Gwen is 4!

My little Gwen-Gwen is now 4 years old! I can't believe it! We had such a fun day celebrating her, but first I have to post my mushy stuff:

To Gwen, 

I love how sweet and silly you are. I wish I could fully capture it in video or photo, but your personality comes out at such spontaneous times all I can do is just soak it in when it happens. You are beyond smart and sassy. You are so logical, you throw it back at people without realizing what a smart ass you are. I love it! You adjust to things SO well, but you HATE being ignored, you mostly just go with the flow. You have a heart of gold and love to include everyone in things. You will randomly give us hugs and tell us you love us (which is one of my absolute favorite things ever!). You definitely like to be mischievous or get extremely emotional at times, but you mostly are a sweetheart. If you feel bad in any way, I love that you'll just take yourself to the couch, cover up with a blanket and relax (I'm sure that'll help you when you get older vs throwing a fit). I underestimate how brilliant you are and I'm doing my best to not do that. You understand a lot of Cara's school work without being there to learn it from a teacher. You understand when I read stories to pay attention because I will be asking questions after I'm done haha. You seem to love to draw and color, but you're not so much worried if you're drawing anything real haha. You love the kitties and your little siblings and are so good at playing with them. You don't ask "why" so much anymore, but do say you know why things are the way they are and I love that you understand things so well. It makes the whole "why" period worth it. I love how gorgeous your hair is too, I swear you have princess-like hair and it's the most beautiful hair I've ever seen (I love brushing it to see how long and naturally curly it is). I also love your little curves, with your full bum and belly and long legs. I'm literally jealous of your inward and outward beauty and know we're going to be in trouble when you get older and have school dances/dates. You also have that personality where you do what you like, you don't realize how silly and pretty you are. You are SO strong and brave too. I have loved watching you learn and conquer so much this past year! You are a rock star and I'm so excited to see you continue to grow (and to see how you handle being in school next year!).

If her personality could be summed up in a shot

Now onto her party! Ever since Cara's party at Chuck E Cheese she's wanted to go for her birthday, which I didn't hate because it was one of the easiest places to have a party and we had a LOT of leftover game cards and some tickets we found so it gave us an excuse to use those up. I'm glad her birthday was on a Saturday so we could plan the party for the actual day (makes it a little bit easier). We opened presents first and she was SO good at showing how excited she was for each gift. Gwen LOVED the attention she got from the family. However, when it came time to dance with the mouse she was the only kid who wasn't doing anything haha. Cara went up to start dancing with her, but came back to her seat pretty quickly (I think she started to get shy too haha). 

She blew out the candle on her cake like a champ (I was a bit worried when we practiced on a candle at home and she had trouble blowing that one out, but apparently cake ones are easier haha). When it came time to do the ticket blaster she asked Cara to go with her and it was SO funny watching them. Tickets were literally flying into Gwen's face and she'd take them off and throw them into the air. She was able to catch quite a bit, but then threw them down when it was over haha. Luckily, the workers grabbed a bunch and gave them to her. 

I was really excited that the kids got to play for a while this time. I hung out with Pierce, when he wasn't with Nana and the girls playing and riding the "rides" (I was probably cleaning or visiting with people at that point). Once everyone started leaving and time ran out on the game cards we exchanged our tickets for the prizes. They ended up forgetting to give us our big one (and we didn't realize till we got home...which I'm trying NOT to obsess over), but the kids still got lots of good things. 

Overall, we had SUCH a fun time celebrating our sweet girl and she seemed to have such a fun time. I think this is one of the last family birthday parties we'll do, I know I'll do a big one for Pierce's 1st birthday and MAYBE one more for Lucy? But I think the kids are getting to where we can have them pick their birthday activities and we'll just have a fun, low key family day together. Oh and let them do a friend birthday party as they get into school.