Chloe is 4

Chloe is four today.  What a difference a year makes!  Three was rough for Chloe and rife with tantrums and the struggle to deal with her extreme emotions.  We saw so much growth.   As she neared four, we saw new found independence and a willingness to try things she might not be able to do.  This year she moved, started sharing a room with her sister, got a new brother, got rid of her pacifiers and delighted us with her charming and silly wit.  She is truly as adorable as she looks.  She is an amazing little friend and one of the most common things we are told about Chloe is how well she plays with others.  She is amazingly perceptive and we are seeing the emotions once so hard to control make way for deep empathy for others.   We are so proud of this little girl!

Yesterday we had her birthday party.  She chose frozen, like almost every other little girl her age:)  I cannot deny that I am pretty exhausted.  Marc was in Ireland all week so pulling this off took every once of energy, organization, and spare minute I had...and help from my sister;)  Birthday parties are my thing and because of our year, I've hired out the last three (which is REALLY amazingly stress free;), it felt good to get my mojo back;)  'cept I did forget to ask someone besides Marc to take pictures so we missed quite a bit;)

No close ups of the food- whoops.

The menu-

"We finish each others...SANDWICHES" (Jimmy Johns and PB and J's)

"Sven's Antlers" (Pretzels)
"Olaf's noses"  (carrots)
"Mmmm.  What's that smell?.....CHOCOLATE" (assorted chocolates
Melted snow (bottled water)
"Only Love can thaw a frozen heart"  (White chocolate dipped strawberries and undipped strawberries with top cut to resemble hearts)

Our Birthday Princess

Elsa Cake courtesy of my dear mom;)

We didn't get any pictures of the process, but as each girl came they "built snowman" out of Sculpy which I baked and turned into these snow globes for them to take home at the end of the party.  Thanks to Ava for being the big helper on this project;)

Next we went outside to do "ice painting"- Mix equal parts Epsom salt and hot water and let the kiddos paint.  It looks like just water on the page until it dries...

When dry, it looks like ice crystals...pretty amazing "magic" for little kiddos.

I filled my sensory table with "Instasnow" (get from amazon) and frozen figurines

We played pin the nose on Olaf...

Poor Olaf never got a nose in quite the right place;)

 Those cloth snowballs I invested in during advent came in very handy for our "throw snow balls at the snow monster game"...the each took 2-3 turns at this one;)

We took a break for a bit of food;)

Then I gave each of the girls a pair of frozen socks (from the Target dollar spot;) and told them they were special imagination socks.  "When you put them on they help you imagine that this living room floor was covered in ice by Elsa and we can ice skate"

We Freeze Ice Danced to frozen songs...probably the biggest hit of the entire party.  As sick as I am of the Frozen Sound track, it's pretty hard NOT to find 10 four year old's singing "Let it Go" at the top of their lungs absolutely adorable.

Cake TIME!

And finally some presents...we are stocked with every frozen good available, I am quite sure.

Instead of treat bags, we sent each kiddo home with their snow globes, socks, and these little jars of homemade play dough snowballs (white play dough with glitter and a bit of peppermint sent).

I am tired.  This was probably the most difficult parties I've ever pulled off because of Marc's travel schedule and I'd do it all over again in an instant.  My little girl was beaming and loved every moment.  These days are my favorite parts of motherhood (minus the clean up, of course;)!