Look who is 4!

Our darling Stephanie is four years old today!

We celebrated in advance on Saturday morning at the river with her favourite friends, Callum and Frances and their older siblings Zoe and Lydia. Stephanie continues to be wild and wonderful in our family and extremely shy and reserved around others. Even the two families we invited seemed to overwhelm her, and she spent much of the morning at home trying to convince us that she didn't want a party after all. Luckily, these friends and their moms understand her well and the party time itself was very low-key and simple. Everyone had a great time!

One of the best parts of birthdays in our house is the abundance of CAKE. For her birthday party, Stephanie wanted lemon cake (which was recently enjoyed at a friend's party, thus the desire) with lemon glaze. Huge hit! But the party being separate from the birthday day means that more cake will be enjoyed very soon.

Instead of party bags full of junk and candy, we gave the kids beautiful pinwheels. Markus organised a treasure hunt to find them. The kids had to use clues to find 4 envelopes. Inside each envelope was a puzzle piece of a picture Markus had printed out of the back of my car (where the pinwheels were hidden). The kids loved it!

The pinwheels spin so quickly in the wind that Stephanie said we don't need an air-conditioner anymore because she can make air-conditioning for us. She called the pinwheels "air-conditioners" for the rest of the day. Now, she's absorbed that this is not the right name, so she calls them "nice sticks," as in, "Mama, where is my nice stick?"

Callum gave Stephanie a pink cat swim cap, which she absolutely loves. The look is hilarious.

This morning, we celebrated in our family's traditional way: decorations and presents waiting at the table, coffee cake so the birthday song and candles can be enjoyed first thing.

Happy Birthday, sweet girl! We are so blessed and lucky (and thankful!) to have you in our family!