Ari's Birthday

It finally came, Ari finally turned 4 and had her birthday. After many discussions between her party and her actual birthday where she would come to me, very put out, saying, "Mama! Xander says I'm not 4!"
Well, now she finally is.

Much thought and consideration went into the decision to awaken the birthday girl early to open her big present before Papa left. Ari is very much not a morning person, so I was afraid that if we woke her up early it would wreak havoc on her day, however, since most of her presents didn't make a whole lot of sense if she didn't first open her big one, we decided to go for it. The results were not too tragic, I did hear, "I AM NOT GROUCHY!" several times, but that's about it.

So, she got up early and opened her new toy kitchen. We have had toy kitchens before, but the last one was several years ago so Ari and Kole really haven't had one to play with.


After that Papa had to head off. Thankfully he is in class this week instead of at the office, so he has actually been getting home at nice times! He was home in plenty of time for birthday dinner.


After papa left Ari tore through her presents at race car speed, just as she had during her party.


Velcro food that can be cut apart

too many cooks

A little break from cooking to watch Strawberry Shortcake on netflix :)

Kole got some solitary cooking time during the movie.

Princess Ari rules from her throne

Next it was time for some birthday crafting. Here they are coloring and decorating cupcake pages.



Kole wanted in on this one

everyone needs a little glitter on their chin.

Then on to some watercolors.

A card in the mail with some cash is always a nice thing to get on your birthday! Thanks Grandad!

Normally we go out to eat on birthdays, and Ari was all ready to go to Cici's Pizza, but we happened to start a round of stomach flu the day before the birthday, so I figured Cici's didn't want us to share it with them. Ari agreed, and we decided to have pizza at home, so we had a lovely pizza birthday dinner at home. Thankfully no one was sick on her bday, just the day before and the days after :)
Sickness aside, she had a good birthday!