Aubrey Turns Four (Two and a Half Months Late)

Here we go with the catch up posts.....

Back in September, our sweet Aubrey turned four years old. We celebrated her special day with a party on September 8th. I had the hardest time coming up with a "theme" for her part this year, but I finally decided to go with an "Ice Cream Social" theme. Because, if there's one thing that girl loves, it's ice cream! :) (Oh, who am I kidding? She loves anything sweet!)

Since the party was in the afternoon, I decided to have an ice cream bar and just make that the focal point of the whole party. It worked out really well because the ice cream set-up served as the decorations and I didn't have to do much else as far as food. I had some veggies and dip, but that's about it. I also made cupcakes, but even they took a backseat to the ICE CREAM :) Sadly, we were really down to the wire getting everything set up for this party, so we didn't get a ton of good pictures. I wish we had gotten more, because I thought the whole thing turned out pretty cute.

I really didn't know what to do as far as "entertainment" for the kids who came to the party. I'm just not good at that part of party planning. I shouldn't have worried though -- who needs special activities when you have a tornado shelter to play on?! Ha!

And of course, making ice cream sundays and eating them was an activity in and of itself!

I had ordered a cute little ice cream dress for Aubrey to wear for the party, but it didn't come in in time. So, SD came through for me and let us borrow one of Ann Peyton's dresses. It really comes in handy to have a friend who loves kids' clothes and buys ahead :)

We were SO excited that our sweet friends, the Arants, were able to be here for the party. I think they were able to go to two parties while they were in town that day, so it worked out well :) It really meant so much to us that they made the trip :) We love and miss them!

Aubrey loved opening her presents, and her friend were so generous and gave her some great gifts.

After presents, I did have one party activity planned: A pinata! I ordered an ice cream pinata and thought it might be a fun little thing to do. It turned out to be quite hilarious (and maybe slightly dangerous -- ha!). Aubrey wouldn't even take a swing at it (she really doesn't like being the center of attention in situations like that), but the other kids seemed to enjoy it. The parents got quite a laugh out of watching all of the the kids take a swing (or two). One of the older little girls there finally busted it, and I think all of the parents breathed a collective sigh of relief that no one had gotten clubbed in the head. Ha! 

Doing these posts so far after the fact is kind of interesting. When I thought back on Aubrey's birthday party, I thought to myself, "Oh yeah, that was such a great day." But then I thought a little more and remembered how things got SUPER stressful leading up to the party. I seem to remember trying to ice the cupcakes at the very last minute and the icing being WAY too thick and David having to stir it until his arm about fell off to get it a little more manageable. And I was still not happy with the way the cupcakes turned out and was so frustrated by that. And then I remembered something about being in my room getting dressed and putting my makeup on literally as the first guests were arriving. Ha! But now, almost 3 months later, none of that stuff matters. I remember how much Aubrey loved the party, how happy we were to be surrounded by our family and friends, and how thankful I was (and am) for four precious years as Aubrey's mother. In the end, that's all that matters, and I'm thankful for such a fun day celebrating our sweet little girl!