Rose's 4th birthday: Weekend of celebrations!

Rose is loving her birthday more and more every year. This year, since her birthday fell on a Friday, she ended up having multiple days of celebration!

Thursday evening Grammy picked her up from "school," per usual.

But this Thursday was anything but usual since Grammy had arranged for Rose to receive a birthday phone call from a princess!!!

 It was a call from Aurora! Aka Sleeping Beauty! Aka Briar Rose! Aka Rose's favorite princess!!!

The festivities continued bright and early the next morning with an "immediate family" celebration. I had run out to Cub at 5:30am to pick up flowers and donuts, and Mike had wrapped her big pile of presents. She obviously thought it was a great way to start her day!

On Friday afternoon, my parents picked her up! Somehow I managed not to get a single picture of them with Rose this past weekend, but I did get this one shot of her dressed as a bride and opening her presents from Ninja and PopPop.

Then Saturday was Rose's "cousins party!"  Really it was a party for all her extended family (we missed you, Sara/Dave/Eleanor!), but she was so focused for weeks on wanting to play with her cousins...and then she proceeded to be too shy to talk directly to them for the first two hours of her three hour party. :)   

 They did color, play dolls, and play at the park all side-by-side for awhile.

 The adults mostly enjoyed the beautiful weather outside. Some day our lucky streak will come to an end, but so far we've had great weather for her parties! (See: 2013, 2014, 2015)

 

See the construction out there?!

I also like to get a photo of Rose with her cousin Annie each year. Annie is about 5 weeks older - and
their height discrepancy seems to increase each year!  I love seeing the normal variations of their respective growth curves.

 Rose had requested a special meal of  "salad with cucumbers, sausages, fruit, and ice cream cake" for her party. Her favorite part ended up being the Cheetos that her cousins brought for her!

 Although I think the "princess cake" was a close second. (I amused myself by calling it a "Frozen cake" -- note the double entendre!)

 Rose got some WONDERFUL gifts. She has slowly been playing with each of them - coloring books, princesses, games, etc.  (Thank you, everyone!!)

 

 She is especially in love with this dress from Grammy and Grandpa.

Maybe she'll be a "princess scientist"  when she grows up???

Then Sunday was her "friend party." We paid for a short nature program and space for dessert at our local nature center. 
 

 

The naturalist seemed like he might have been a little comfortable with a slightly older audience, but the kids had a great time seeing (and touching!) the turtle and the salamander, and some of them really loved watching the turtle poop on the floor. Ahh, that's what four year olds really love, apparently.

As you can see the weather was a bit cold and drizzly on Sunday, but we still went on a VERY short nature walk.

All in all, we had a great time! In fact, a little too great of a time. As is our tendency, unfortunately, we did a little too much over the weekend and now we are all recovering. Rose came down with a slight fever, headache, and runny nose on Monday, so Mike stayed home with her yesterday (Tues) and I'm staying home with her today. I have a scratchy throat too, so I'm also appreciating the R&R! 

Thank you to everyone who helped make Rose's birthday so special and memorable for her!!