Happy Birthday Abby!

My big girl!

My baby girl just turned four years old today! I can't believe she's already four! *sniff* In August she'll be off to preschool and I'll be carrying my box of Kleenexes in tow. We had a great birthday party for her this past Saturday. Josh's Family came up for the day and we had a hot dog and hamburger cookout despite the gloomy weather. Luckily, the rain took a hike right after lunch and we had a merry ol' Easter egg hunt in the murky backyard. And yes, the kids were quite wet by the hunt's end. But it was worth it as it was very fun indeed. Abby got some great new stuff to draw and color. But most importantly, thanks to her gracious Aunt Mandy, Abby has a new furry friend.

Here she is opening up her gifts and that cage contains our new hamster.

She got her wish and we now have a tiny hamster sitting in our living room. She mocks the cats from the safety of those cage bars. But so far, no deaths or bloody cat noses to report. Abby named her Strawberry. She is a calico hamster and absolutely adorable. The only problem? She bites. It's going to take some pretty major training on my part to get her to tame down enough for the kids, but I shall be ever vigilant in my attempts to train the wee thing. We have one bitten finger to report. I said, "Josh, don't stick your finger in the bars or she'll bite you." So what does Josh do? He sticks his finger in the bars. One nasty little nip, a chunk of missing flesh from his finger, and quite a lot of bleeding later, Josh...my 36 year old husband...learned his lesson. I rolled my eyes and said, "I told you so, genius."

Here's Strawberry. Not a great picture but she won't stand still very often.

So it was an eventful weekend and it was great having the cousins to play with the kids for the day. I made a fun dolphin cake for miss Abby. I experimented with Marshmallow fondant for the first time so I could sculpt the dolphins.

It was fun to try, but I'm not sure I enjoy that form of decorating. It was tasty, but way too much sugar. The kids fought over who would eat what dolphin so I had to do a little morbid dolphin chopping to keep the peace. Poor sugary Flipper. Didn't even know what hit him. I will post pictures later to this post. Tomorrow at the latest. I've had my camera battery plugged in all day to prepare for blogging but for some reason (who will remain unnamed), the battery only looked as if it was plugged in. So it's charging as of five minutes ago.

So a super happy birthday to my sweet baby girl! I'm so proud of you and all the things you learn and all the ways I am blessed to watch you grow daily. Happy Birthday Abby!