Fourth Birthday, Part Deux!

Yesterday, after I posted, we got to work on the 30 cupcakes and the mini-cake.  Katie Mei and Merrilee both needed cupcakes to share with their Pioneers Club friends (Jacob already did his cupcakes in December), so I started whipping up batter.  I used two boxes of cake mix and make the 30 "cupcapes", as Katie Mei calls them, and then used the remaining batter in a smaller pan to make the perfect little cake for our family of five.  There won't be much leftover.   Love that!  Especially since we'll be doing another birthday cake later in the week for Merrilee.  The girls had lots of fun with their friends as they shared cupcakes, and then we had to call it a night.

In the morning there was a package for the girls from Aunt Paige.  They were both excited to open it, and Merrilee was tickled to get a gift, too, but sobered right up when she saw it said she had to wait until April 1 to open it.  You could practically hear the brakes screeching in her head!  I told her she would be able to open one of her other presents later when Katie Mei opened her, if she wanted, since I knew of one particular gift I thought she might like to take on our NC trip tomorrow.  So now she's looking forward to one more surprise from Aunt Paige when April 1 gets here. After Katie Mei opened her gift (she was thrilled with the barrettes and kept singing about them for the next half hour), I had her sit down and write her thank you note to Aunt Paige and Uncle Allan.  She obliged so nicely, and though I helped her by telling her what letters to write, she did an excellent job with her interesting mix of lower case and capitals.

Then we went outside to wait for Daddy to get home.  She sat on her bench "like Mommy".  That's her new pose, to "sit like Mommy".

Jay came home later this morning and after lunch we let Katie Mei open her gifts.  Surprisingly she did not ask to open gifts yesterday, like I thought she would.  I told her it would not be fun to open them without Daddy, so we'd wait until he was home, and she was all right with that, although she did ask if Daddy was going to bring her some presents, too.  Unfortunately, she kind of misunderstood, because as soon as Daddy came home, she rushed over to the table where her gifts were and proceeded to take one of the gifts right out of the gift bag without waiting for Daddy to put his suitcase in the bedroom or anything.  There were some tears as I told her we wanted to take pictures of her and watch her, so the poor child had to wait yet a little longer.


Finally, we all settled in and let her enjoy her presents.  The photos say it all.

The girls danced a bit to try out the new CD player, and then we spent about 45 minutes putting together the Playmobile Castle.  While I was getting dinner ready the kids went outside with Jay while he got my car ready for the trip tomorrow.  Katie Mei knows the way to her Daddy's heart.  (And I know Ms. Mindy would be proud of her, too!)

After dinner we hit the cake!  Despite always dumping her orange juice or milk, Katie Mei really does have good coordination and was able to serve cake to everyone.

 Happy Birthday, Girl!  The past two days have been a joy for all of us!