Kate's 4th Birthday

Kate turned four years old yesterday. Wow! I made her this lamb cake, which was a big hit to look at but not so much to eat - who wants to eat all those marshamallows? This is what it was supposed to look like. The day was a pretty good one. She was excited all day, and I tried really hard to make the day special for her by not getting mad at her and letting her do whatever she wanted. By the time birthday dinner rolled around, she couldn't wait for her presents. After we ate, Mac set up the video camera and we started singing happy birthday. As soon as we started singing, this funny look came over Kate, like she was getting overwhelmed by the attention and starting to shut down. She's gotten this look many times before: at Easter Egg hunts, her first day of dance class, etc. But it's always been when we're with a lot of other people, when she clearly isn't comfortable. So it was strange to see this look come over her when it was just us, the family, singing to her. After we were done singing, she wouldn't blow out the candles, and it took a lot of coaxing to get her to finally do it. Then, as she was opening her first present, she wouldn't look at it while she slowly took the wrapping paper off. We kept saying, "Look, look - some of the present is going to fall if you don't look at what you're doing." But she refused to look and would only stare at us with that strange look. She didn't even act excited about the gift, even though normally she would be ecstatic at the thought of watching High School Musical. Finally, she started to loosen up and get back to normal after a couple of presents, and then she had a blast playing with everything. She was so caught up in playing with her new toys that she didn't even eat any of her cake. I was afraid they didn't like it, but the girls ate a lot of it today.

Overall, yesterday was a really good day for Kate. She's a funny girl, but she enjoyed herself a lot. Today she was getting excited just talking about her 5th birthday!