celebrating 4 years

 Yesterday was Heidi's fourth birthday.  I can't believe it.  The last little while she has definitely turned from a toddler into a kid and it's a little bittersweet.  I love how independent she is now, but it's hard to realize the baby I thought she would always be, is growing up.  I never expected seeing your kids grow would be so difficult.  I think it's mostly hard because they just grow and change SO FAST.  It doesn't seem like 4 years ago that we were bringing her home from the hospital.  It feels like it was just yesterday that we found out we were finally expecting.

We had a fun time celebrating Heidi's special day.  Her birthday was on a Tuesday this year, which wasn't ideal for a party.  We don't do parties every year, but this was a party year and Heidi could not have been more excited.  We had the party on Friday evening, before her birthday.  She was a little confused thinking she was already four, but we finally convinced her she was still 3 for a few more days and that we were just celebrating early.  We did the party at the park and it worked out perfectly.  Almost everyone she invited came and she was thrilled.

We had pizza, salad, and of course cake.  With all the little girls around, I'm not sure Heidi opened her presents on her own, but she had so much fun and she was so cute about everything she got.  She gave hugs to all of her friends and was genuinely thrilled about each little gift.  She couldn't wait to get home and look at them all again!  She got a little diary from her friend Evie and when we got home she said, "Look mom, this is my diarrhea from Evie's family.  What is a diarrhea?"  I laughed pretty hard.

 

 When I asked Heidi what kind of cake she wanted she told me she wanted a chocolate giraffe cake.  I found lots of cute ideas and figured I could pull it off, but in the end I had it made at the local bakery.  I'm glad I did, because getting a party ready and set up is a lot of work and I just don't think I would have had enough time to make it.  She was absolutely thrilled with how it turned out.

It was such a fun way to celebrate our big girl and we are so thankful to all of our friends who made the effort to come and help make our sweet Heidi the happiest birthday girl in town!

On Heidi's actual birthday she woke up singing about being 4.  She got birthday candles in every meal (and Savanna may or may not have had candles in her meals too).  She requested blueberry muffins for breakfast, chicken sandwich for lunch, and frozen pizza for dinner.  Yes, frozen pizza.  I tried to change her mind about 20 times but she wanted that frozen pizza.  I realized later it was because she thought candles would be easier to stick in pizza than anything else.  We also had another little cake and I had saved her presents from us to open.  So I guess she had two days to celebrate turning four and she couldn't have been more excited!

I am so grateful the Lord trusted me to be her mom.

I feel so blessed and so lucky.

She was definitely worth the wait.

Love, love, love, love you, Heidi Bug!