Happy Number Four, Analyn Alma

Last week was quite the birthday week. On Sunday we had my parents over for a birthday dinner. When Thad and I asked Ana what she wanted for her special dinner, she said, "eggs."

Ok ... "what kind of eggs?" We asked. "umm, fried." Was her reply.

"Ok ... do you want anything with the eggs? Like pancakes or waffles?"

So we ended up having waffles, eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns. It was easy and yummy. And chocolate cup cakes (from scratch) for dessert.

Monday, her Real birthday, started with a little drama. She got to bring in an "All About Me" scrapbook page to preschool and tell about herself. And I made cookies for her birthday treat. So at 8:20 a.m. we were ready to head to school, cookies and scrapbook page in hand, and I couldn't find the car keys. It only takes 4 minutes to get to preschool, and it doesn't start until 8:30, so I tried to remain calm. I've lost my keys several times before. I started looking in all the usual places. No luck. We said a prayer. This will be a great teaching moment, I thought. 5 minutes passed. We said another prayer. Long story short, at 8:50 I called my friend and neighbor, on the verge of tears, we ran down to her house, Benji bouncing recklessly on my hip, and I borrowed her minivan to drive Ana to school. I cried all the way home. I felt so horrible for making her late (the only day she has been late, go figure) on her Birthday, of all days!!

And after talking to Thad on the phone, I found the keys in his jeans pocket:)

Fast forward to Saturday. I threw a Fancy Nancy birthday party for Ana. Thad had to go to a stake boy scout campout in Island Park so I ventured it alone. And everything went pretty smoothly; the kids all had fun. So yay, that's over!

We started the party reading about the Explorers Extraordinaire Club, and clubhouse rules. I handed out notebooks and maps of our "territory" i.e. a map of our front and backyard. We searched for lady bugs and other insects, and drew pictures of them in our notebooks. Only we couldn't find any insects! We ended up only finding one ladybug that fell off of it's leaf and was lost in the weeds, and one spider. Haha.






We made extra fancy bird-feeders, opened presents, then the kids decorated their own cup cakes. Before they left, they each became official members of the Explorers Extraordinaire Club, and they got membership cards with their names on them. It was fun!

OH, and at the end of it all, when I wasn't paying attention, Benji dumped out two of the sprinkle containers and ate a lot of sprinkles. That stinker. There goes $4 and 4 years worth of sprinkles! (And a little juicy info: the halloween sprinkles made his poo the brightest, most apple green color I have ever seen. We took a picture of it cause it was so weird.)

Happy birthday my smart, happy, make-believer little girl. We love you soo soo soo much. Some statistics on Ana are coming ...