Anna is four!

Lovely little Anna turned four three weeks ago.

Four is such a wonderful age! Suddenly your toddler-ish child seems so grown up and capable of new things, but with the precious imaginative innocence of a little child, too.

We celebrated her birthday with family in the city, and my dear sister made her a beautiful cake iced in pink and turquoise, her favourite colours.




 I just love her sweet expression here, just so dear and lovable.
 Our little lady is getting so wise and mature!


We then had a party with a number of her friends at our house. It was another slapped-together 'theme party' (in very loose quotation marks) in honour of butterflies. To give you a sense of the lack of preparation on my part,
I actually hid the prizes for the scavenger hunt while the kids were already there. And I have no photo at all to prove it happened.
She didn't seem to mind my disorganized state, though. Just to have a bunch of sweet little children over for pizza and cake and games made her oh-so-happy.


She was so excited to go to the store and choose her own cake design. No surprise, she chose Cinderella. 

I love how she sings the famous 'Cinder-elly, Cinder-elly' song: "Make the fire, do the mopping, they always keep her shopping." Given the number of times I return to the grocery store during the week, it's no wonder she associates that with the daily demands of domestic life.



I kept up our tradition of having guests bring food for the Food Bank instead of presents. When I told her this was what we'd do, she was momentarily disappointed but cheered up immensely when she knew she could "help the poor." Poignantly, she asked me when we went to drop off the food at the donation bin in the grocery store, "can 'the poor' be children, too?" She was quite saddened when I explained that even children need the Food Bank. That's as it should be, that should break her tender little heart.




I just love this funny girl. I love her great taste in music (she's currently loving John Cougar Mellencamp, The Beatles and Elvis!). I love how gentle she is with babies, her feisty sense of humor. I love how she proudly carries her sparkly purse we gave her on her birthday when we do errands (being rather extroverted, she loves a good errand trip). I love the way she saunters down the hall when I pick her up from school: so satisfied with herself for being a big girl at school, and yet so content to come home and still be my dear little one for a bit longer, too.

Happy birthday, dearest girl.

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