Ari's Fourth Birthday

I never posted about Ari's birthday party and it happened a month ago. Oops! Let's get that done before I start forgetting the details.

Where to start? We celebrated Ari's fourth birthday on Sunday, September 18, on our back yard. There were almost 40 people here! About 17 of them were little ones. I think about nine of them were age four. Yes, we had a preschool here for a few hours! It was nice to have several families from her classroom, the neighbors, the grandparents, and one of my closest friends spend the day with us celebrating.

We had pizza, fruit and juice for lunch. The kids played for about an hour on the yard. After that, they came inside to enjoy a puppet show courtesy of Nana. After the show, she helped each child make his/her own puppet using recycled materials. Bless her heart! She is an art teacher, she loves kids, Ari is the only grandchild and Nana only had boys. So she would do just about anything for our little girl! We lucked out in the mother-in-law/grandma department.

After the puppet madness, we went back outside for cake and the piñata. Picture this: 17 kids excited about cake and a piñata. It was loud, but a lot of fun!

All the kids went home happy because they got to make puppets and Ari was happy as can be about having her friends over and about her Hello Kitty party.

After everyone went home, we went to a nearby park and had dinner with our Boston friends.

The next day, Monday, we celebrated at school. The Montessori school Ari attends has a "celebration of life" for each child when his/her birthday comes up. It is very simple, but beautiful. I love it.

A sun is placed on the ground. The birthday child walks around it holding a globe. While the child walks, the parents talk about some of the highlights of each year. Ari got to walk around four times and we told the kids about how she loved eating beans when she was one, how she loved balloons when she was two, how she loved going to the water park when she was three, etc. After that, we shared grapes and crackers with the kids.

All in all, everyone had a great time. I am sure we will be doing it again next September!