Turning 4

On January 11, Claire turned 4.  I still can't believe it.  Four is so not a baby anymore.  She is getting so big so fast, and I hate that I can't slow it down.  This year Claire is loving the book "Pinkalicious" about a little girl who eats too many pink cupcakes and wakes up pink.  One night as we were reading it before bed, I saw the pink cupcakes in the book and had some birthday party inspiration!  This was Claire's first birthday with friends invited, and it was so much fun.  Her party was on January 8, and we invited all of the girls in her class, plus her best little neighborhood friend, Alexis.

 First, we read the book in case anyone hadn't heard it yet.  Claire was such a great helper!  She has the book almost completely memorized, so she "read" a lot of it.  She was very proud, and it was too cute when she used the right inflection and tone, like she's been doing this for years!

 

 Next, everyone made wands and picture frames to take home.  We had lots of princess stickers to decorate with, and some sticky gems and jewels, too.  Each little girl also got a tiara and pink fairy wings.  I learned a lesson about fairy wings, that the bigger wings go on top.  Turns out I've been putting them on Claire upside down all of these years!  Sorry, baby!

 All of the little girls, minus one who was feeling camera-shy!

 Claire decided that she wanted to buck tradition and open her presents before pizza and cake.  Who was I to argue with the birthday girl?

 I forgot to take a picture of the dining room before the party!  Jeff and I worked hard to get it all decorated, and I went a little overboard with the streamers and ribbons!

 Pinkalicious cupcakes, just like in the book.  Claire helped to decorate them!

 We played "pin the cherry on the cupcake," which was a lot of fun!

 Because we had such a big party for Claire's friends, we invited our family over just for cake and ice cream on her actual birthday.  Again, she insisted on presents before cake!  

So the cake really belongs on cakewrecks.  Claire asked for purple frosting with purple curly things, I randomly poured the batter into a bundt pan...and this is what we ended up with.  A donut-looking mess of a cake.  Luckily, it tasted pretty good, despite being very unappealing to the eye...

Happy birthday to my big girl!