Katy turned 4!

In keeping with my new quest to blog about things I missed without stressing myself out about doing them in order, I'm jumping back a month and a half to June 3rd - Katy's birthday! Now, Katy is my one and only girl, and that alone often makes me spent extra time, attention, energy, and money on her. Add on the fact that she is truly adorable, and that she really enjoys dressing up and being doted upon, and, well, we have a lot of fun together! A little while before her birthday we went dress shopping. As in "pick out a bunch of dresses that we like and try them on to decide which one to get" dress shopping. We both had a lot of fun! It's not that I wouldn't take the boys clothes shopping, but they would do just about anything to avoid it! And, while there ARE cute boy clothes, the kinds of clothes my boys would choose are not them. So it was fun for me to have a mother-daughter dress shopping experience. :-) Even better, I got a free $10 Kohl's card in the mail, and the dress Katy chose was on sale, so I got a $24 dress for $2.16! Win!

On Katy's birthday she got to wear her pretty new dress! And new hair clips. And birthday girl ribbon. She sure felt special!

So we went out front and took some pictures of the beautiful birthday girl. It helped that it was such a gorgeous day!

How come it's cloudy and rainy now at the middle of July?

One of the reasons this was the chosen dress was because it was good for twirling!

I wish I got that much joy out of spinning in circles!

See? So much happiness!

Then it was time to look at the plants. :-)

One of Katy's favorite things to do is to go have lunch with Daddy in Portland. So on her birthday we went and picked him up and went to Red Robin with him! Yum!

Too bad Katy didn't like the ice cream... :-P

And of course she got a balloon, which also caused much happiness.

After lunch, Katy, Nathan, and I stopped by the OMSI for a short visit. Then we hurried home to be there before the boys got home from school. Then after dinner (chicken noodle soup at Katy's request) we went to the school for the "Family Fun Night." A bunch of little games, a couple inflatable toys, and some cotton candy. I don't have any pictures from that. Odd.

After Family Fun Night we came home and opened presents. Katy was ridiculously spoiled this year, for several reasons. First of all, Katy is happy to get things for presents that the boys wouldn't, as seen here:

That is not the face the boys' would make if they opened up a birthday present to find shoes!

Also, several of her presents were really, really good deals. I found some Littlest Pet Shop sets at Toys R Us that were not only on sale, but had 2 sets stuck together for that sale price. So what was normally $12.99 for one set was $8.99 for 2 sets. And I got her 2 tutus, a pair of wings, and the hair bows using a $40 gift card I bought for $20. Grandma & Grandpa Smith got her the set of Disney Princess dolls when they were almost half off. So we sure stretched the birthday budget this year!

And finally, Grandma & Grandpa Morrill just flat out spoiled her! I called to recommend a particular DS game, and instead Katy got a DS, DS case, pack of multi colored styluses (styli? What is the plural of stylus?), and 3 games. Thanks, Grandma & Grandpa!

That reminds me, I should have Katy send thank you notes. Every time I or one of my children has a birthday I intend on writing thank yous, and keep forgetting until eventually I decide not to do it because it's been so long. How rude of me!

Katy immediately got in her new jammies, put on a tutu & wings, and started playing her DS! Too bad it was already so late because of Family Fun Night!

Then it was cake time! Now, I've made ice cream cakes forever, the same way my mom made them when I was growing up: ice cream smashed into a pan. This time I finally tried doing an ice cream cake with cake in it, and it was so yummy! I have a set of 8, 9, and 10 inch springform pans, so I baked cakes in the 8 & 10 inch ones. After they cooled I wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer. Then I put plastic wrap in the same size pans (two long pieces making a cross), smashed the ice cream into them, and wrapped the ends of the plastic wrap over the top. After everything was frozen I built the cake by doing the 10" cake, 10" ice cream, 8" cake, then 8" ice cream. Then I made some whipped cream, died it bright pink, and frosted the cake with it. It wasn't the prettiest thing ever but it was delicious! I'm excited to play around with different flavor combinations of ice cream & cake (and I could even do different flavored whipped cream)!

Katy sure had a wonderful birthday! We are so happy to have her as part of our family!