Ellie's Party (THEN and NOW)

It was a good birthday weekend and Ellie was such a sweet birthday girl (more on that later).

Two years ago Ellie had her birthday party at Bounce Town, and that was where she wanted to celebrate this year. There was no talking her out of it, but I didn't try because I wasn't sure I wanted to take on another big party like last year's. Click on the photo to enlarge it. You might get a kick out of the comparison of Ellie THEN and Ellie NOW. I know I did - especially the method of going down the slide!

Ellie has gotten so big it seems like there is no mountain she can't climb. Ok, that was a little cheesy, but the photos of her and Gramma could not be passed up.

Bounce Town is fun for the whole family! Lucky me, I was the one behind the camera.

Though a dozen of Ellie's friends came to celebrate with her (more photos later), I have to say that it's much harder to take photos of them at this age than when they were only two. Four year olds are MUCH faster and impossible to keep up with, so you'll have to excuse the fact that I'm brushing past the whole "party" thing and moving on to the little sister. How did Addie do at Ellie's Party? Much to my delight, she held her own!

The delightful little girl tried so hard to keep up with her big sister. She loved to bounce with all the big kids around her. But then they'd suddenly decide to go to another bounce castle and POOF! They were gone. She'd try to follow but often by the time she finally caught up to them, they were ready to move on. It was funny to watch and Addie didn't seem to mind because she just liked being amongst the chaos.

And when it was time for food, she out-performed any of Ellie's big friends. She, alone, ate 2.5 pieces of pizza, which was easily 2.5 times the amount that any other child ate.

We love our birthday girl. She had so much fun and was so proud to be four years old. She loved passing out the party favors to her friends and telling them thank you for coming. She was a very polite birthday girl.

It wasn't until her actual birthday that I realized just how sweet this birthday girl was. We decided that the house needed some de-cluttering so we went through Ellie's old toys and picked a bunch to give to "another little girl who didn't get many birthday presents." Much to my surprise, Ellie was completely ok with the concept of donating her old toys. We went through them and she'd consider each one before making a decision and though I would have been happy with getting rid of 1/4 of the toys, she ended up willingly parting with nearly half!

We made a game out of choosing the stuffed animals. We piled them all into the middle of the floor. ALL OF THE STUFFED ANIMALS WE OWNED IN ONE BIG ANIMAL MOUNTAIN. Then we went through and each of us picked one animal that we wanted to keep. We told Ellie to be sure she picks her most favorite ones first. And Daddy and I were sure to pick the ones that had sentimental value to us and we helped Addie pick the animals that were hers. Then we went through and we each picked an animal to give away.

That was the hard part. Ellie did fine, but I think it was more difficult on Mommy and Daddy. Ellie picked to donate some animals we loved and chose to keep some that we thought were obvious "trash." But alas, that's the point right? It's a difficult thing for a child to give up some of her old toys, so why should we expect it to be easy on us? Anyway, I was proud of the birthday girl. She done good. She done REAL good.

So, of course we went out to celebrate! Nana, Grampa, Uncle David, Haydn, Brandy, Uncle Adam and Aunt Erin all joined us for a dinner celebration. Gramma had the wonderful idea of having us all dress in funny hats for the special occasion. I was surprised that everyone played along. Needless to say, this girl is loved by a lot of people, and it's no wonder why.