like you.

You have your own personality. You do things your way and that is just the way it is. I love how you think. I love the things you say. Lately you see girls in bathing suits and you tell us "That girl is showing her boobies. It is okay to show your boobies in swimming suits." We have to remember that boobies=shoulders these days.

We all love you so much and our family would just not be complete without your sweet, spunky spirit. Happy birthday big girl!