So this weekend we celebrated Sawyer's impending 4th birthday and it was a really great time I think. We decided to try and keep it easy and had some friends over, friends who have kids that are friends with Sawyer...works well that way...plus Ann and Ted made the trip from Michigan so Sawyer had Charlie and Ben here to celebrate with her, which was fun. We had it at home, and I think it was a good time by all. I'm going to use pictures to tell most of this story, because I have a whole lot of pictures.
We had 12 kids in the house ranging in age from a few months to five years old. We hired a guitar player to come for an hour to play the kids some tunes. Their interest level tended to change every few minutes, but luckily there always seemed to be a critical mass to pay attention to the singer.
I can't say it was the most amazing kid performance I've seen, but she managed to keep their attention and get them engaged in the songs which was nice.
Sawyer and two of her friends, Isabella and Reese all seemed to get into the dancing action.
We also broke out the new bubble machine. The fact that half our basement is unfurnished worked in our favor for this party because there was a large area for kids to run and play.
The real hit of the night though was the glow in the dark necklaces. I'm not sure if it was Sawyer or one of her friends, but they decided to go turn the lights out in the basement and dance with their glow in the dark necklaces. Here's Isla hanging in the dark...
By the end of the night Sawyer was picking up all the extra necklaces her friends left at our house and had quite a collection. This is her at the end of the night after the last of her friends left. I put Isla to bed 1.5 hours after bedtime and she cried the whole time I was putting jammies on her because she didn't want to go to bed, girl was having too much fun. With Sawyer, I think Mark and I both realized that she needed some down time before bed...so while everyone was gone by 9, she wasn't in bed till 10.
In that hour, we let her open one of her presents, and she LOVED it. She got some Disney princess outfits and insisted on trying every one on before bed.
Smile couldn't get much bigger I don't think.
She gave me a big hug to say thanks for her party.
Despite the late bedtimes both girls were up at 7, which didn't make me too happy. It was clear they were still lacking on some sleep so we played a bit, rode bikes to the playground for some time outside, came back and tried to make a dent into our many leftovers, and then got them down for some much needed long naps. In fact, both girls needed to be woken up at 4 (we won't let them sleep later than that, otherwise there would be no back to bed).
While we never got around to pin the tail on the donkey during the party, Sawyer and Isabella played it after everyone else had left, and these two picked up with it in the morning. The best part of it was the blindfold. All of them could cheat with this on by looking out around the nose area. Isla was a big fan especially.
After naps Sawyer woke up with glorious curls. Such is the life of deep sleep for her. Because her real birthday is on Tuesday, and life can be a little crazy on "school days" for us, we let her open her remaining presents. She had done the rest from her party in the morning, so it was time for Mom and Dad's presents, and Grandma and Grandpa.
First up, Sawyer got her very first tennis racquet...recorded her for posterity should she ever become professional.
I love the look she gave Mark after opening it.
Meanwhile, Isla was doing her best to sway the attention away from Sawyer and tried playing some train whistle for us, but we would not be swayed.
From Grandma and Grandpa Sawyer got another dress-up outfit - Cinderella. She went from having one dress that no longer fit to now having several which made her day. We spent much of the day in our Disney clothes.
She was totally hamming it up for the camera in this. The gloves and shoes were a big hit.
And Isla finally inherited her own dress! She was pretty darn excited. She was loving it. She was even a little jealous of Sawyer's gloves, so I went up and got my old ones from my wedding, and she rocked those for awhile. She loved them! They were ridiculously big and made her look like Edward Scissorhands but she didn't care a bit.
As I mentioned we spent a good amount of time playing in our dress up clothes, and our glow in the dark necklaces from the night before. I wish I looked this good when I was doing dishes.
But...all good things must come to an end, and so after dinner we celebrated with round 2 of the cupcakes before baths and bed. This is how Isla eats cupcakes these days...
And one last one of the birthday girl. I didn't get one of us singing to her on Saturday, so when she gets another cupcake on Tuesday and one last round of "Happy Birthday" we'll snap a few more.
All in all, I'd say it was a good weekend, with lots of family, friends, and good food. I definitely earned my nap today, that's for sure. Now we've set our sights on celebrating Sawyer's actual birthday Tuesday - she gets a little party at school...and Grandma and Grandpa coming on Friday for the weekend!
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