Riley is Four!

Riley was so excited that her birthday fell on a Monday, so she would be able to celebrate it with her friends at preschool. Instead of cupcakes, we brought fruit kabobs for her birthday treat. Since Riley would choose fruit over something sugary any day, and there are a couple of kids (including Riley) with various allergies, it was the perfect option. My original idea was to use wooden skewers, but I’ve seen how the boys in her class play, and I knew their parents and the teachers would not appreciate me providing them with sharp weapons. Instead we stuck Riley’s favorites, mangos, grapes, pears, and pineapple on colorful plastic drink stirrers. When I dropped off Riley and the treats, I also left a camera with one of the teachers and asked him to take some photos.

After class my mom and I took Riley and Asher bowling. I got some great pictures, and this post is going to be a long one, so I'll save those for a separate post.

That night we celebrated with a dinner of Riley's choice: shrimp scampi, broccoli, and glass block jello, with a chocolate pig birthday cake for dessert.

I'm not sure how much longer the bear photo tradition is going to last. I can't see her at 13, willing to pose with a stuffed animal on her birthday. But at four, Riley still thinks it's great.

The following day her cousins came up from Thornton to celebrate with us. We took the kids to a class at a local garden, where the teacher read a story about seeds and then the kids made a cute little project that shows the life cycle of a seed. When they finished we took a little time to explore the children's garden.

 Since it was like having another party, we of course had more cake! This time I made rainbow cupcakes.

Riley really enjoyed her birthday, and the rest of us had fun celebrating it with her.