hairyshoefairy

Peanut turned four last week.  How did that happen?  I’m not really sure where all the time went but there it is.

ODD was gone on her birthday so we celebrated early.  I let her choose what we had for her birthday dinner.  She wanted pasta.  When I asked what kind and named off some options she requested ravioli.  I then asked if she wanted red or white sauce.  White.  So for dinner we had cheese filled ravioli alfredo.

After dinner we opened gifts.  Lady of PC mentioned to me a few weeks back that a local dollar store had some wings for sale.  All the ones I’ve seen have been at least $15 so when I heard about some for $1 I rushed over and grabbed a couple.  They were a big hit and even Wingnut ran around the house after Peanut wearing some bee wings.

I can’t remember where I read about it but a while ago someone posted about making some play make-up for her little girl.  Peanut loves playing with my make-up brushes and when I mentioned some play make-up to her one day she completely lit up.  I cleaned out a bunch of the make-up I wasn’t using anymore, removed all the old make-up, and filled the pots and tins with different colored nail polish.  It took a while today dry completely, but that play make-up, along with a couple of make-up brushes from e.l.f. was another favorite gift.  I’m making a little bag for her to keep it all in and she’s very excited about it.

We gave her a few other little things as well, but the big gift of the day was a new camera.  I remember Em and Renn giving Oliver a camera a while ago and thought it was a brilliant idea but didn’t know if Peanut would be interested.  Over the last 6 months of so, though, she is always asking if she can use my camera for different things.  My camera is no DSLR or anything but it’s a good point and shoot camera and I want to keep it all in one piece so I’m always hesitant to just hand it over to a wild little girl.  Knowing she was interested, though, made the decision to get her a camera for her birthday a no-brainer.  I looked over rough and tumble kids cameras but couldn’t find any that took high quality photos.  Despite being .5 MP they were still around $100+!  After talking to ODD I decided to look for a real camera and use it as an opportunity to teach her how to take care of her things.  I combed KSL for a while and finally found a good camera for a very reasonable price.  When I talked to the guy on the phone he lowered the price even further because he didn’t have the charger for it anymore.  I found a charger on Amazon for $2 and bought the thing.  It’s been probably the best investment we’ve ever made.  The photos Peanut takes crack me up.  Sometime I’ll have to do a post about it and share some of her photos.  She loves the camera and takes it almost everywhere with her.  We still have to remind her sometimes but overall she’s been good about taking care of her new camera.

After presents we had cake.  Peanut had told me she wanted a chocolate cake with pink and purple.  I’d seen a recipe for marshmallow fondant recently and thought I’d give it a try.  I made a fondant cake a few years ago for ODD’s birthday and love the way it looks but I don’t especially love the taste.  I thought marshmallow fondant might be better that way so I gave it a try.  ODD doesn’t love the texture of fondant in general but I do and I thought the marshmallow fondant turned out really tasty.  Peanut and Wingnut loved it, too.  I baked the cake in the afternoon and put the whole thing together while the kids napped.  I used three 6 inch cakes so it would fit on the only cake stand I have since my pretty white one is no more.  The pink and purple don’t really look good with the green but Peanut didn’t mind.  Thankfully she also didn’t mind my sad attempt at working with fondant.  I’m so not a cake decorator and oh, my does it show.  ODD said it looked like a hat.  Great.  It still tasted good, though, and that’s what matters, I guess.

After all the birthday cake excitement we had a family movie night and watched Disney’s Aladdin.  Peanut’s never seen it and ODD and I haven’t seen it in years so we all enjoyed it.  I think it’s become one of Peanut’s new favorites.  Even Wingnut was happy to watch most of it and didn’t squirm around too much.

All in all we kept it pretty low key.  Nothing fancy, nothing big, and nobody but us.  It was nice to have a mellow, happy time, and Peanut’s still talking about it a week later, saying  it was “the best birthday ever!” so I’d say it was a success.

Happy birthday, my beautiful girl!