Cambria's 4th birthday!

I finally realized my baby was turning 4 whether I liked it or not and that I'd better get her party planned. I've been pretty busy lately with school, so I decided to keep this birthday a lot more low-key than normal. I scheduled the party specifically so that I wouldn't have to feed anyone a meal, and that freed up a lot more of my time to put together some fun games for the kids. We ended up only having one family over (we invited more, but nobody else could come), and it ended up being really easy and fun.

Bri loved picking out her own decorations this year. I took her to Party City, and she had a blast picking out her streamers, candles, balloons, napkins, party favors, and a new plate and cup set that she could use at her party. She wasn't very happy with me that I wanted the decorations to match ;-) , but she got over it pretty quickly.

She ended up taking a nap today, so we were able to decorate while she was asleep and have her be surprised when she woke up. We decided to have the kiddos decorate their own cupcakes as one of the activities, but Bri did NOT like the idea of not having a cake and INSISTED that she HAD to have her own cake. ;-) So I just made her a little Bri-sized cake of her very own to eat while everyone else had cupcakes. If you look closely at the picture, you can see that she decided to sneak a few tastes of the frosting. ;-)

Bri was WAY too impatient, so we opened presents as soon as the party started. She just had a one track mind and couldn't focus on anything else with all those pretty packages staring at her! ;-) I didn't get pictures of every single gift she opened, but I got quite a few!

Kyrie and Asher had so much fun picking out gifts for Bri this year and were so excited for her to open them. I LOVED seeing their reactions to her opening the gifts, and then Bri was so sweet and gave them both the biggest hug after she'd opened the presents. Kyrie picked out a new sleeping bag (Bri's got ruined several months ago), and Asher picked out a Play-Doh ice cream set.

Aunt Katie, Uncle John, and cousin Jonni sent her a package! It was a little Disney Princess wallet, and inside was a chapstick and a necklace. You can see by her face how much she LOVED it! :-)


Nana sent her lots of little gifts that were a huge hit!




For Kyrie's 3rd birthday, I was 7 months pregnant with Asher and decided to give her a Graco baby doll set (high chair, stroller, and play pen). That thing lasted forever, and we literally just barely threw out the play pen this year. We still have the stroller. The high chair was tossed a few years back, but still, that's a long time for a toy to last. So with only the stroller left to play with, last year for Christmas Bri got a new set, but it broke a few months ago (less than a year old). Toys seriously are not made the way they used to be! Kyrie's old set was metal, so I searched for weeks and weeks to find a set for Bri that was metal and would hold up better. I found one online for a good price, but then Derk suggested I check Toys R Us before ordering the one online. And they had one! I was so excited and could barely wait to give it to her for her birthday!!


I didn't get any pictures of the games, but we sure had fun! I put together 2 scavenger hunts for the kids, and they LOVED it. My original plan was to split the kids into 2 groups -- older and younger. For the older kids, I had clues typed out. For the younger ones, I took pictures of where each clue was hidden, cut them up into easy puzzles, and then the kids had to put together the puzzle to figure out where the next clue was. At the very end, they would find their prize. But since we only had a couple of kids, all the kids decided to do the scavenger hunts together. It was a huge hit. After that, they really just wanted to play, play, play, so the adults just enjoyed our time to chat and let the kiddos have a blast.

After all that playing, they finally decided it was time for cake/cupcakes. :-)


After the party was over, we let Bri decide how she wanted to spend the rest of the day. She wanted dinner at Arby's and then games at Chuck E. Cheese. So that's what we did! She also insisted on wearing one of the new outfits Nana sent and looked so cute all dressed up. I cannot even tell you how many people stopped me and told me how darling she was. :-)

Here's our little princess, passed out (wearing her new nightgown and necklace, sleeping in her new sleeping bag, and cuddling her new baby doll) at the end of her very busy, but very happy 4th birthday. :-)

Happy 4th birthday, Cambria!