4!

Yesterday was her birthday, my baby girl is now a whopping FOUR years old.

Unlike last year, where almost everything was handmade (including that quilt sewed entirely the night before her birthday), I did not make any gifts this year. I also did not make her cake or cupcakes, because she told me she didn't want me to.

(sniff, sniff - cue one mama's heart cracking just a bit)

She told me, "No, I don't want you to make the cake. I don't want cupcakes." She wanted "a pink and blue Hello Kitty cake from the bakery at the store," a sugar-laden mountain of frosting she had seen at our local mega-mart. So, rather than bust my ass making the totally-from-scratch, blueberry-filled, topped-with-homemade-blueberry-whipped-cream cupcakes I'd planned, I ordered the cake.

It was pretty good, actually.

We also did not do the party at our house this year, because it was just too HOT. She has many more friends this year, 11 classmates plus a few others, and even if each kid only brings one parent, that's still 20 extra people to cram into my house. Last year it was about 100 degrees the day of her party and this year promised much the same thing, so we just invited some school friends to the Monkey Joe's closest to where they all live. It was totally easy, all I had to do was show up with the cake, and absolutely worth the money. The kids got to run around in air conditioning and have a blast, she got to have her best birthday yet, and I did not have to cram 20-30 people into my house. Which turned out to be a good thing, since we have gotten a couple calls to show the place, including one yesterday which only gave us 20 minutes' notice. I am so happy people are finally looking at the house that I can't say no, but I also cannot imagine trying to evacuate over a dozen party guests and clean the place with 20 minutes' notice. Yesterday we were gone when they called, out having family birthday fun, so we'd left the place not exactly pristine, and my husband worried that nobody was ever going to show the house again because the beds weren't made and there was wrapping paper on the floor, but I assured him that a crock-pot soaking in the sink and a few scattered birthday cards were hardly the worst things a real estate agent could've seen.