Fourth Birthday Extravaganza!

I was waiting to write this post until we got the pottery we painted back from the pottery place so I could show you our creations.  You can read about how that went here.

The fourth birthday is a pretty big deal and Ruby was adamant about what she wanted for it.
She wanted a Rapunzel dress and has wanted one for probably 6 months now.
Anytime we would ask her what she wanted she would respond in the same way. 'A Rapunzel dress please'
So who am I to say no?
I got to work and gathered my materials.
My original plan was to do it patternless but when Justice found the Rapunzel dress pattern at JoAnn's for $1.99 I just couldn't say no.
And I am glad I got it.
The dress turned out amazing and Ruby loves it....

Who are we kidding?  I love it too...

Here she is doing a princess curtsy.
So equipped in her Rapunzel dress we had what she requested for dinner.
Macaroni and Cheese.
This girl could have had anything.
And she chose Mac and Cheese.

So I made homemade backed in cheese goodness.
And it was good.
Then we headed to one of our new favorite places and got Ruby a free birthday sundae- which she ate 3 bites of and had enough... But it was still fun.  Everyone admired the beautiful girl in her beautiful dress.  It was perfect for a birthday girl.

Then as a little surprise we headed to the clay painting place.
She had her choice of anything to paint.  Anything.  And, like the mac and cheese, she chose an egg.
We did our best to sway her in other directions but this four year old knows what she wants and she wanted an egg.
So she got an egg.

I painted a little cup for Noni when we have hot chocolate parties here.
Noni painted the plate- and Justin had the awesome job of wrangling Noni.  Not easy, not easy at all.

By the time we were done it was dark enough to have our final surprise for Ruby.

We headed to the park with a wide open field and lit a flying lantern (complete with the tangled sun logo) and let it go- in true Rapunzel fashion.
It was AMAZING.

I think we are going to make this a little bit more of tradition in our family.
It was a little scary at first, you know, with the floating fire and all- but once we were sure it was going up and not down toward trees it was great.
We also have an amazing video of this first 'let-go' of the lantern.  If you come visit we'll show you.  It starts out great with a lot of excitement- and then ends with the phone being dropped and a little 'floating fire' panic.
It is epic.
The next day we headed to the butterfly conservatory near us-still dressed in our Rapunzel dress- and had a great time!

We all were able to hold a butterfly.
Justin caught them all- they just seemed to like him- I guess he is pretty sweet.

He was kind enough to share his spoils with the rest of us.

Ruby was a little leery of the butterflies.  Some would say she was a little afraid....  But you could hear her talking herself out of it- 'I love butterflies' 'I'm not afraid of butterflies'.  She preferred the caterpillars.  Especially the little tiny ones.

The Chrysalis's- not cocoon.  Who knew?  We did- we read a book that told us about the monarch butterflies before we went- so we looked pretty smart.... 



What is cuter than that pudgy little hand holding that butterfly?  We loved the monarchs the best.
Myers was sad to see him go.

I even got one.... Well Justin got it and I got to hold it....

It was awesome.

Then we headed to a friends house and shared an ice cream cake with them.

It was a great birthday weekend.