CVL: Violet turns 4!

Violet has been counting down the months and days until she turns four for quite a while now. She's seen Cora have two birthday parties now, and was anxious for it to be her turn. We kept things pretty simple, being so close to Evelyn's birth, but I think it was still a lot of fun for her. Between her friend party, dinner with Kissie and Pata, her actual birthday, and her birthday spotlight at preschool, it was a week's worth of celebration!

First off was the friend birthday party. Luckily Kissie was available to help. All of Violet's friends are so sweet, I wasn't too worried about the 8 girls, but I wasn't sure I could do eight girls and Luke. It turns out I totally spaced Luke, poor guy, so I didn't have any of the crafts or activities or treat bags ready for him, so Kissie was nice enough to take him out on a Kissie Luke date. I still can't believe I didn't even think of at all!

We did a little bit of a spring theme. The girls decorated flower pots at the beginning.

And then they played pin the tail, bingo,

and did a bean bag toss. (Here's my cuties pre-party)

They ate flower sprinkled cupcakes

and opened presents. Violet had some help opening the presents-- all of them were so excited to show her what they gave her!

Then we headed outside to plant flowers in the pots they decorated and do some hopscotch and sidewalk drawing.

Altogether I think it went pretty well! It could have been shorter (an hour and a half instead of two) or I should have planned a few more activities, but all in all Violet had a great time and I'd call it a success. Even if I did feel like a truck had hit me afterward. I couldn't believe how sore and tired I was a few hours after!

The only hang-up was that I couldn't find the beanbags we borrowed from a neighbor after the party. Kevin and I searched all over the house and yard, they seemed to have disappeared into think air. The next day I was set to buy fabric and make replacements, when Luke opened the office closet and pulled the basket full of beanbags out from the bottom shelf, tucked way in back. Who would have thought?? I swear I looked in that closet, but obviously not well enough. He's stronger than I gave him credit for to have carried them all by himself!

Kissie and Pata graciously took us out to dinner to celebrate Violet's birthday on a Friday night, and were able to come to Cora's first soccer game afterward. It was a fun afternoon at Red Robin!

And Violet got her huge free birthday dessert. Yum!

Violet's actual birthday fell on General Conference, which is one reason the festivities were spread out. I guess that will happen to her every once in a while. We spread the present opening throughout the whole day, and then she got a lot of playtime with each present. We ate her favorite foods, including french toast, sausage, chocolate milk, hamburgers, and cheese puffs, had a delicious brownie mint Oreos icecream dessert- yum!