Happy Birthday Anna!

Waiting  for cake - I love that face.

 Five days after Brian was born, Anna turned 4. We had a little family party with her that night then had a friend party over a week later.

Anna very happy to get her Rapunzel doll

Anna's friends at her party. I heard somewhere that you should invite the number of kids as age they are turning. 

For her friend party we were going to have a party at the beach again this year (side note, I once told her that other kids whose birthday is in February don't get to have their parties at the beach and she said they should just come here) but we never got things together for that so we just had it at home. She wanted to invite two families who have two kids each and knew just what games she wanted to play.

Popping balloons

A balloon popping game where there are prizes and candy in the balloons. We used shishkabob skewers for the popping and that seemed to work pretty well. Sadly, the loud noise scared several of the kids and Anna took several of their turns. Oh well, she enjoyed it.

She also wanted a pinata. Everyone had a turn hitting it before we realized that if we waited for their strength to break it, we would be there all day. So I helped increase everyone's oomph. It went much faster that way.

Blowing out her candles

We also had cake. I discovered the warm weather makes it really tricky to get the icing stiff enough to decorate with. Notice how the border is slipping down the edge. It wasn't pretty but it was pink and yummy so she liked it.

I think having her birthday then helped her adjust to Brian's arrival and all the presents he was getting. Several of our friends and family included a little something for her too and that helped (she also commandeered several of his presents if they were toys that he was too young for yet).