Happy 4th Birthday Lucy!

On Sunday Lucy turned four.  In the days leading up to Lucy's birthday, it seemed to me as though Lucy was already four.  Imagine my surprise then, when I went into Lucy's room to snuggle my three year old for the last time on Saturday night and I started crying when I realized she was already asleep.  It had taken me too long to tuck Emma in and I didn't get to have our special "chit chat" as Lucy calls it on her birthday eve.  Mom guilt kicked in, and I felt the full weight of her quickly disappearing childhood hit me in full force.  I wrapped her presents that night, still wiping away tears and wondering where the last four years had gone.  Lucy overheard me talking to Will about it the next day, and she told me that she promised to stay up for our chit chat on the night before her fifth birthday.  Fortunately, my good cry the night before made way for only happy emotions on her birthday.  Here is my four year old below, ever so proud to be four!

Weekend birthdays are the best.  Since Lucy's was on Sunday, we got to dedicate the entire day to celebrating her birthday.  We locked the child gate at the top of the stairs in the morning and had her wait until we were all ready to go down stairs to see her presents and start her day.  She waited as patiently as she could as we tried to wrangle her younger sister and put her in clothes.  Here Lucy is below coming down the stairs for the first time as a four year old.  Yes, I am sentimental!

As is our tradition, she came down the stairs and saw her birthday presents arranged in the living room. Despite our video camera's memory card being full and our camera's battery being dead, we were still able to capture some memories on my phone.

Lucy got her very first big girl bike, princess Duplos, sunglasses, a pillow case I made to match her bedroom, and, drum roll please.... GUM!  Lucy was super excited to finally be able to chew gum.  When she was about two, she had started asking for gum and I told her she had to be older.  At that time I didn't know how much older until she would know not to swallow it so I picked the age four, as that seemed super old and capable.  Well, she has held that number in her head ever since and I of course have had to stick with it.  Four may be on the old side in retrospect to chew gum, and I think she would have been perfectly fine at three, but I had to show some follow through!  Later on that day Lucy overheard me tell Will, "I can't believe Lucy is four!" to which Lucy piped in, "I can't believe I am chewing gum!"  She has been chewing it like a chain gum chewer ever since, and only spits it out for meals and bedtime.

Lucy requested waffles and bacon for breakfast.

After breakfast we headed to the zoo, at which point Lucy informed us that, "I'll most likely chew gum the entire way to the zoo mom."

We had a great time at the zoo, despite the fact that it rained.  The.  Entire.  Time.  Fortunately Grandma and Grandpa T. had gotten the girls umbrellas for their birthdays and we worked out a way for our earthly family of four to stay dry with only three umbrellas.  Will had to keep a kid holding an umbrella on his shoulders at all times, while the other kid held their umbrella and I held mine.  The animals didn't seem to mind the rain and we were able to see more activity than we had ever seen before.  Will is teasing me on how when we arrived at the zoo I said that I'd take rain and cool temperatures with no crowd over a hot, crowded zoo any day.  I even went so far as to say that I couldn't get over how cute our kids were with their umbrellas and wasn't the sound of the rain drops on our umbrellas beautiful?  And because there were no crowds, they were doing face painting for free!  Lucy scored a beautiful glittery dolphin on the side of her face.  Lord knows Will and I would have never paid for it, despite it being her birthday!  We really did have a nice time at the zoo despite the rain and one of my favorite memories was in the Polar Bear tunnel, watching the rain drops fall above us on the surface of the water.  It was so peaceful and calm.  And then we had to walk back to the car.  And it was wet.  And it was cold.  And it was miserable.  And would you believe there wasn't a single dry place to eat the special birthday picnic lunch we had packed?

We ended up eating our lunch in the car, looking out of the parking garage at the zoo.  And despite the fact that we didn't dare light the birthday candles we had brought to stick in the fig cookies, Lucy seemed content.  Both girls fell asleep on the way home and I think I did too.  Fortunately Will stayed awake and got us safely home where we all dried off and put on warm clothes.  We did a family snuggle under an afghan on Will's and my bed and then headed downstairs to measure Lucy on the growth chart.  She grew about three inches since her last birthday!

We had my homemade vegetable soup from last year's garden per Lucy's request for dinner with tiny little star pasta in it.  We were surprised when she requested this for her birthday dinner as we had assumed she would ask for hot dogs and mac and cheese but it turned out to be the perfect meal after a cold and wet day spent outside.  After dinner we braved the weather which had turned from rain to a fine mist and Lucy rode her bike for the very first time.

Finally, we headed out to our local frozen yogurt bar for Lucy's birthday dessert and it was a sweet ending to a great day.

That night, Lucy made a point to stay awake until after I tucked Emma in and we got to enjoy birthday snuggles and chit chatted about the highlights from the day.  She wanted me to tell her about the day she was born and I did my best to put into words the amount of happiness she has given to us and how much we love her.  Who knew that a tiny baby we were told in a dream would be a healthy baby girl named Lucy could fill such a big part of our lives.  We love you Lucy Anne!  Happy Birthday!