Hannah's 4-year birthday extravaganza

I fully intended to catch up on blogging while we were on vacation, but alas, no wifi. We were forced into an unwanted but surprisingly nice sabbatical from technology. Well, I was. Eric still used his phone to stay keep current with the all things Facebook and Zillow related.

Up first on my "to blog" list is a 20-days-late post regarding Hannah's birthday. Her 4th birthday fell on a Monday this year so we decided to celebrate in true Terri fashion: for 3 days. In my pre-mama life, I started celebrating my own birthday on Cinco de Mayo and kept up the partying until my actual birthday on the 7th. I like birthdays; what's not to love about having your own personal holiday in which most things revolve around you and the people who love you are required to make some time to do fun stuff with you?

We bought Hannah three presents and let her pick one to open each day. On day 1 of the 3-day extravaganza, she donned the birthday crown and a halter dress that Eric and I have decided looks far too mature for her and should be disposed of immediately. After breakfast she opened the Groovy Girl doll we bought her.

Grammy showed up shortly after with a Nabi 2, a tablet designed for kids (but with adult features as well) in a far more reasonable price range than an iPad. It comes stocked with games, books, music, and a lot of learning apps. Hannah is loving having her own "iPad" so if anyone has any good kid games/apps, please recommend! I'd rather have using that than staring blankly at the TV.

My brother and his boys showed up next with some foam magnetic blocks that you can use to build 3D structures off the fridge (unless your fridge is stainless steel like ours, in which case, you can use the radiator covers) and a Brave sticker book.

After the mandatory birthday pizza, I frosted some miniature strawberry cupcakes and set them on fire. They were tiny so we had to put one candle in four different cupcakes. I used this recipe for the cupcakes but cut some of the sugar (of course), and for the icing, I just tossed a brick of cream cheese into the KitchenAid with some of the strawberry puree that was left over from the cupcakes with a little bit of sugar. They turned out pretty good but would have been better as a layer cake with the puree tucked in between the layers. I tried to swirl it into the cupcakes but they were just too tiny.

We had planned on spending the day at the pool but that parade was rained on, literally, so we packed up and went to the moon bounce place which happened to be open that afternoon. Those crazy kids move too fast for me to catch them with the camera, but here's Jacob enjoying the inflatables.

 

My dad and Sondra were here when we got back from moon bouncing, but I was tired by this point and had ceased carrying around the camera so I have no evidence of their presence. They got her an Aqua Doodle (great in the car), some princess dress-up dolls with magnetic gowns, and a cute twirly skirt that Sondra made.

After that Hannah wanted to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey which my mom managed to find at the party store (I couldn't find it at ours when she wanted to play it on my birthday).

After all that, day 1 of the birthday extravaganza was finally over.

On day 2, she opened a second present from us (this book) after breakfast. In the afternoon, she had a video call with Grannah and Granpah in Michigan and opened the package from them that had arrived the day before. She got clothes, pajamas (a nightgown that she immediately put on and some shorts and t-shirt pajama sets which she wore to camp the week after because she didn't believe me that they were pajamas or she just didn't care), a Spiral Art kit, and this really cool kit that lets you create your own books. 

After the video chat she flew kites in the parking lot at the bottom of the block with Kylie, and then Kylie came back to our house for dinner and cupcakes. Zoey came over from next door too and we all sang again.

Then the girls went back upstairs to add to their costumes. As usual, Hannah gets points for crazy.

Day 3, her actual birthday, was the least celebratory day. Since Eric was gone in the morning she waited until dinner to open her third and final present from us: a really great cooperative board game called Hoot Owl Hoot! We ate cupcakes again and sang to her one more time, and then the celebration was over...

...until the following week when she took some of her birthday money to the toy store. My two aunts sent Hannah birthday cards with $20 each in them and both of her grandmas sent her a few dollars too. She picked out this giant bag of ball pit balls which we dumped into her plastic pool out back. She sat down and started kicking them everywhere and laughing hysterically. Eric and I grew tired of picking them up within about 5 minutes so now there are little plastic balls scattered all over our deck and patio and our neighbors' patios, and I've found some in the house too...

Oh, and that's the skirt Sondra made her in the pictures above. She was wearing it with boots and a ton of jewelry which made her look like some pop star country musician. I have a ton of really silly dress-up photos of her in which she strikes similarly silly poses like the one above which I will hopefully get around to posting before her next birthday.

Happy 4th birthday Hannah!