Happy Birthday to Alice

Alice turned 4 on Monday.  She still seems like she's 3 or 2 to me.  Not that I'm in denial about her growing up, but she's really short.  She also still drinks out of a bottle and is refusing to grow up.  She was pretty exctied about her birthday, mostly because of the presents and getting to pick where we ate and getting lots of attention, can you blame her, but she still insists that she's a little girl.  That may also be her ploy to avoid chores--she too little and tired to put the forks on the table; put the shoes away; you get the idea.  

Alice is just, Alice.  She's spunky, fiesty, and independent.  Beyond independent.  I can't get her to do anything because other people do it--Alice, Sue wears a pony tail to dance, can you just wear a pony tail?  No, I don't like pony tails.  I only like braids.  A braid it is then.  Hopefully she'll keep up her anti-peer-pressure ways.

And that's as sentimental as I'm going to get here.  I have a hand-written journal I write in every year for each kid where I talk about how amazing they are and all that corny stuff that I will give them when they move out.  I know it's pretty awesome of me to do that for my kids.  Anyway, point is, we're moving on to the happening of Alice's birthday.

First, we had a morning photoshoot in a hand-me-down ballerina costume.

This is why she gets away with murder.

 Then she changed and we took the traditional toilet picture.

 Then I wanted to clean the house since I must complusively clean the house every Monday.  I asked Alice what she wanted to do: watch TV she said.  So she watched TV, Henry napped, and I cleaned.  It worked out.

For her party, she wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese.  Barf and headache mixed together.  We decided to try the newer one in Concord and it was heavenly.  Or at least as heavenly as Chuck E Cheese can be.  They had turned the noise on all the games nearly off, didn't blare loud annoying music through the whole resturant and they didn't have creepy anamitranic mice putting on a show.  It was great.  Though I still had a head ache when we left.  I'm going to blame it on tying my hairband too tight.

 We got home just in time to open presents.

 Grandma Pattie made her a puppet curtain, which Henry didn't really understand how to use.

We got her a bike and a tea set...I mean, Kol-Aide set.  And then it rained all week so she hasn't gotten to ride her bike very much.

 And we ate cake.  Alice wanted a ballerina birthday this year, but since I'm not a cake wizard, we settled on attaching a tutu to out cake stand.  Alice thought it was close enough and was very pleased with her cake.

 Fake blowing out her candles because the real thing we did in the dark so I couldn't get a picture of it.

And now she's four and is ready for kindgarden but still has 2 years before she can go.  Luckily for me, she likes hanging out with me more than Rex did so I don't think it will be so bad.