Phoebe is 4!

Where do I begin with this girl?

She woke up around 1:00 in the morning (she's been waking up a lot lately—we'll blame it on the pneumonia). 

"Happy birthday," I whispered when I picked her up.

"It's not morning," is what she told me.

"True, but it is your birthday," I told her. "And listen! Your primary songs are even playing birthday songs for you! Isn't that lucky?"

"It's not," she said. "I need a drink."

"Let's get a drink for you," I said. 

Meanwhile Andrew had come upstairs to take over. Phoebe has always been a little bit...permanently annoyed...with me at night time so Andrew has stepped up to be the one to put her back to bed over and over and over again. Because she responds better to him in the middle of the night.

Though I was secretly happy to hear her also tell him "It's not morning!" in response to his "Happy Birthday!" to her. 

Andrew had to work all day on Thursday, so he wasn't there when Phoebe rolled over, put her face in my face and said, "Mom—presents!" to wake me up. 

Joke was on her! I hadn't even wrapped her presents yet because we'd talked about just doing that on Friday instead. She's a baby, we reasoned, she doesn't understand time. Alas, she's not a baby anymore and has been meticulously counting down the days until her birth, pneumonia notwithstanding. 

I put her off gifts by suggesting she help me make her cake.

Phoebe wanted a pink heart-shaped cake with "bad puppies" and pears, pineapple, and cherries (the latter of which she found in our storage room while we were fetching a pink cake mix). I managed to talk her out of the pears and pineapple. The cherries we turned into a filling.

Here she is stirring the cake batter:

We had a pretty relaxed day, just...doing ordinary everything. I meant to make the day a little more special for her, but everyone has been a little under the weather...so we just didn't. 

But I did sneak off to my bedroom to wrap some presents for her just before Daddy came home from work, so she got to open them right before bed. She is such a gracious present opener...and has been so excited about her birthday for so long...I wish that I had the wherewithal to make it a bigger deal for her (but I gotta be honest—her pneumonia just about took me out...like, we are really tired over here). 

So I just wrapped up a few things and watched her open them. 

Four-year-olds are big on "thank you," I can tell you that much! Every gift she opened she was all, "Oh, fank you!"

Here she is opening a little heart-shaped hand warmer I made back when we lived in Durham (if not even in Orem...I think it may have been in Orem). I warm them up when the kids have ear aches, usually, but we still call them hand warmers. Anyway, that thing is way older than she is, but she insisted on wrapping it up for herself: To Phoebe, From Phoebe.

And, to be honest, she said the empty wrapping paper tube was "the best present of all!" Though that was before she had opened her actual gifts.

We gave her some little magic bottles that empty when they're upside down and refill when they're right side up. She has had a lot of fun with those.

Naanii and Bumpa sent a personalized puzzle for Phoebe—it has a little girl in the center, with long blonde hair, and it says "P is for Phoebe" and then has a bunch of affirmations ("I am brave") and musical instruments and things floating around her. Phoebe has already done the puzzle a handful of times.

Auntie K and Uncle Allen sent her this remote control excavator. I was worried she wouldn't be able to figure out the remote control, but she got it down in no time and used it until she wore out the battery.

Then she got up this morning, Andrew put in the freshly charged battery, and she played with it until she wore it out again.

I gave her a couple of Christmas books, which Andrew disproved of (but which I read to her anyway):

Alexander gave Phoebe a picture he drew (I don't think I got a picture of that, unfortunately, but it was lovely). And Zoë gave her her old set of Frozen toys.

Phoebe has actually never watched Frozen (that she can remember), so she started watching that tonight while the rest of us played Nertz. She likes it so far and thinks Kristoff is hilarious.

Here's Zoë showing Phoebe how to put Anna's leg back on. That pesky leg falls off all the time, but is pretty easy to pop back on if you don't lose it. We've tried various glues, but nothing seems to hold so...we just keep putting it back on. Phoebe has already used a rubber band and a piece of yarn to MacGyver a functional harness for Sven (the reindeer).

Of Elsa and Anna, Phoebe thinks Elsa is who she would like to be. But the excavator is probably her favourite new toy.

After presents and stories and scriptures and prayer, we sent Phoebe to bed. So a pretty low-key birthday.

Today I had the unhinged/genius idea to have the kids make fondant puppies to put on Phoebe's cake. These pictures were taken before much time had elapsed. Things got much messier quite quickly.

Phoebe in particular ended up a spectacularly sticky mess (without a puppy to show for it). She and Alexander both ended up changing their clothes and having showers while Zoë and Benjamin helped me sweep and mop that entire room. It was a phenomenal mess.

But we made puppies.

Here's the cake before puppies:

And here's Phoebe putting together her puzzle...to keep her out of the way a little bit longer. She was frustrated and asked for my help so I came in to give her some advice. I said, "Why don't you look for more of her hair?"

And Phoebe said, "Will you stop saying her?! This puzzle is me! It's my hair!"

So I was like, "Fine. Look for more of your hair..."

Anyway, we made dogs for the cake! And we cleaned up our truly incredible mess. And then I took Benjamin to swim practice, but came straight home after because Grandpa and Darla said they'd pick him up on their way to our house for dinner. 

Phoebe requested macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets, so Miriam and Andrew made schnitzel and spaetzle...which is like the same thing...only fancier. You should have heard us last night. Andrew was like, "Schnitzel is like a great big chicken nugget. Only flat. A flugget."

And then we added in the schnitzel-noodles. 

We ended up talking about "fluggets and schnoodles." 

That was our hint it was truly bedtime. 

Anyway, Grandpa and Darla brought Benjamin home from swim practice. We had dinner. And then it was time for cake. So we all worked together to clear dinner things from the table and to bring cake things to the table. 

Phoebe said she needed to go potty. And then she came into the hallway coughing and gagging. She calmly walked into the kitchen where, thankfully, only Andrew and I were still working. She pulled open the cupboard door where we keep the big mixing bowls. She weighed her opens, selected a bowl of appropriate size and...

"Phoebe, what are you doing?" Andrew asked. 

"Are you alright?" I asked. 

"Yes," she gagged. "I'm just going to..."

And she threw up. 

So much. 

So silently. So elegantly. So...pinkly. (She had consumed a lot of pomegranate seeds at dinner). 

So voluminously.

"There," she said, handing me the bowl full of...her stomach contents. "I'm ready for cake."

"You're r-r-ready for c-c-cake?" I stammered.

"Yes!" she said. 

I felt her forehead. 

"You...feel...alright?"

"I feel just fine! I just was coughing too much."

"But you didn't cough at all..."

"In the bathroom I did."

"So this was just...because you coughed too much..a few minutes ago?"

"Yes."

"You truly feel fine?"

"Yes."

"And you want cake?"

"Yes."

"After...this?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Can you wash your hands, please?"

I flushed that bowl of vomit down the toilet and washed up a few things before joining everyone at the table for cake.

So...here's her (bad) puppy cake (she specifically asked for a bad puppy cake while we were on her special birthday phone call with Auntie K; she also had a special birthday phone call with Rachel, the lucky girl).

Our neighbour got a new job! Which means that the kids are back to their mid-day dog-walking gig. So Phoebe got to help walk Luna today, which was very exciting for her. She's never not excited for a puppy. And it's not like we hadn't seen Luna while we were out of our dog-walking duties (because Luna's owner was out of work). But I think it must hit different when you have the thrill of the leash in your hand...

Anyway, Alexander made this little black puppy (with some help from me because his first puppy attempt was...well...picture the grim and you'd about have it):

Benjamin made this dachshund:

Zoë made Titus...and, honestly, that would have been a good time to ask what kind of breed Titus was because we don't actually know...but just know that this is supposed to be a Titus puppy:

And I made this puppy sitting on the cake:

We actually watched a tutorial on how to make a clay puppy but working with fondant ended up being trickier than we thought, a little droopier. It has been years since I've made fondant or worked with it (due to Rachel taking over cake-making) and...anyway...we may have overestimated our abilities. The fondant was stickier and oozier than we'd have liked. 

That's why Zoë and Alexander abandoned the idea of a 3-D puppy and went for a 2-D puppy instead (though Alexander pointed out that because the puppies still have depth to them they are still technically 3-D, which...fine).

I wrote "HA-puppy BIRTHDAY" on her cake. It...works. She was happy with it. 

She had a bit of trouble blowing out her candles. She sat where you see her in the picture while we sang to her and when we were finished she climbed down to sit on my lap to blow out the candles. After a couple of tries I blew on the candles with her and we got them all taken care of.

"What kind of ice cream do you want?" Grandpa asked. 

"I want all three kinds!" Phoebe cheered. 

"Are you sure you need all three kinds?" I asked cautiously. 

"Oh, she can have just a tiny bit of all three kinds," Andrew said. "It's fine."

"Okay..." I said. 

And when she asked for a second piece of cake I was like, "Are you sure you need another piece of cake? I think one is plenty..."

But she weaseled a second little piece of cake out of us, too. And held everything down just fine.

After dinner, Phoebe watched a bit of Frozen while the rest of us played Nertz (as I mentioned...and, boy, that girl has had a lot of screen time this week) and then we had scriptures and prayer and put Phoebe to bed. And then finished watching Wednesday (season 2) and then put most of the other kids to bed and then made a little phone call to Auntie Josie and Naanii (Rachel was there doing her laundry!) so Josie and I could coordinate our plane tickets to Austria (we're going to visit Uncle Patrick and Hadis). And then Miriam asked if she could have a little bit more ice cream and we started talking in the kitchen and...out came the story of Phoebe's clandestine kitchen vomit. 

"Oh! Is that what happened?" Miriam asked. "I was wondering why you were like, 'Are you sure you need all three kinds of ice cream?'"

It was an abundance of caution, honestly. Cleaning up vomit is not my favourite activity.

Speaking of not favourites, this cake was not Zoë's favourite cake. I know because she poked at it more than she ate. And because flagged me down to get my attention. "Mom! Mom! Mom!" she whispered. "This cake is not my favourite!"

And then I whispered back, "I literally don't want to hear about it!" and turned my attention back to the conversation at hand.

Because—in my humble (yet amazingly accurate) opinion—you shouldn't pull the hostess aside to tell them that you don't like what they made. It simply doesn't need to be done. You can just swallow your pride along with whatever it is they set before you (barring, like, an allergy or other dietary restriction—religious, diabetic, etc.). If you really don't like it you can pull out the "Everything was so good—I couldn't manage another bite" card.

That's what Miriam used to do (when she was younger than Zoë—she learned to stop telling me things like this by the time she was 10). She would say, "Mom, this meal is so good...I don't think I'll be able to finish it." 

And she wouldn't. 

But at least she lied to my face about her feelings—like a true gentlewoman. 

Speaking of Miriam, we only recently told her that we used to purposely buy mushrooms for dinner because it would make her cry. Like, Andrew would grab them at the store and say, "Should we make Miriam cry this week? I think we could go for stroganoff of Thursday..." and would plop a container of mushrooms into the cart.

She was a little offended. 

But, like, she had to learn to just eat her yucky mushrooms without complaining, right?

What doesn't kill her makes her stronger...

But it's not like she was complaining about literal cake.

Like, come on, Zoë—either eat the cake or don't. But don't pull the baker aside to say it's not fabulous. That's just not cool. 

Here's a picture of Zoë's cake, having been abandoned on the table. Zoë wrote a lovely birthday message on the whiteboard for Phoebe:

It was a lovely...low-key...birthday. 

That's really the only kind of birthday to have when you have pneumonia.