Cara's Birthday Celebration

 So now that Cara is 4 and had a fun weekend of celebrating I thought I'd post about how we rang in her 4th year:

Saturday we had her birthday party booked at Luv 2 Play in South Town Mall. While I'll say the party "host" people (i.e. high school kids who are annoyed they have to work on a Saturday) weren't the best, the kids had so much fun playing in the playground area and little arcade they have and that's the important part. The food was good and the decorations were awesome! My girl got SPOILED with gifts and all the fun attention. I didn't end up taking many pictures because I was so wrapped up entertaining everyone, keeping an eye on the kids, and keeping Lucy happy (she was having a VERY hard time with all the noise and people).

Sunday we did our 1:1 dates (we decided she's old enough for this fun new tradition) with her. I got lunch and an activity and Larry got dinner and an activity. After asking her many questions I decided we'd go on a hike and have a picnic so while Larry stayed home with the other girls (and they napped) I took Cara to the gas station to get some lunch food, chips, and a brownie. We ate at the playground right by the trailhead (where she got sad she stepped on a spider...it was still alive, but she kept telling me she was sorry. It wasn't hear fault though, the spider literally ran under her shoe as she jumped up and down) and then started on our hike. We hiked the mountain right behind our house and I figured we'd make it as far as she could make it and turn around. Well little 4 year olds have unlimited energy and she ended up making it ALL the way to the top without stopping (she did keep swaying her arms back and forth while breathing heavily, but she never admitted to being tired). She did say she'd need juice every once in a while to "help me go fast" haha. Once we got to the top she wanted to keep going down the other side of the mountain, but I had to tell her no to that since our car was on the other side. After looking at the neighborhoods and taking a breath we started to go back down. She handled the slippery slopes really well (she thought it would be like going down a slide haha). I offered my hand several times, but she hardly ever took it and said she could handle it on her own. She even jumped off bigger rocks onto slopes without sliding and never hurt herself too bad. She's SUCH a brave girl! It always surprises me how fearless she is. Even though she didn't want to go down and go back home, she did end up getting excited about playing at the playground at the bottom of the trail. We lasted about 10 minutes there before she had to go to the bathroom and since there weren't any near us I told her we'd have to go home. I thought she'd want to go back out to our playgrounds after going potty, but she got distracted by her toys and decided to stay in.

Around 5 Larry took her out for bowling and dinner. I figured he'd be back by 7, but when I texted him at that point to see if he was almost home he said they were just getting to dinner because she had so much fun bowling and then they played in the arcade for a bit. I was DOG tired so I ended up putting on PBS for the younger girls and just relaxing (we did play outside quite a bit before this so it wasn't ALL in front of the TV). Lucy was SO fussy because we're trying to shake off her 3rd nap so it was an exhausting night. I was happy to put her down for bed, but I let Gwen stay up until Cara got home. Cara had so much fun she kept saying she didn't need to go to bed because she wasn't "yawning yet". Haha.

This morning I asked her if she wanted to go bowling again and she said "yeah, and bring Gwen-Gwen, Lucy, Mommy, Me, and Daddy". When I asked her if she wanted to go hiking again she said "yeah....but bowling too!" haha. She clearly had a very fun day. We let her eat donuts for breakfast, I let her have the brownie before she finished her lunchable, and she got tablet/Mario time when she wanted it. I'm so happy we got to celebrate like I always wanted and I can't wait to see what this next year brings. I hope to expose her to many different things so she can really figure out what she likes and wants to pursue in life. I just love her to pieces and get so excited for more 1:1 dates!