Emily turned 4 on March 15th and she would tell you she was very ready for this milestone. Her best friend is 4 and she was excited to finally catch up. The kids are big into their birthdays (and so is their mom) and Emily had decided she wanted to have an "Inside Out" birthday with Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust (her favourite) all making an appearance.
The big part of birthdays in our family is the birthday cake. We like to look on the Pinterest pictures and decide what we're going to try and this particularly birthday I had clearly been overly ambitious the day I decided to try out the Inside Out birthday cake recipe we picked. It involved making a white cake, deconstructing said cake, mixing new deconstructed cake with additional cake batter into several different colours (I bought a new colour mixing system from Michaels which is more intricate than my colour printer) and then piping (or in my case rolling into cake play dough snakes) different colour circles and then putting additional batter on top. All to make the cake look like it has "memories" inside. Then the outside had "memories" as well and the emotion dashboard was on the top of the cake. It turned out really cute but it was hours of work and was a bit over the top. Especially when I made cupcakes in addition to the cake. Amateur mom moment: should have made way more Joy cupcakes because most of the girls wanted a Joy cupcake and no one really wanted a Fear cupcake (which is fair) - they all got eaten but I didn't need to make the counts even. Anyway, cake and cupcakes squared away the night before.
Emily was so excited about her birthday because she had done all the inviting herself and had invited all the kids on our block plus our family friend Lizzy so she was stoked; so stoked she sat on the couch at 8am waiting for her party to start (which was starting at 2pm). I had learned from Cian's birthday that planning activities was pointless and I was right. Em's best friend Miah arrived first and they were off to create some magical pirate land in her bedroom and I saw none of the kids until it was time for food. I had made Emily "islands" of crafts and food and soccer but the kids really just did their own thing. The adults came in for a while and it truly felt like a block party. None of us were watching the kids intently but were mostly hanging out in the kitchen having beers and chatting. The families on our block is a major reason why we don't want to move - all the kids are great and get along well and their parents are lovely and everyone watches out for each other. You may be able to buy a house but you can't buy a neighbourhood and ours is pretty great.
After the "kid" party some of our Winnipeg family came over for dinner just like what we did with Cian's "after-party". Emily's favourite food is melted cheese sandwiches so Andrea brought her panini maker and we made gourmet make-you-own sandwiches which I would totally do again because they were delicious. A wonderful time was had by all celebrating our crazy little 4 year old.
Emily, bundle of chaos and fun, we are so blessed to have you in our family. You make our everyday life feel like a musical and there is never a dull moment. I'm sure there is plenty more disgust and anger to come, probably fear too (although right now you seem fearless) and sadness is inevitable but overall you bring so, so, so much joy to our life. Happy 4th birthday Em - we love you!
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