Scenes from Elaina's 4th birthday

Elaina turned 4 on Tuesday (when did my little teeny baby become such a big girl?). We celebrated with friends and family on Saturday, and Tuesday we spent the day as a family and visited a few favorite places. Here are some pictures from her big days!

The Party - Saturday, October 26th
Elaina loves unicorns and My Little Pony, so that was the sort-of combined theme. This may be the last year we have it in our home, so I was glad to have a theme I knew she'd love to work with. Elaina loves her family and friends, and each time the doorbell rang, she ran excitedly over to see who had come. Love her heart so.

Reading with Pampah before everyone else arrived

The spread (and a clean island!)

Menu board - We had bought Elaina a few My Little Pony books at a resale shop in town, and they were falling apart. Knowing that Elaina would be getting more for her birthday (thanks, Zulily!), I used the characters from a few pages to accent the menu board. I was pretty happy with how it came out, and Elaina had a lot of fun reciting the items (mostly, I think, because she could ask for a Ka-Boom candy (aka Skittles) when she got to that item!). In addition to the items on the board, we had unicorn and crown cutout cookies, chips, and soda and water for our guests.

Sweet baby girl and her unicorn cake (unicorns were cutout sugar cookies)

Nehemiah, looking adorable as always

 Before the games, we watched Elaina's birthday video. One of my favorite presents to make the girls is a video, to song, of pictures and videos of their year. This year, I used Lon Lon Ranch (from the Zelda video game series) because Elaina calls it the Pony Song, and Glorious Day and Our Love is Loud by David Crowder. I have used a David Crowder song in every one of my videos except for Elaina's first birthday, and I was a little afraid the well had run dry. Thankfully, I was wrong!

After the video, it was time for games!

This is the first time we had games at a birthday party. The idea was that the kids would have to earn "Cutie Marks" by completing certain tasks (if your world is as involved in My Little Pony as ours is, you know what I'm referring to). The first game was Rarity's Gem Hunt. I took what was left of Elaina's falling apart books and shredded them to create a "mine" and then hid little rings from Party City for the kids to find. They had a great time digging around for their treasure, and I'm glad I listened to Josh and put several more than one per each child like I had originally planned!

The second "task" was to Pin the Horn on the Unicorn. Josh drew the unicorn (even shaded it and colored the mane and tail!) and I made the horns out of leftover posterboard. We used one of Josh's ties as a blindfold, which wasn't ideal, but the kids didn't seem to mind. 

Once everyone had pinned the horn on the unicorn, they got their cutie marks! Rub-on tattoos did the trick quite nicely :). Then it was time for cake!

And presents, too!

Elaina's birthday: Tuesday, October 29 

Beautiful sunrise for a beautiful new year

 Though the girls didn't let us sleep in as much as maybe we would have liked, we still had a nice morning of relaxing before getting down to the serious business of present opening

A new unicorn book she had been eyeballing during a recent trip to TJ Maxx

MLP tshirt, books, and backpack. I bought these things from Zulily back in June and they've been hiding under our bed since. Elaina especially loved the shirt--she insisted on wearing it to Gramma's the next day!

Llama Llama Red Gee-ama, as she calls it

 For lunch, we went to the Happiest Place in Peoria County, also known as Chik-fil-A. (Seriously, the girls eat this stuff like they've never had a chicken nugget in their lives.) 

Waiting patiently for Daddy to bring the food. Elaina insisted on holding Ellie's hand.

After playing for awhile, we headed out to Wildlife Prairie State Park. The park holds a special spot in my heart because we took Elaina there on her first birthday, too. I think it's safe to say she had an even better time this year. It was a little chilly, but the sun broke out from its grey prison just in time for us to enjoy the park, and it stayed out until we left.

First order of business was to ride the train. Our sweet neighbors, Hans and Jo, who love our daughters and spoil them ridiculously, gave us tickets for the park and for the train. Well worth the time spent! We grabbed blankets from the car, and we were off! 

Daddy and his girls

Elaina had a blast with all the cutout figures. She insisted on sticking her head in as many as she could find!

Howling at the wolves. The wolves were rather nonplussed.

We got to see several animals--coyotes, a black bear, a silver fox, bison, cougars, elk, and of course, the wolves.

After leaving the park, we decided to try a new apple orchard to see how it would compare to Tanner's, since, after our last outing there, we had been left with something of a bitter taste in our mouths. Christ Orchard was only six miles or so from the park, and it was well worth the drive. Smaller in scale, but more reasonable in price, we came away happy with a bag of apples, a jug of cider, and some new jam to try. Elaina also got to visit the chickens, turkeys, and alpaca they had on the grounds. Unfortunately, Ellie fell asleep on the way there, so I wasn't able to take any pictures.

Overall, I think Elaina had a very happy few days to celebrate the coming of her 4th year. She is such a blessing to us!