The never-ending 4th birthday

There was a lot going on around Isabelle's birthday this year with my parents coming home, the 4th of July and preparing to move just to name a few. She had this grand idea of a Jake and the Neverland Pirates birthday party (a Disney show that she loves). When I told her we would just be celebrating with family this year she just couldn't understand why there was not a friend party. I have vowed not to do those every year anyway but I did promise her a Red's game (she had been asking to go since Michael and I went on Opening Day this year). We got some tickets and I told her that she could bring a friend and that would be her "birthday party" this year. I guess I wasn't clear...

She did have a great time. Izzy and her friend and Michael and I were lucky enough to score some Diamond Seats so I told them they could eat all that they wanted. We started inside for some more "sensible food", (I think I was hoping that would fill them up ;) and then we moved out to the seats in 95 degree temperatures for slushies, ice cream, cotton candy and popcorn. After sitting there for a few innings the heat made it no longer fun so we took the girls for a walk to the playground and found a mist fan to cool them down.











Thinking after that night, her birthday fun was taken care of. Then came the Fourth of July. Well, every year the extended family is already together so it's the most practical time to do cake and presents. So rather than having everyone get together again the next day, we had just what Izzy asked for, a princess birthday cake.





On July 5th my high maintenance 4 year old woke up very worried, that we had not sent out those "paper things" that tell everyone they are invited to her birthday and she was wondering what kind of cake she would have today. WOW! Let's just say I had to tread delicately knowing that she had been counting down to her birthday for months and it's all she could talk about. IT was here and she had big plans. Here I was thinking all the plans had already happened! Silly me. We talked about all the fun things she had done to celebrate over the past few days. That didn't register. "But TODAY is my birthday Mom!" There was no use pretending like it was one of the other days we had celebrated because she had been looking at the calendar and she knew. So we tried to make her real birthday as special as we could. Nana started it off making her pancakes with butterflies. She was loving that...



All along (even before the Reds game plans) we told Izzy we would go on a Mommy/Daddy date to Benihana. She loves eating our leftovers every time we go there and we promised her that when her birthday rolled around that is what we would do. She was so grown up and even used the chopsticks. They gave her a hat, sang to her and gave her ice cream.





This was one of Isabelle's big presents this year. It's a Leapster that we found used off of ebay with games and all. We knew that we had a long 11 hour trip in the car coming up and wanted her to have something educational to play rather than just movies to watch.



If there is one thing I have learned from the time frame that Isabelle's birthday falls, we have got to change some things. I love my daughter but we cannot celebrate this way every year. I am a big fan of birthdays but I think we are setting the bar pretty high if this is how is starts out. New plan for next year. One celebration...ON her actual birthday :)