Chickadee is FOUR!

We are on a nap break from a weekend of celebrating Chickadee's fourth birthday. She had grand and VERY specific plans on what we would do this weekend and we only have one thing left on the list to complete (dinner and ice cream at Phil's Icehouse/Amy's Ice Cream).

If it hasn't already been evident, Chickadee thinks outside of the box. True to herself, she planned, mostly on her own, all aspects of her "Holiday" birthday theme.

There were Santa plates and cups. Thank you, Walmart, for making such things available in April.

Thank you also, dear organizational skills, for having the small Christmas tree and Santa hats very easy to access in the garage.

(insert name in that big blank spot)

 There was a nod to Valentine's Day with the "chocolate Valentine cookie cake."

And last, there was an "Easter" egg hunt. The kids stuffed the eggs themselves during the week and thought that was great fun.


I recently reread the post I wrote about Chickadee on her third birthday, and so much of that is still true. She is still a book-loving, mama-leeching, red pepper eating kind of girl. But here are some other things to remember about her at this age:

1. Chickadee is obsessed with baby dolls. We may now own every baby doll accessory created and we have about 15 babies in our house. All of them are typically named "brown baby" or "pink baby". Two of them are occasionally referred to as "baby Elijah" (pronounced "baby Jew-li-juh").

2. Chickadee can sit with books and read forever. She read books for the entire time I did Sunshine's hair yesterday....at least 1 1/2 hours. She reads them through naptime and reads herself to sleep at night. She can officially read her name and the word "or".

3. Chickadee still thinks her feet shouldn't touch the ground. She will still occasionally talk me into using the carrier (which is fine, given she weighs only 30 pounds). She never walks into the kids' school in the morning and rarely walks into her own.

4. Chickadee often fights with Stubby over where they will sleep at night. Mostly, but not always, she wins.

5. Chickadee thinks it's the funniest thing in the world to hide from guests when they come over. She still fits into "her" kitchen cupboard but cannot, CANNOT stop laughing so she's really not that hard to find.

6. Chickadee's mind is always on the go. The other day, she pretended that her sippy cup was a trash can and that she was the garbage truck, picking it up and pouring the trash (milk) into her mouth. Another day, she held her strawberry on a fork over some steamy black beans and declared she was roasting marshmallows. 

This kid has brought me so much joy from the day she was carried into my house almost three years ago. She is almost always happy and laughing. I am so lucky to be her mama.

I love you, Chickadee! Happy 4th Birthday!