Party animals!

What a whirlwind of a weekend! So many parties, so little time. It was exhausting, but so worth it. Payton had a BLAST! I think she's pretty devastated that all of her birthday celebrations are over now. Just when she was getting used to all of the presents and cake!

On Saturday morning Kyle took Payton to soccer, and in the meantime Grandma Jo and I started decorating for Payton's tea party. When Payton came back and saw the decorations, she ran over to me, gave me a big hug, and said "It's so beautiful! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" It MELTED my heart and brought tears to my eyes. Payton was so excited that we had a hard time keeping everything straight until her guests arrived, she wanted to touch and move everything, then move it again!

Starting to come together!

I stenciled "Happy Birthday Payton" on doilies, fit in well with the tea party theme

We had goldfish crackers in little mini buckets, cheese sandwiches in the shape of a flower (I used a cookie cutter!), little cake brownies, and cupcakes! I served grapes too, and hot chocolate for "tea". We also used doilies for placemats, and set out crayons so the girls could color on them.

YUM!

We lined up all of the girls' goodie bags on the windowsill

Tea party princesses from left to right: Payton, Summer, Macyn, Melina and Gigi

Time for the birthday girl to blow out her candle!

I still cannot believe she's FOUR!

We only had our tea party guests for 2 hours, but by the time they left we felt like we'd been through a tornado! Payton was SO thrilled to play with so many of her close friends, and they all seemed to have such a great time. Successful party in the books, on to the next one!

We kept a lot of the decorations up for our family party on Sunday. Economical, and less work! Winning!

Helping the birthday girl open presents

Love of my life

For Payton's big present from Kyle and I, Sue had a great idea that we could do a Blue's Clues type scavenger hunt so she could "find" it. She LOVED it, in fact she wanted to play again later that night!

Found one!

There was one in my bed too!

So fun! Out to the garage!

Girl got a Mustang! Little apprehensive at first. She was frightened and asked "Is it going to go fast??"

Hitting the open road

I think she likes it! :)

Showing brother the ropes

I see many fun times ahead for these two!

Big birthday girl

Laughing with Grandma

Oh that hair :)

We had such a great time, thank you to everyone who made Payton's birthday special. She is the luckiest little girl, we are very blessed!

Carter man was partied out! Cuddling with cousin Sarah. He was a doll!

Speaking of Carter… he is officially a crawling machine and into EVERYTHING! Last weekend he started crawling a little bit, but now he's a pro! So proud of him! It's SO CUTE to turn around and see this:

Hi Mom!

Even trying to stand up now!

A whole new world to explore :)

Love these boys!

To cap it all off, Payton had her 4 year check up this morning. I knew she would be getting shots, so I was a little nervous about how it would go. I can't really fool her about those things like I used to! I told her that she was going to the doctor, and she said "but I'm not sick!" I told her that we have to go every so often so that they can weigh us and see how tall we are. I was hoping that would satisfy her, but she's too intelligent for that… she looked me right in the eye and said "is that everything?" I didn't want to lie to her, so I told her that she had to get a few shots. She didn't freak out, so I figured that was a step in the right direction! She is a growing girl…

Weight: 42.2 pounds (90th percentile)

Height: 42.5 inches (95th percentile!)

They also did an eye exam, which I thought was interesting. They had her read a little chart from a ways away, covering one eye at a time. They said her vision (with her glasses on) in her right eye was 20/30, and her vision in the left was 20/40. That seemed consistent with her other eye exams, her left is usually a little worse than her right. They also took her blood pressure: 80/60! She had to get four shots unfortunately; tetanus, chickenpox, polio, and the flu shot. She did a really good job, she didn't really cry just whimpered while they were giving them to her. Broke my heart! I felt terrible, I might have bought her a brownie afterwards… gotta love that mom guilt, even when it's for their own good! :) Anyway, they said she doesn't have to go back until 5 or 6, and she's done with shots until she's 12! Woohoo! 

Thought I would wrap up with a comparison… I don't know why I love these, it's just kind of fun to see the similarities/differences between my kiddos. 

Payton at 7 months old

And Carter man! I see a lot of myself in Carter, and a lot of Kyle in Payton. It will be really fun to see as they grow!

Happy happy birthday to my cousin Carissa! She turned 30 on Sunday. She has a very exciting year in store for her! :) Also happy birthday to my brother-in-law Richard! Thank you to him and Chelsea for coming to Payton's party; it meant a lot to her to have you guys there!