Happy birthday, Catherine!

While Peaches was with us, we were able to celebrate Catherine's fourth birthday! Wow, this kid is 4! Let's do a quick recap.

One day old

One year old

Second birthday

Third birthday - oh hair!

Turning 4!

We had a difficult time pulling off the birthday party this year. It rained and rained and rained. Catherine's birthday falls during Fall Break here, so many of her friends already were out of town. Then on top of it, our plan was to have her party up at the state park here  like we did last year. Usually fall is the best time of year here - dry, crisp, and gorgeous weather! But this one weekend was just awful. After postponing the outdoor party from Saturday to Sunday, we ended up with our group at a very crowded Chuck E. Cheese. Our friends were wonderfully supportive and everyone made the best of it. Catherine felt loved and that's what mattered on that day! Here are a few party pics - it wasn't quite the photo event it might have been at a park on a beautiful fall day. But ya know!

Sweet Daniel. Catherine gets so excited and he is Mr. Serious!

These two are such good friends! I don't look forward to the day when they suddenly realize the opposite sex is gross!

What cupcake? I thought we were just supposed to eat the icing!

What a pretty Anna Paige. She figured she'd just take home the tray of Sleeping Beauties.

Apparently everyone has the idea that you eat a cupcake this way.

Blowing out all FOUR candles, sigh!

Sweet girlfriends!

I love that I have a picture of every kid covered in icing and Daniel is eating salad! Good boy, raised right!

Gotta admit, even I thought this ride was fun!

Catherine and sweet Clara loved spinning in this teacup. I posted the pics in a funny order; this was before the cupcakes, which is a good thing. I mentioned spinning, right?

Big Jen thought it was as much fun as I did!

These two are such close friends! Thankful for her and her sweet family!!

And these two have been buddies since before they were born. And I hope they will be for a long time to come!

Gratuitous pic of my cupcakes. One of my favorite parts of birthdays is making cupcakes that go with whatever theme the girls choose. I love it! I think I was supposed to push the sticks in a little further to get the whole icing dress thing. Oh well, one of many things that wasn't perfect. My little princess had fun anyway!

We also enjoyed some gift-opening back home. Here are a few favorites.

A whole series of Amelia Bedelia books from our own resident book lover, Aunt Allison!

A great big hug from Daddy

An enormous gift to unwrap from Nana and Paw Paw. An easel!

Fun book and cd from Grandma and Gramps!

A girly storybook from Peaches and Grandpa!

And the much anticipated princess umbrella! She has reminded me every week SINCE MARCH that she wanted a princess umbrella for her birthday. I don't even know how she knew to ask for that, but there was no chance she was forgetting! When you wait for something for six months (and that's an eighth of your life!), you get pretty excited when you get it. She has loved this thing! Here, she was trying to get under it with Caroline, who was less than enthusiastic.

Happy birthday, sweetie! We sure love you!!