Josie turns four (all the parties)

Josie girl is four years old! Her birthday weekend was spent celebrating her life with all the family. Hubby and I really want the emphasis of birthdays to be on that more than parties with friends, presents, and material things in general (fancy cakes, party supplies, location). We still do parties, although mostly it's just our small families, to keep it simple, and we still do presents but we try hard to keep them purposeful (one or two instead of a bunch of little presents). We felt like this weekend was a good example of that! (disclaimer: I've noticed that each family that we know and love celebrates a little differently, and having big parties with friends, fancy cake, presents, etc is great and a lot of fun! Just not for us.)

On Saturday, Josie and cousin Dean celebrated with the Deyles. The kids played a little in a kiddie pool but the weather was rainy and not all that warm, so eventually they came back inside. We ate a great meal, enjoyed cake, opened presents, and snuck back outside to play a little more before going home.

The next morning, Josie came running out of her room (so sweet how excited she was) and gave us the biggest grin and hugs when she saw us in the kitchen. Daddy was making her pancakes, her choice for breakfast. I think once she saw him doing that, she realized that all of her sweet four year old dreams were coming true. (She picked mac n cheese for lunch and spaghetti for dinner. Love this age where their requests are easy.)

After church, my parents and sister joined us for the afternoon to continue celebrating. We made a purple cake (again, her request) by mixing vanilla cake mix and grape soda pop. It was strange and wouldn't come out of the pan in one piece, so we ended up making a trifle cake with whipped cream in between each layer. I made the frosting runny by adding more milk so that it could be poured over the top of it, and surprisingly it tasted pretty good. Good enough, in fact, that there was none left at the end of the night. 

I got out my Canon camera and took a few pictures of her in her favorite dress (purple, flowers, twirly, of course it was her favorite). It was so sunny that I couldn't avoid shadows, but I do love seeing her giggly, sweet spirit in each shot.

Audrey wins "best sister award" for sure. She was so excited for Josie to have all of this attention. When asked, she would quickly say that it was Josie's birthday, not hers. She shouted in glee while Jo opened presents and happily clapped and sang along while we sang "Happy Birthday." I wonder how many years she'll be this supportive (and not a little jealous)?

Both girls put on their share of chalk make up before we took pictures

Holding the card she got from great Grandpa Lekang

I know I said that we don't want the emphasis to be on gifts, and it truly wasn't, but it should be noted that I don't think we could have gotten better gifts for her. Each gift was so very personalized, and she has loved all of them pretty equally since. Hubby and I got her a kid sized guitar, castle blocks, and a little royal family doll set to go with it. My parents got her a speaker that she can use to listen to her favorite music. It has a mini SD card that we reload with what she wants and she can carry it around inside or out while being in control of it. The quality is decent so it doesn't drive me crazy.

Grandpa and Grandma Deyle got her a basket for her bike (she keeps trying to sneak toys out to the garage to put in it) and her her Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Greg got her a Frozen purse and a felt princess board book. Auntie Lara got her a couple of the little Legos sets (a first for our house) and the girls sit and play with them for hours when baby sister is sleeping. She also got her kinetic sand, but I quickly put that away for a rainy day (or all of winter). It was a quiet week in our house with all of these fun toys to play with! I think the reason their attention spans lasted longer with these toys is because they all encouraged a lot of imaginative play.  Seriously, if we have to have more toys (we have so many already), thats exactly what I'd prefer we get. And obviously Josie loves them too.

For now, you can find Josie sitting quietly in her room listening to music (for hours, its a little unnerving when I don't hear anything else for so long... I expect a huge mess in there but am always pleasantly surprised when she's listening to music instead of destroying her room)...

or she also likes to sit in the living room, listening to music, while she builds castles over and over again. Sometimes Audrey helps, but most of the time it's just her and her little brain working hard.

I hope to post a more descriptive post of what Josie is like these days soon. For now, though, I want to just say that four year olds are much much much easier and more fun to be around than three year olds. :)