Caroline Turns 4! (...and Pink Eye, Take 2)

Caroline turned 4 this week.  She was so excited to finally be the one celebrating her birthday.  The boys made her some very sweet cards.

They were trying to read their cards to her very nicely, but she took a glance at them, said, "Ok, ok." and moved onto her gifts.  I think she hurt the boys feelings a bit.  Josiah had drawn her portrait and she wasn't giving him his props like Henry did.

She had some exciting presents:
Magic tracks & dolls.


A new stroller and a "ballerina dress so she can twirl, twirl, twirl."


We measured her on our height chart and she is clearly a tall child which came as no surprise.  (I've had several people ask if she'll be in kindergarten next year, so she's that tall. ;) )  She is 1.5" taller than Henry at 4 years old and 3.5" taller than Josiah at 4 years old.

She had her favorite breakfast: peanut butter and jelly bars.  That would be her favorite sandwich, too.

We had CC on her birthday and they always sing happy birthday each week.  She was so excited to go up on "stage" (that would be a one step stage).  When our director asked her when her birthday was, she said, "Now!"  It was pretty cute.

It was also pajama day at CC, hence the pajamas in all the pictures. She had her favorite spaghetti and broccoli for dinner.

Then it was time for the cupcakes.  As I had said, she requested "the same cupcakes as Hannah," so I did my best.  We do not have cake tips for decorating around here, so we did the ol' frosting in a ziploc bag trick.  Todd took a look and asked if it was the Duff Goldman "dog doo pattern."  (The blanks were for Henry who wasn't a fan of the frosting.)

Caroline loved them.  And for that we're glad.  The rest of us are glad we don't have gluten and dairy sensitivities.

Caroline had a good rest of the week.  She practiced her running because at karate she had stopped participating during certain parts - games or relays.  Last week I had asked her why she wasn't doing certain things and she said she couldn't run as fast as the other kids.  So, we practiced running.  I made sure she knew she ran super fast and at karate she did better.  We still need to work on her Dodge Ball technique.  The other kids are running around playing dodge ball and she stands smack in the center of their game and refuses to move a muscle.  Every time.  She cracks us moms up watching her, but she just won't do it.

Henry reminded us we need to work on his sportsmanship technique.  During Awana, his team lost the relay race.  I was helping a different team and saw him from a distance throw himself on the ground and then three adults quickly came and stood over him.  I think they thought he had hurt himself as he was crying and falling apart on the ground.  I moseyed my way over to him knowing full well he was in tantrum mode and pulled him out of there.  He just does not like to lose.  We're starting to come up short with ideas on how to get him to not be a sore loser (or a showy winner).

Henry is a good shopping companion, though. He and I went to the grocery store and he found a map of the store in the cart.  He followed that map for every step and every aisle we took.  He loves maps.

We had a few fun science experiments/projects this week.  We were learning about changes in air pressure by sucking the air out of a water bottle.  This was enjoyed by all.


We also learned about wind and how it forms.  So we made trash bag-hanger wind socks and tried to find the direction of the wind.  They had a lot of fun with this one.


We also discovered that we won an origami book that came with 100 sheets of origami paper.  We have a magazine subscription which has a hidden toothpick in every issue.  After reading what the editor said in the previous issue that "your chances of winning are very good" we went for it.  The boys really like origami, so this was a really great win.

And then our happy week took a left turn when Josiah woke up with pink eye Thursday morning.  I really thought we were out of the woods since it had been three weeks since Henry has been contagious, but alas here we are.  The good thing is that next week is spring break so all of our activities are cancelled for the week.  We are hoping to get every one healthy.  (It's spring break for everyone else, but we're doing school.  I'm still sticking to our six weeks on, one week off bit.)

We made it through the birthday gauntlet again.  Until next year...