Happy Birthday Reiley!

We had a whirlwind birthday weekend for Miss Reiley who turned four! Earlier in the week, I had my mom sobbing moment where I looked through all her old pictures and her baby book and wondered where the years have gone! I blamed it on pregnancy hormones, but I should really just accept the fact that I'm a huge sap, and the crying is unavoidable.

With tears out of the way, we geared up for two parties during the weekend. We had our "family" party on Saturday afternoon, which was a Reiley-chosen firefighting theme. She's been wanting to be a firefighter for about 3 months, and we rented a DVD from the library that told us all the aspects of becoming a firefighter. She memorized the prerequisites, and informed me that "Now that I'm four, that isn't that far away from 18, and that's when I can become a firefighter! I'll have to spend the night in the firehouse for a few nights, but then I'll come home." Here are the girls anxiously awaiting the cake.

We got her a Little Red Riding Hood cape, and it was worn for the rest of the party, and for days after. I've been working on my Wolf voice and Reiley's been pondering the ethics of the fairy tale. "That wasn't very nice for the hunter to kill the wolf; he could have made a different choice, Mom."
Ainsley is sporting the fire chief hat from the costume Reiley received. Reiley's been rescuing women, children and families from apartment building fires, with the help of Ainsley.
Reiley's "friend" party was Sunday morning, and she chose a construction theme. While she's semi-interested in construction vehicles, I think she ultimately made the choice because she saw a picture of an excavator cake in my Family Fun magazine and declared it the choice for her birthday. I completely understand making decisions based on food:-). Here's Reiley with her BFF Savannah blowing out the candles. Reiley and her buddies donned construction hats and dug in the sandbox to find paintbrushes, which they used to paint a cardboard box house. Then they pulled out some treats from the construction cone pinata and had some cake. Hot outside, and messy, but lots of fun!