four

Things are getting confusing around here...well for Alexis at least. See, today is her birthday, but on Saturday was her party. Almost all of her aunts and uncles and grandparents, and all of her cousins came swimming on Saturday and then showered her with gifts. But it was important to me that she know that TODAY is her actual birthday so I kept saying, "no, today is just your party, your birthday is on Monday". So yesterday at church when people would comment on her new jewelry, "oh, did you get that for your birthday?", "no, it's from my party", lest they be mistaken. Then this morning she kept telling me that she wanted to have friends come over for her birthday, and will her birthday be inside or outside?, and how long will her birthday be? And then at my aerobics class she would go to all of her friends and say, "you can come over for my birthday". I've been trying to explain to her that her birthday is just the same as the day she was born, and it's inside and outside, it's all day, and you don't have to do anything special for it to still be your birthday. She's not getting it. To her four year old mind, presents = birthday.

Here's a few pictures of swimming fun, and her blowing out her candles.


I've said it before but one of the very best things about Alexis is her enthusiasm. When she is excited about something, she is EXCITED about it, and then you get excited about it just from watching her. The first present she opened was a little doll house from her grandma, and oh boy did she love it. Every present after that was exciting, until we got to the grand finale, it was a bit anti-climatic.

Here she is hugging grandma for the dollhouse. Her cousin Mason is also hugging grandma for the dollhouse because he loved it too.
Here she's modeling a cute shirt from Uncle Aaron and Aunt Tricia.
After all the other presents were opened Jeremy and I decided to give her one of the gifts from us. I even got my video camera out hoping for a good reaction.

"Alexis, go sit on Uncle Eric's lap and close your eyes"
"Okay, open them!"
"What am I supposed to be looking at?"
"Oh, gee, cool...i guess.* Thanks mom and dad. Where are my toys?"

But at least one person appreciated it.
He's definitely a second child, enjoying the cast-offs of the first.


*She really did like her bike, I was just expecting more of a reaction!