Happy Birthday Lizzy!

The Amazing Potty Doll

Good Friends on a Swing

Summer birthdays are a lot more affordable at this age than winter ones, if only because use of the park is free. Abby's fourth birthday was hosted by her dad, but her birthdays tend to be spendy because - with a December birthday - we can't just fling a bunch of kids at a free play area and set them loose. But we can with a Labor Day Weekend birthday, at least most years. Seattle weather is variable of course, but good weather in late August through September is as much of a guarantee as we ever get in this area. And it was nice - if a bit too tropical for our temperate rain forest.

A Sweet Creation by Carrie

Lizzy's still little - four today - so I can get away with only inviting family and her "best fwiend Nallie". And since Natalie's (and Baby Emily's) mom is the incomparable Carrie of Sweet Creations by Carrie, well... bonus! I mean, even my dad and stepmom are happy to come to parties for four-year-olds in the park, where they would rather not attend a party at Chuck-e-Cheese, for instance, or McDonald's. Can you blame them? I would probably bow out of the parties at places like those, if I were not more-or-less required. And speaking of Dad and Stepmom, they got Lizzy the sweetest little "potty-trainer" doll, to which you give water and wait for it to do its duty on the little included potty chair. Lizzy's playing with it right now (in the bathroom, thank goodness, and although she had a breakthrough on the potty front a couple of days ago, she can use the constant reminder and practice as well). She got other goodies too, some Duplo animals and the "woof blocks" from Lego she wants to assist her in building houses, and the little binox and hair decs she got from her dad and me.

Cake!

Good day, although everyone except Laston (and maybe even him, in his retreat-from-the-world way) is Dropping Spoons all over the place now. I'm taking normal 8- and 11-year-old behavior as grounds for strangulation, Leanna's getting bossier by the minute, Abby just burst into tears over a change in the schedule for an impromptu neighborhood event, and Lizzy - well, aside from the pottying improvement - Lizzy's melting down over every little thing. We're all hot and tired and grumpy and really? It's actually very satisfying in some ways - this normal end-of-summer-day fatigue. In fact, it's kind of nice.