Charlie Bear is 4!

Ever since Christmas finished, Charlotte has been counting down until her birthday, which is a long time to count down when your birthday isn't until the end of March.  I was getting worried because as time went on, her plans were becoming more elaborate... even involving sunny days at the beach (which ain't happenin' in this part of Idaho in March!) and her cake designs were getting tricky.  And since I am so pregnant, I was starting to wonder just how much I could handle.

One day as we were nearing her birthday, I asked her again just what she wanted to do, so that I can start brainstorming and narrowing down some ideas.  She mentioned that more than anything, she would just like to have a sleepover with her Aunt Lyndsay.  Gold!  I jumped on that idea, that is something a pregnant lady can do.  So we called Aunt Lyndsay and she generously agreed to the sleepover on the weekend before Char's birthday and even took Charlotte to a fun center in town to get a look at some baby bears.  She had so much fun I wasn't sure she would ever want to come home.  But boy did we ever miss her even just being gone one night, our house lost a little piece of sunshine.

Charlotte is very much our sunshine and we have told her before that is why her hair is a radiant shade of yellow.  That is part of the reason why when we saw these cupcakes in a magazine, we thought they would be perfect to bring to share with her cousin's when we picked her up from her sleepover party.

On the birthday morning, Daddy made his little Charlie Bear (Zac's nickname for Char) some French toast.  Zac is one of the best daddies ever and never just leaves the shopping to me.  He wants to pick out presents for the kids that he picked himself.  He picked out some pots for Charlotte, flower seeds, already grown flowers, and gardening tools. 

She was in Heaven and spent the afternoon planting flowers.

She also got to open a few presents in the morning.  We used boxes from crackers and cereal to wrap her gifts in and she got so excited thinking that I had got her crackers that I wondered why I didn't just save my money and get her an actual box of crackers. 

Bronson gave her a bubble machine, which was a huge hit.  I may have gotten a little carried away with the bubbles pictures.  It was such a warm and sunny day that the weather was perfect and we stayed outside for hours playing and blowing bubbles.

Later Char and I were able to make a birthday cake together.  She is very into Barbies lately and was excited to make a Barbie cake and was thrilled at the prospect that she would get to keep the Barbie when we were done.

One of the easiest cakes ever to make.  I mix up two cake mixes in my Kitchen Aid mixer and then transfer the batter, wash the Kitchen Aid bowl, then spray and flour it and put the batter back in.  I bake the cake right in the mixing bowl at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours and it makes a perfect shaped dress for doll cakes.

Zac came home early from work and brought pizza, pops, and a bunch of fun prizes.

Barbie holding her candles all ready to go...

Ashlyn got the honors of lighting her up.

And Charlotte wished she could have a real unicorn.

After dinner she opened the presents that her siblings had saved their hard earned money to buy her.  And she was absolutely thrilled.  I always love the anticipation and the joy the other children get when their presents are opened and well received.  I love this tradition in our family.  To top the night off we gave her the movie Frozen and watched it as a family.... none of us had seen it yet.  When it was over, Charlotte yelled, "I love it!"  And I love that she had a great birthday.

10 Things About Charlotte

1. She believes that the actual moment a person grows one year older is the moment when they eat their birthday cake.  When family called her the morning of her birthday and asked her how old she was, she kept replying, "I'm still three, I haven't eaten my birthday cake yet!"

2.  She loves to plant things and has a little secret garden plot in our unfinished yard.  She has planted apple seeds, milk duds that she got from primary that she said were seeds for chocolate trees (if only), and the seeds off her hamburger bun, which she hopes will grow some hamburgers.

3. She loves to sing and memorizes songs off the radio which she sings all day long, but sometimes gets the lyrics hysterically mangled.  Lately, she has been belting out, "I'm not a human!!!!" (Christina Perri- Only Human)... Which is better than in the past when she was singing, "I will love you for a thousand BUCKS, and I will love you for a thousand more." (also Christina Perri- Thousand YEARS).

4.  She LOVES to dance and wants more than anything in this world to take dancing lessons.  (hmmm... we will see).

5. Her favorite foods are Meatballs, Mac and Cheese, and a new found favorite Chicken Nuggets from Mc Donalds.  It is insane to see how much of each of those foods she can pound down for such a small little girl.

6.  She has been participating in a neighborhood preschool as well as library preschool this year.  She is an incredibly fast learner and can already write her name and is sounding out and spelling words.

7. She loves all of her siblings so much and loves more than anything to have sleepover parties with them in her brother and sister's rooms on the weekends.  Whenever they have friends over, she just becomes one of the big kids and tags around with them everywhere.  She is SO excited for her new baby sister and has offered some fun suggestions for names from Ballerina to Garcia.

8.  She is very stylish and insists on wearing mainly skirts and dresses every day.  She can be talked into wearing pants if they are her favorite color, dark pink.  She loves to accessorize with tons of bracelets, necklaces, earings, and a new staple from her grandma, a Rapunzel crown.  She is getting opinionated about how her hair should be done and tries to explain some elaborate hair styles to me and is sometimes let down by my lack of hair styling skills.  She has all the confidence in the world that she is very beautiful and she reminds us all the time.

9.  Her favorite toys to play are Barbies, princesses (she has some princess Barbies, and a Fisher Price Princess castle), and also Polly Pockets.

10.  She is a daddy's girl through and through and loves to tease me that she is going to grow up and marry her daddy.  She sometimes sneaks into our room early in the morning and climbs into bed with her dad and snuggles in and goes back to sleep.  I don't even know she is there until later when I can't find her.

We love are little Charlie Bear and are so glad that she is part of our family.  Happy Birthday Charlotte!