'Happybirfffdaytoyou'!

Salomae is four today!

We celebrated with the usual--dinner chosen by the Princess, presents, cake and ice cream. Dinner, eaten al fresco, consisted of hot dogs (Princess avoided them after the pleading for them), macaroni and cheese (or FASTA as Princess calls it), and baked beans (also avoided by Princess). She picked 'Fanta' as the beverage of choice for her birthday meal.

A little table dance by older brother as dinner entertainment. Quickly stopped (after photo was taken) as the three other Bangles were ready to join in.
Lacking time (and sitters), I had to take all five kids to Toys 'R Us to buy Salomae's gifts. We picked up a new kitchen (the wooden set was ruined in 'the flood') for a bargain. Since it was cheap, cheap, cheap, I also let her pick out a new doll. She's got an opinion on just about anything and I knew that if I picked out the baby she may not like it. She chose a Cabbage Patch that eats an ice cream cone. I can't honestly say if I swayed her or not in the choice. I think I may have. It came with a few free items (I guess ice cream eating dolls aren't the hit they should be). So I may have steered her in that direction. But the big, fat, kind of scary because-they-look-so-real babies were on clearance and I tried to interest her in one of those but she wouldn't even look at them (thankfully). The real question is whether I steered her to the brown skinned doll or not. When she opened the doll she looked happy, but sort of confused. She knew she was getting it and kept asking about it, but I think she wondered why we wrapped it up. The other items were a surprise and we are saving the kitchen for Monday when Rara and Popop (Seth's parents) are in town. Sad to say, she was clueless about the kitchen until I forgot about it in the back of the van and she caught a peek. I don't think she knew what it was even after seeing it (so hopefully I didn't ruin the surprise). A birthday isn't complete unless there's a little gift envy going on. Ella didn't partake in the "helping you unwrap" frenzy. She sat back and sucked her tongue (coping mechanism leftover from Ukraine) just watching. Then she silently got up and disappeared for a while. When she came back outside she had her favorite baby doll.
All three kids made Sally cards for her birthday. Eli (the sweet kid that he is, takes after his mom) put one dollar from his allowance in the card he made. I wanted to give him another dollar just because it was so kind. Here he is offering advice on how to ride a scooter, "Push with your feet." Salomae replies, "You push me!"
Sally still didn't eat cake or ice cream, though I slathered the cake with fresh strawberries and bought strawberry ice cream. While chopping the strawberries I started wondering why in the world I was TRYING to get her to eat sweets.