A Family Four-ever

Amber turned four this past week and I've been promising family that I would eventually get around to posting pictures of the festivities.  It's appropriate that since Amber is our resident rainbow lover and amateur artist, her special day ended up full of color. 

We had a last minute opportunity to teach Joy School on Amber's birthday come up, which meant getting to do a few special activities with some of her friends.  One of the lesson's activities was making necklaces out of colored noodles: a perennial preschool favorite.

Robyn showing off her Joy School necklace.

Amber had been excited to bring a special treat to Joy School on her birthday, so we let her share them even though Joy School ended up at our house: fruit rainbows!

The Joy School lesson also included making cookies as a class, another one of Amber's favorite activities that played in nicely with the day.  The kids especially liked getting to flatten the gingersnaps with a fork.

Besides Joy School, we also did a little "Painting Party" for Amber.  She loved getting to color to her heART's content!

Displaying some of the girls' paintings while they dry.

We even whipped out the finger paints. There really is a paper in front of Robyn somewhere, but it was sure hard to tell by the time she was done sliming it!

Sticking with the painting theme, we let each of the girls "paint" her own cupcake using different colored frosting on a paper plate palette.

Cupcakes!

Perhaps the least messy aspect of the painting party: cooling off afterwards painting on the driveway with water. 

We also had a little family party with cake, ice cream, and presents when Daddy came home.

The birthday cake.

The inside of the birthday cake.  I was pretty excited about how this turned out.  I didn't tell the girls the cake itself was rainbow until we were cutting it after dinner and I think they got a kick out of the surprise.

My favorite moment of the day, though, came when Amber blew out her candles:

That's our big wish too, Amber!  Thanks for a great first four years...looking four-ward to four-ever with you!!

Just a fun parting picture of Amber wearing a pair of funny glasses she got for her birthday.  She sure makes us smile!