Anne's fourth birthday was her first "real" birthday party -- the first three were just close friends and family -- and she wanted to go all out for it. We looked at several venues around the area, and then cheered when A. chose the Virginia Zoo -- besides being one of our favorite places, it's a reasonable price, especially for members, and it allows a ton of guests (up to 45, which is necessary when you have a big family like ours). Other than that, general plusses were that a zoo party really cuts down on planning to be done, as it includes food (pizza!) and activities (animal visits!) in the package. All you have to provide is the cake and a dozen excited toddlers, hooray for minimal fuss.

The zoo staff was really great, helping us with setup and logistics and providing toys and hands on activities, but the animal presentation was really the highlight of the party. Our handler was really knowledgeable, and the variety of animals was really cool and varied, from tarantulas to tenrecs. The end of the party, cake and presents, felt a bit rushed -- it would be great if the zoo allotted two hours instead of one-and-a-half for the whole shebang -- but other than that, Anne's big 4 was a big success and it was a real treat to be able to experience the zoo with all of our favorite people at once.

What are your favorite birthday venues around #HRVA? I'd like to put together a master list or regular feature on birthdays around town, if you have any ideas or would like to feature your child's party, let me know!

FAVORITE BOOK: The Book with No Pictures & Is There a Dog in This Book?

FAVORITE TV SHOW: "Kiwi's" (PeeWee's) Playhouse

FAVORITE FOOD: Quesadillas

FAVORITE COLOR: Pink

FAVORITE MOVIE: Frozen Fever

FAVORITE SONG: Let it Go

BEST FRIEND: Adalae!

WHEN I GROW UP: I will have a lot of jobs. A doctor job, for people and animals. A cowgirl job. And a mommy job.

FAVORITE THING TO PLAY: Elsa and Anna

FAVORITE THING TO DO AT SCHOOL: Be the weather person

FAVORITE TOY: Pet animals (Beanie babies)

FAVORITE THING TO DO WITH MOMMY: Go places

FAVORITE THING TO DO WITH DADDY: Look at cat videos

NOW THAT I AM FOUR, I WANT TO: Reach high things on the shelf, go on the big slide at Chuck-E-Cheese.

Some more Anouk at four facts: she definitely prefers "Anouk" to "Anne;" has jumped on the horse-crazy train about eight years early; is fascinated by baby animals; spends her mornings creating "inventions" out of ribbon and paper clips; says to me at least a dozen times a day, "Can I keep you forever?"; knows six words in French and makes up dozens more; takes regular breaks to shake her sillies out; loves to sing the Amen song from chapel; loves her friends so, so much; is the worlds biggest extrovert, much to the surprise of her introverted mother; is generous to a fault (we have to stop her giving away everything she owns); made me and James promise to go with her when she goes away to college (we readily agreed but won't hold her to it). Basically, she is a ball of equal parts silliness and sweetness and we love her to pieces.

We're continuing our tradition this year of donating to March of Dimes on Anne's birthday. And we hope you will consider doing the same if you can! Just in the four years since A. was born the treatments and prognoses for prematurity have changed so much and it feels awesome to think that we have helped in some small, with our tiny bit of support, to make it that fewer babies and families have to worry about being born too soon. I can't think of a better way to celebrate our girl and to celebrate her life so far.

 A few days ago, I was checking the date and noticed that Anouk would be turning three in exactly a month. The realization filled me a little bit of nostalgia at what's past, a little bit of curiosity at what's to come, a little bit of apprehension over the birthday itself (this is the first year we're having a party with more than just family and I have no idea what I'm doing).

But mostly I felt determination, that I will try my best to enjoy every one of these last days of having a two-year-old. It's not always easy, as I'm sure anyone who's ever had a two-year-old will attest. But I feel like it's important to try to appreciate it. Am I wrong or does three kind of officially mark the end of babyhood? When your kid is three you can't really say you have a baby anymore, even if that's what James and I still call her when we talk about her -- "the baby."

Anouk at the tail end of two still says things like "ockapuss" for "octopus" and "oh-plane" for "airplane." (But she has distressingly stopped saying "hungen" for "hungry" which makes us a little sad). She can identify all of her letters and numbers but still only has a tenuous grasp on the fact that the latter are supposed to happen sequentially and when you ask her to count to 10, sometimes a fourteen or fifteen will sneak its way in. She thinks her full name is Noukie Ouisa and when you ask whose baby she is she almost always says "I'm MINE" with a sort of duh tone in her voice like, whose else would she be?

Anouk at almost three runs to the window every morning and asks, "Is it spring yet?" She has a deep interest in the seasons, and where things go, which leads her to ask all sorts of impossible-to-answer questions like, "Where is fall?" Anouk at almost three is a serious extrovert -- the saddest day for her is one that we spend in our pajamas, lounging around at home (which is kind of the perfect day for her mother, oh well). She brings out my better angels every day by making me say sorry when I yell at other drivers. Anouk at almost three loves painting, Barbies, trains, and will do almost anything for toddler press-on nails. Lately her favorite color is shifting hues from pale princess pink to a more vibrant red. Anouk at almost three will run into the room to shout, "I LOVE you" and when you ask her what prompted it, will say, "I just thought you should know."

Almost three feels like the cusp of something. Sometimes I can't stop my mind from racing ahead to think about what she'll be like at four, five, six, fourteen, fifteen. But then I remind myself to slow down and enjoy her babyhood -- which is over in just a few more weeks, officially.

Unofficially, well. You know.

As I mentioned before, we had a lot of birthdays in September. And as you know, we like to get creative with our wrapping paper for gifts. So when Anouk and I pulled out some supplies to do a quick apple-printing craft a few weeks ago, I got an idea. Why not use our apples to print some cute and seasonal DIY wrapping paper?

We had a lot of fun with this simple craft, so much so that after we'd done a few sheets of wrapping, Anouk and I kept going and made a whole slew of apple prints to hang around the house. The wrapping paper project was more about being precise, so it was fun to have the opportunity to let loose and see where our imaginations took us.





So fun! And the birthday boy really liked his book, so it was a success all around.

Have you tried apple printing? Do you decorate with your prints?

Birthday season is officially upon us, which means that lately, A. and I have been wrapping lots of gifts for friends of all ages. I've mentioned before that Anne isn't the craftiest kid, but something she's always up for is making some DIY wrapping paper to use for our presents. It might be because it's always more fun to make something for someone, it might be because it's a really free-form, unrestricted activity -- there really are no limits, no rules.

I used to buy a lot of gift-wrapping stuff, and dedicated a good amount of space in our tiny apartment to wrapping paper, gift bags, boxes, and bows, which was all pretty bad for the environment. But these days my wrapping paper stash takes up approximately 1% of what it used to. A roll of (recyclable, compostable) craft paper, some dot markers, and a couple of stamps are all we need. The results are always festive, if not professionally perfect. It feels nice to give our gifts a personal touch and to know we're not creating a lot of extra waste.

A couple of our favorite finds are the to/from stamp we bought from Etsy to use in place of tags, and rolls of colorful baker's twine to add a little pizzazz to our designs. Do you create your own wrapping paper or cards? What are some of the supplies you use?



Have a happy weekend, all! And happy birthday to all the birthday boys and girls we've celebrated with recently. :)