Catherine's 4th birthday: by Jill

There's a park near our house that has a ferris wheel. For months, Catherine has been a bit obsessed with it. We told her she was too small to ride it now, but that she could when she was bigger. This led to her asking at almost every meal for months if she was big enough yet. The recent ferris wheel fascination sparked the idea for a carnival-themed birthday party.

This was not the best cake I could have made or party I could have hosted, however, it was the best I could do a week from my due date and living/working/cooking in a home that isn't mine and shopping in a city I'm not familiar with.

Our "carnival tent" was streamers hanging from the light fixture

Thanks to a Curious George episode, Catherine has been asking for weeks to wear a red birthday party hat. Thankfully, Grandma was coming from America and could make her dream come true. 

In the morning we opened presents as a family. Family from the States had sent things with Grandma. :)
This is a book about ferris wheels that has a CD of songs. 

This birthday card played a song and she LOVED it. 

opening the play doh set from Mimi and Grandpa

I'm 4!

And I'm cute!

Again, under the circumstances, the best I could do. 

I didn't take very many pictures at the party because there were a lot of little people here, and because we were busy with the carnival games.

We hosted a party in the afternoon and invited some friends to celebrate with us. Catherine really enjoyed having so many new friends at her party, but it was especially meaningful for me. Most of the attendees are children of people I went to college with. Even though I haven't stayed in touch with all of them, it's fun to see our kids play together and be second generation friends. I think the girls having so many other foreign kids to play with will be the thing we will miss most about Chengdu.

This is one of our carnival games. The kids had to try to throw bottles caps onto the mat to land on the red circles.

Toss bean bags to knock over stacks of bottles (notice she's still wearing the red hat)

ring toss

It's still hard to believe we have a four year old, but we like it. We like that she is able to do more by herself. We like that she has decided she can try more spicy foods because now she's four. We like all that she is learning and her increasing ability to communicate with us. She has a great imagination and is developing quite a sense of humor.