Rachel is 4

Rachel's favorite color is pink, and one of her favorite books right now is Pinkalicious. My sister-in-law gave me the idea to do Pinkalicious party. For those who had not read the book it is about a girl who makes pink cupcakes with her mother on a rainy day. She eats them and turns pink, and thinks she's beautiful. Her mother takes her to the doctor, who diagnoses her with pinkitis and tells her she needs to eat a steady diet of green food. She pretends to eat her vegetables that night, then sneaks another cupcake and turns red. She finally gets the courage to eat her greens and returns to her normal beautiful self.We started the party reading the book, and the rest of the party followed the book.We decorated pink cupcakes, ate them...and turned pink!
The girls (Ava, Ellie, Evy, Rian, Claire and Layne) all came dressed in pink.After Pinkalicious turns pink she puts on her princess dress and "twirled in front of the mirror." Being the dancer that I am, I made the girls ribbons and had them "twirl" around the room to songs from "Pinkalicious the Musical" (Yes, it is a musical...I found out last Thursday). I told the girls they were magic wands and they were to make the whole room pink.After playing around out back they came inside to eat a green lunch so they could turn back to normal before they went home. We had pesto pasta, green chips with avocado, green apples, pears, kiwi, green grapes, cucumbers, and broccoli with cilantro dressing.The "brothers" were green with envyIt was a big hit...I think. Rachel sure had a lot of fun!


This is Rachel later that day ready to go outside with fancy shoes, her ballet skirt, and a life jacket. It's just so Rachel.
Saturday was her actual birthday. We had waffles for breakfast and we went to another free fall festival. Sadly I forgot my camera. She got a free pumpkin, bounced on inflatables, played games and did a hayride. It was fun but freezing. It may have been only 55 degrees, but it really was FREEZING.

We came home and when Tommy woke up from his nap she got to open her presents. Was she excited?
Only Rachel would take a break from opening her presents to read a book. (I don't know, maybe other kids do it)

One of her big presents was an art easle with chalkboard, white erase board and paper to paint. It's very fitting for her because she's very into these things right now. She's always doodling on printer paper, post-it notes, my journal, notebooks, programs, anything she can find.
Tommy loves it too and it has already provided hours of entertainment in the few days we've had it.
Cleaning up...too cute!
World's Greatest 4 year old. Last year we took Rachel to Red Robin and had such a great time we decided to do it again this year.
This kid loves balloons. Really, loves balloons. The past couple of days he's either been holding one or looking up because he let go. He even fell asleep Saturday night still holding on to one.

It's true, as we mother's always say, it's hard to believe she's 4. But what's harder for me to believe is that she will be 5 in a year. She misses the cutoff date for Kindergarten by 3 months here in Charlotte, so I consider myself lucky to have her around for a couple more years. She can be a pain sometimes but she's a really fun, very energetic, sweet and sensitive girl.