Amelie - 4 years!

My oldest, Amelie, turned 4 this month.  It's so unbelievable how quickly time goes by, and yet it feels like she has always been a part of our family. (Seriously, Jeff and I can't remember life without kids.)

Amelie is back in her dance class and started preschool this year (at Challenger School,) and she is very into it.  She plays school a lot, practices writing and sounding out letters/words.  She's learning much and loving every second of it.  She is a great help to me with the chaos that is 3 kids.  Usually, she is very happy to help and put herself in the category of older, more able people, though every now and then she won't want to help but does it anyway.  She and Lisie are turning into the best of friends.  They still have sister fights, of course, but they seem to love being together more and more, and it's a good thing, because they are almost always together. :)

On the actual birthday, we always spend the day together as a family, letting the person of honor choose where we go and what we do.  Amelie had school in the morning, where I came in for her birthday spotlight, that was fun (although I felt kinda silly doing it.) 

From school, we went to McDonald's for lunch, then the Living Planet Aquarium.  We all enjoyed that.  From there, we picked up Jeff (who was sleeping off the grave shift from the night before.)  She had mentioned she wanted to go to the Church History Museum after that, but when we asked her that day, she said we should get a pizza and go to grandma's.



For her party, she decided she wanted a tea party, so I made my first foray into the world of true little kid birthday party.  We found a pink and yellow flower tea set, homemade tissue paper balls, and had lots of tea party worthy food (heart- and teddy bear-shaped sandwiches, jam cookies, chocolate covered strawberries, and cherry-flavored jello.)  And our "tea" was strawberry watermelon crystal light, Amie's choice.  They decorated little lace hats beforehand so everyone could be fancy for tea.  We had teapot cupcakes, sang happy birthday and opened presents (she got lots of dolls!)  I had a few games and dress ups planned for after that, but the girls were all playing happily in the bedroom together, so I just let them be!  It seemed to go well, though everyone was SILENT at tea time - can you imagine 8 silent little girls? (Playtime was NOT so silent.)

Here are some pics:

Since it was just a kid party, we had cake (she picked red velvet with purple icing and blue polka dots) and ice cream with Jeff's family after the party, then celebrated with the Radcliffe's at that week's family dinner.