4th Birthday Party

The Saturday after Taylor's birthday, we held a party to celebrate! It was much easier to fit all the family in the new house this year. :)

When I asked Taylor what she wanted at her party she said, "Balloons!". So we had a lot of balloons (pink, green, and light blue - her favorite colors), cake with balloons on it (also her request), and pizza for dinner (another favorite!).

Decorating the house...

Lots of family!

Many gifts...Taylor did a great job opening each card (she would call them "letters"), and each present. Lots of enthusiasm this year!

Jungle Book!!

Games! I loved Guess Who when I was growing up!

A cash register with money - Taylor will not share this with Camryn :)

Someone was really excited about getting a Pete the Cat book :)

Four fish from Uncle Jason (which we found out was too many fish for the size bowl, and they all died by Monday night :/)

A new table built by Bapa for Taylor for her trains

New addition to the playroom!

And of course birthday cake (fyi, I was NOT impressed with our local bakery's decorating - I think they were going for a "minimalist" effect on a very white cake that was pulled from their freezer...boo...at least the ice cream was good :))

It was a fun party celebrating our little lady!

Celebrating on her BIRTHday...Taylor turning 4

Originally, Taylor's birthday was supposed to be a winter break day, but because of all the snow days, school was actually in session. Our celebration was small, her choice for dinner (macaroni and cheese), and cupcakes and candles for dessert. :)

Singing to our big girl

Make a wish!

And Camryn really wanted us to sing to her, so we put one candle in a cupcake and sang to her, too. :)

Our big girl.....

And, ironically, the next day, we had another snow day! So there was time to put together Taylor's big gift from us - her dollhouse.

Her reaction :)

Lesson learned... "the incident"

Lesson learned by 4 year old - never, ever do it again...

Lesson learned by parents - never assume that quiet, indepedent play time by the girls means all is well...

Friday night, Ryan and I were in the kitchen finishing up dinner, and talking about our to-do list for Taylor's birthday party the next night. We kept mentioning how it was nice that the girls were playing so well together in Taylor's room (or so we thought). We kept hearing giggles and talking.

And then, after about 5-10 minutes passed, Camryn walked into the living room. Only she didn't come from Taylor's room. She came from the way of our master bedroom. I looked at her face and saw black lines were drawn on her. She also had black colored all over her feet and hands.

I knew immediately what it was, and ran past her into our master bathroom, and this is what I saw.

I was speechless.
(Cam's reaction was how I was feeling inside. You can't see it very well, but there was black on her shirt, jeans, face, hands, feet.)

Walls, cupboards, carpet, clothing, kids, counters, rugs... all drawn on with black eyeliner. It was everywhere. There was also an entire box of dixie cups crumpled up in the sink with water slowly trickling, and the carpet was damp throughout the bathroom area and walk-in closet.

All I could say was 'oh my word'.

Taylor KNEW she had done wrong, she could feel the disappointment. She literally shrunk in front of me as I just looked at her. With THAT look.
Scrubbing with my toothbrush.

2 hours later, after scrubbing the walls with a toothbrush and toothpaste (an idea we got from google that worked well!), and a carpet cleaner rental, we got most of the black cleaned up. Our carpet will always show evidence of this incident.

Lesson learned.

Cozy cottage & Birthday celebrations

We FINALLY made it up north this winter. It had been over 5 months since our last visit. We lucked out with a weekend without crazy snowy weather, and good driving conditions. After celebrating Valentine's Day in the morning with my students, we spent the afternoon driving up on a surprisingly clear winter day!

It was COLD weekend. When we woke up on Saturday, it was 0 degrees, and by noon, it was barely 10. Unfortunately we never got outside! But there was lots of cozy play time inside. :) And because we were celebrating Taylor's birthday, there was lots of birthday fun, too.

Little Valentine gifts from Mem

Camryn was excited about her new socks (days of the week!)

And, Taylor, too!

 Cute new little owl bag

BALLOONS! Taylor loves balloons. Cam does, too. :) Mem had the cottage all set up for some birthday fun. And if we could have blown up balloons all weekend long (and then released them so they fly all over the room), the girls would have been happy. :)

 Daddy creating static on the balloons so we had a bunch on the ceiling, too :)

Our morning view

Reading books

Making cupcakes

Taste testing the cupcakes :)

Opening gifts!
(Can you tell Taylor was excited?)

 Frozen painting book

 Frozen characters

 Music

 And her first musical instrument - a little flute!

Out to dinner at Red Mesa Grill - yum!!

Making a fire

"Happy Birthday to Taylor"

It was a significant weekend in many ways, but really good memories were made, and I am so glad we got to spend that time with Mem at the cottage. (((Happy place)))