Noelle's 4th Birthday Party!

My baby girl turned 4!
I love having a little girl, and I love even more that it's her! She is so fun and cute and smart and sweet! I love that she is her own little person and that she already knows exactly what she wants! She makes us all very happy, and if you ask her why she is such a princess, she says it's cause she was "born so close to Jesus' birthday???"
So for her 4th birthday party, Noelle told me, about 6 months ago, that she wanted a "Small World" Birthday Party. She wanted costumes and food and games from around the world, and she wanted the song to play the whole time!
We had crepes from France, tacos from Mexico, meatballs from Italy, hummus from greece and orange chicken from China (or Panda Express, which they say is Chinese for yummy!)
Then we opened presents first because Noelle could not contain her excitement for one moment longer!
Then we went on a trip around the world, and they got a sticker in their "passport" for every place they visited.
First stop, Hawaii. We got a lei and did the hula.

Next stop, Italy. We saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa and practiced throwing pizza dough in the air, while talking in Italian accents.
(Robert told me the day before, when I was practicing all of my accents, that my Italian accent sounded like a vampire and my Scottish accent sounded like a constipated person. He said my Southern accent was perfect though.)

Then we traveled to India and visited the Taj Mahal(which took me a very long time to draw and color.) We said "Namaste" to one another and got a red dot on our forehead.
Next we headed to France, where we visited the Eiffel Tower and ate different kinds of cheeses.
After that we visited Mexico, where we shook our maracas and learned how to play "Serpientes y Escalaras," the Mexican version of Chutes and Ladders.
(Don't land on the picture of mother elephant with her baby because you'll have to slide down the snake and end up on the picture of the mother elephant all alone, crying next to a river, where it's safe to assume, her baby elephant is trapped under water.
I'll stick with Chutes and Ladders.)
And last we ended up in China, eating fortune cookies and talking about the Great Wall of China.
It was really fun!
Michael Roberts even thanked me afterwards and told me it was one of the best trips he's ever been on (:

Next up, petting the pinata.
We went to Guadalupe the day before to pick out a pinata, and Noelle fell in love with this elephant wearing a bowtie. She named the pinata polk-a-dot, dressed it up in her clothes and slept with it.
Stanton warned her after we got it, not to name it cause then she wouldn't wanna "whack it," but she named it anyway.
Turns out Stanton was right. By dinnertime, she was in tears at the thought of anyone breaking him open, so we let everyone pet it.

It wasn't quite as exciting as hitting it with a bat, but the kids were all happy once I took the candy out piece by piece and threw it all over the yard.
And polk-a-dot is still sleeping in her bed to this day. She woke up in the middle of the night a few days ago because she rolled over on him and his ear came off. No need to worry though, Polka-a-dot is all taped up and back to normal now.

It was a really fun party, even though the Small World song, which probably played 40times, is still stuck in my head.
I was really happy with how my Small World clock tower turned out, and I was even more happy that Noelle said that she liked it better than the one at Disneyland.
She was also very impressed with my Eiffel Tower and said that it looked just like the one on her pajamas. She was full of compliments about all of my artwork, which made my calloused fingers, from coloring flags, landmarks and coloring, laminating and cutting 14 sets of ethnic paper dolls, all worth it!
On her actual birthday she wore my dress from when I was 4.
I don't have very much stuff from my childhood, but I have been saving this dress for her since she was born. She was so excited to wear it, and she thought it was funny that it had a big stain on the bottom, which she said means that I was clumsy like her and spilled things. I told her I still do.
To celebrate her big day, we went to see the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. It was early in the morning and we had the entire theatre to ourselves. What a great time!
That night, Noelle requested breakfast for dinner.
For dessert, she didn't want cake, she wanted fruit snacks and gummy lifesavers instead. So I made her special "candy cupcake,," which she was very pleased about.
Then to end the night, she got her very own princess bike (thank you Savers, $8.) complete with a basket for her babies.
Happy Birthday to my baby!