Pictures from Lucy's Birthday

I'm about a month late getting the pictures up from Lucy's 4th Birthday on January 29th. We really had more of a birthday week than a single day, with three separate cake and candle occasions.

Birthdays are a really big deal in our house. The kids have a play wooden birthday cake that has velcro on decorations and candles. At least one morning a week starts with Lucy and Jack taking turns singing "Happy Birthday" and knocking down the candles. So when we have an actual birthday, one day just isn't enough.

First, the Sunday before her birthday--the same day as the wedding show--John and Peggy watched the kids during the day, and when they brought them home that night we had cupcakes and opened presents. I'm sad to admit that I wasn't fully conscious after the wedding show and forgot to pull out the camera.

Then, the night before her birthday we had a party at my parents' house because they were leaving the next day for Hawaii. Lucy opened presents. Adorned herself with stickers and changed outfits multiple times.

She also treated us all to quite the ballet performance with many jumps, pirouettes and arabesques. I've heard my dad re-enacted the performance for several patients, a couple of which are my piano students at the office. It made quite the impression.

She also was entirely delighted by her Tinkerbell cake. My mom convinced the lady at the store, who must have thought my mom quite insane, to trade out the Superbowl or Hawaiian decorations for the Tinkerbell. If she hadn't told me, I would have never known.

On her birthday, we took very cute flower cupcakes to preschool. You frost the top, roll in sanding sugar, stick in a lollipop and make leaves from green laffy taffy. I've made them a few different times before, and they are both simple and adorable. She was pretty excited about giving out the treats. That night, we went to ice cream and I made Lucy's favorite, homemade macaroni and cheese.

Then on Saturday, we had her little "Fancy Nancy" party. We just invited a few friends, nothing overwhelming, because I didn't have time to put together a whole big thing with the wedding show the week before. But, I did have all the leftover decorations from the wedding show. And, the roses from the wedding show kept very nicely in my van, which was convenient because I was too preoccupied to empty them out during the week. So we put up streamers and the tissue paper balls, decorated the table with a table cloth, the runner, and flowers--all from the wedding show. The girls each came dressed up and we added a feather boa to their attire. We made crowns with glittery foam stickers because clearly everything is better with glitter.

We ate butterfly crackers, with little polka dots of cheese and apples. We read a Fancy Nancy story, danced around and played with all of Lucy's barbies and kitchen stuff.

I made the girls (and Jack, who enjoyed the whole thing with a crown and boa on) individual cupcakes with big pink frosted tops.

They each got a candle--Jeff and Shane helped keep that under control--and we sang "Happy Birthday" a few times so that we could fully enjoy blowing out our candles.

And then, all the girls went and played with Jack's cars until their moms and dads picked them up. It really was pretty cute, although Jack wasn't so thrilled, to see all these princesses end their time by playing cars.

It was the strangest feeling throwing Lucy's birthday party. A year ago, it would have completely stressed me out and taken over my life for at least a week. This year, I honestly didn't think that much about it until the day before. It just seemed so small and simple compared to all the caterings, the wedding show and everything else that we have been doing. And it went smoothly--I taught dance to this age for years, so this wasn't that much different. I guess, I hadn't realized how much I had changed and learned until the birthday party was over.

So Lucy had plenty of birthday celebrating--although this morning, a month later, she told Jeff that I was going to make her a cake for her birthday. I think playing with her wooden birthday cake is a much better idea!