Ella's 4th Birthday!!!

Yesterday was Ella's 4th Birthday! We decided to celebrate by letting Ella pick her favorite things to do all day. The first thing she wanted to do was open a present. So we let her open one - a Happy Birthday Barbie first thing in the morning. In fact, she came into my room, woke me up and said "Daddy said I could open a present as soon as you wake up - so wake up now!" And I did because she was the birthday girl.

We didn't even brush her hair before present time :)


Then Ella chose to have breakfast at McDonalds - "the one with the playground inside" so that is where we went. Of course, Barbie had to come along too:

And Avery came even though she is too small to play on the slides, she likes to wait at the bottom for Ella to come down.


With Barbie too:

Then Ella decided that we should take Avery to school because she wanted to go to Bouncing Bears and Avery hates Bouncing Bears. Which is true - although I don't think her motives were entirely generous, Ella likes to have the attention of both Mommy and Daddy whenever she can get it. But we did take Avery to daycare and Ella got us to herself for a change:


We had so much fun at Bouncing Bears that Ella decided to take a nap (don't worry, she is just pretending - Ella would never voluntarily take a nap!)


After Bouncing Bears Ella was thirsty for some hot chocolate so we went to Starbucks (this is the first dose of a significant amount of sugar today!)

Then we went to lunch at Ella's favorite restaraunt - Red Robin! They have an arcade there with a little horse to ride and because it was her birthday we all searched our pockets until we came up with enough quarters:

Then we had to decide what to eat. Ella picked a corn dog and apples:

And a giant milkshake!

Then we went home and had a short nap. Well, Ella had a short nap, I slept for 2 hours! Then we got to work on the birthday cupcakes. Ella was in charge of putting the wrappers in the pans:


And telling me when I had put just enough pink food coloring into the cake batter (there is not enough pink food coloring in the world to make it pink enough for Ella!)


Then the party really got started and the guests arrived. Ella and Papa worked on making a gingerbread house, which is Ella's favorite thing to do because sometimes you can eat the candy instead of putting it on the house. And by sometimes I mean, she ate more candy than ended up on the house:

She also opened a present from Great Ama and Papa - a princess calendar which immediately got hung up in her room above her bed.

Then we decorated cupcakes. These little princess cupcake toppers came from Ikea (my favorite store!) and Ella picked pink and purple frosting to go with the pink cake. Please notice how all of the princess are facing the same way - it was very important to me that they do :)

Here is the gingerbread house masterpiece!

Then we ate dinner. Ella picked homemade macaroni and cheese and I added broccoli to balance out all the sugar she ate today. We also had lefse which had arrived that very day from Iowa! It was delicious!!! Grandma - I did not read the part of your letter that said she didn't have to share the lefse, I just made her share :)

Then we got to the present opening part. Ella was clearly very excited!

This is a pink bear wearing a princess outfit and high heels! It is from Matt's girlfriend Cheyanne - clearly she knows what Ella would like! It was perfect!!!

Ella got a tinkerbell art set from Matt - she is very excited about painting.


From Mommy and Daddy Ella got two princess dolls - Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. Avery liked them too. I think she already stole the shoes and lost them :)


From Cory she got the new Tinkerbell movie. When she opened it she shouted "Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure!!!" like she was reading the box - I have no idea how she knew the name of the movie without anyone telling her. But she REALLY wants to watch it!


Ella also got a gymnastics outfit and we signed her up for gymnastics classes with her cousin Riley. She loved the outfit and is VERY excited for class - we watched gymnastics videos on you tube all night!

From Ama and Papa she got this CUTE outfit - that she had to try on and do a fashion show with. It also has matching tights that she is dying to wear. That girl loves tights!

Then she had to try on the gymnastics outfit before it was time for cupcakes and ice cream!



It was quite a day. I was exhausted! And, lucky Ella she gets another party on Sunday with her cousin Riley and the Johanknecht family. Pretty exciting!!!