The Real 4th Birthday

Audrey's bday breakfast. Pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream and bacon. YUM!

Birthday trip to the Detroit Zoo.

Since there aren't any real elephants we visit this statue every year. I think it's so cute.

Audrey and the monkey having a staring contest.

Daddy, Sawyer and Audrey checking out the prairie dogs from a different point of view.

Polar bear exhibit.

She was very excited about her presents, especially her fishing pole, princess of course. Notice Sawyer is enjoying climbing Audrey's presents.

Birthday dinner and cake at grandma and papa H's house.

Fishing on Grandma and Papa's new pontoon boat.

After a couple of practice days, May 24th was the official birthday. We had a great day doing all the things Audrey loves. We had a big sugary breakfast, went to the zoo, opened presents, had pizza and cake at Grandma and Papa's and finally, went for a boat ride so Audrey could try the new pole.

We can't believe Audrey is 4. It sounds so old! At 4, I would describe Audrey as imaginative, creative, smart, pretty, and dramatic. Can't wait to see what the next year holds for her. I'm sure there will be lots of funny stories to share!

Pump It Up Birthday Party

The bouncy slide.

The present chair. Audrey wanting to hold Derek, as always.

Enjoying cake.

Opening Pinkilicious, her fav.

Ryan and Caleb

Katie, Nathan and Jeremy

Tyler and John

Tinkerbell cake

Emma, Abby and Dru

Thursday was yet another b-day celebration for Audrey. After the past few years of b-day parties, I learned not to invite 17 4 year old kids and under to my house. 17 kids=17+ hours of cleaning. We decided to try to have a stress free and cleaning free party at Pump It Up.

Many of you know the saga but it's one for the memory books so here it goes. At 11:30, the day of the party, I get a call from the jack a#$ owner at Pump It Up saying that they filed for bankruptcy and they were going to have to reschedule my party for another day at another location. Lucky for me (and not so lucky for her), she left this message on my answering machine, thus giving me time to prepare my verbal assault. I did have to go into the garage so the kids wouldn't hear, since you can probably imagine the language that came out of my mouth. Seriously, what kind of person calls the day of to cancel a 4 year olds b-day party, the devil? Did she realize I had 17 kids coming and some were driving a fair distance? She obviously didn't care but something I said made her agree to come in, even though her lawyers advised otherwise. She probably thought I was going to hunt her down and torture her. It kind of ruined the party for me because I was so upset that I had a hard time regrouping.

The kids on the other hand, had a great time. There were 6 bouncy houses with various different things to do in each. The favorite was definitely the slide. The kids were on that thing the whole time. After 1 1/2 hours of bouncy we went and had cake and ice cream and presents. We have more toys than we need but Audrey doesn't agree. She loved the Barbie dolls and her 2 new books. The bouncing tired them out so much that they slept until 9:30 the next day!

After the party, Ben and I had to have a bottle of wine to wind down, but at least there was no cleaning!

Preschool Picnic

The whole class

3 year old preschool graduation...fancy.

Eating breakfast

Audrey's last day of preschool was Thursday. They ended the year with a picnic at McHattie Park. Next year it's on to the big leagues..4 year old preschool which means 3 days a week for 3 hours. It will be strange to have her gone that much but she is ready for it, just not sure if I am.

18 months and 4 years

Sawyer was not cooperative and Audrey was...here's the results.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

A little foreshadowing...Audrey - Halloween 2006

Today Audrey got a birthday card from her great papa with a $200 bond. She was excited about the bond because as many of you know, she loves money. This was our conversation.

Audrey: I want to put it in my piggy bank.

Me: No, it's a special kind of money that I have to put in a safe place.

Audrey: Why is it special money?

Me: Because when you get big and go to college you can use it to buy your books. When you go to college you get to pick what you want to be when you grow up. What do you want to be when you grow up?

Audrey: I want to be a lady bug.

Me: Oh great, looks like college will cost much less than earlier anticipated!

So, thanks for the many bonds Papa. Looks like they'll be put to great use to buy more ladybug costumes, that is if Audrey has anything to say about it.

You are my Sunshine

Saturday was the big day...Audrey's dance recital! I knew it would be cute, wasn't sure about good, but cute for sure. It actually turned out to be both. There was a huge improvement over last year when they did Bunny Foo-Foo. What a difference a year makes. They all knew the whole dance. Audrey was still the only one who sang the song while she danced but oh well. She also had the biggest and best smile during the whole recital. She just looked so darn happy.

One of her giant bows fell off her shoe right in the middle of the routine. Her friend Abby picked it up for her and then they kept on dancing. It was pretty cute. Although dance wasn't really my thing when I was a kid, it sure is fun to watch Audrey!

Stevensville Birthday Celebrations

Happy Birthday to Grandma and Audrey!

Anxiously waiting for her presents.

Playing soccer with Uncle Rod.

Doesn't quite have the no hands concept down yet.

We spent this past weekend with Ben's family celebrating Audrey's and Grandma's birthday. The kids had a great time roaming around in the backyard, or the forest as Audrey calls it. Audrey collected enough acorns to feed a squirrel family for the whole winter. And Sawyer enjoyed carrying around sticks and logs that were triple his height. They also had fun playing soccer with Uncle Rod and Daddy.

We had a nice dinner and cake with my favorite ice cream, Kilwin's Toasted Coconut, it's the best in the whole world, and I've sampled my fair share of ice cream flavors. We spent the rest of the time just hanging out, drinking lime daiquiris and opening presents.

There will be many more birthday posts to come...as four year olds have the birthday celebrations that go on forever!

Annie

Last week my mom and I took Audrey to see Annie at the Fischer Theatre in Detroit. I have been waiting and waiting for her to be old enough to take to a real show, by real I mean a show other than Elmo. I loved Annie when I was a kid. It brought back tons of memories of Megan and I singing the songs over and over while bouncing on my bed when we were little. It also reminded me of my college roommates. We would go out for a night of partying at good ol' MSU and then come home, rather intoxicated, crank up Annie and sing until our RA would come and tell us to knock it off.

Audrey loved the show. I was impressed that she made it through the whole thing because it was 2 1/2 hours and we didn't' get home until after 11:00. She really loved the music as you can see from her clip. She says she has to sing loud because that's how Annie sings.

She did do something funny/embarrassing for the memory books. During the intermission she pointed to an African American man and shouted out, "Look mom, Barack Obama!" I wanted to climb under my seat and never come out. Guess I gotta get her out of South Lyon a little more often!

Florida Fun

Telling Belle a long story.

Hugs for Cinderella.

Riding Small World

Sawyer loved the cars. He got to sit in the drivers seat,

My favorite picture of Audrey.

Riding the carousel with Grandma and Papa.

Sawyer wasn't too sure about Mickey and Minnie.

Sawyer made himself right at home. He took apart the cupboards, climbed everything and sat in all the drawers.

Pool time fun.

Trying to keep Big Red covered and smothered in SPF 50 was a challenge but he escaped without any burns.

As always, hamming it up for the camera.

We're back from our second trip to Disney and we just might have to make it a yearly tradition. Thanks to Ben's parents we a great condo for the week in Orlando. It was also nice to have Grandma and Papa and Aunt Janie to help with the kids while we were at the pool and Disney. It's good to have as many hands as possible with a wild 18 month old!

Our plane rides down and back didn't go so well. My advice to other parents of active toddlers would be to buy them their own seat, I think it would be well worth the money to be able to strap them down. Sawyer didn't sit still the whole time and it was 2 1/2 hours of baby wrestling. The lady sitting in front of us actually had the nerve to ask if we could keep his feet still. I wanted to smack her but I restrained myself as I knew Ben would not be happy. Of course the lady didn't have kids. What on earth was she doing going to Orlando anyways? If you don't want kids on your flight then don't go to Orlando, or drive your own car. You would all be proud of me because I didn't say or do anything, just ignored her and directed Sawyer to kick her seat just a little harder =-)

We went to The Magic Kingdom for one day, it's all we could handle emotionally and financially. Both kids really liked it, Audrey more so than Sawyer. We were lucky because the lines were short. It would have been miserable waiting in long lines with Sawyer. Audrey loved the characters and princesses, Sawyer not so much. He tolerated Mickey and Minnie but that was it. Sawyer's favorite part was going on the race cars and Small World. He was in a trance watching the cars while we were in line. Audrey said her favorite part was going on Goofy's Rollercoaster. We got to sit in the first car! It was actually a little scarier than I thought it would be but she loved it.

For the rest of the week we just sat around the pool and swam. We also went to Downtown Disney a couple times. The kids loved the LegoLand store and the HUGE Disney store. One night we ate at Rainforest Cafe, which is a rip off, but we did get to sit through the whole meal without having to walk Sawyer around. He loved watching the animals and it kept him entertained.

It was a great trip and a much needed break from our hectic lives!!!!