And Hannah evens up too

Hannah turned four the other day, leaving Sophie as the odd one out (literally, the kids now being aged 8, 6, 4 and 1).
Her day was fun as well, getting even more presents than Bethany as she opted to have a cheaper version of the desired Baby Born. Don't tell her the extra pressies were mostly garage sale finds anyway...
The day after her birthday we went to Snakes and Ladders with Nicole, Ella and Charlotte (and Mum until she went off to work). Hannah was very specific that she wanted to play there while the bigger kids were at school. Fair enough, I say.


We usually try to avoid joint celebrations of the girls birthdays unless that is what they want, and this year they were happy to have the extended family (but not Adam and Eva, sadly) around on Sunday and have two cakes.
Bethany wanted a sponge cake but without cream (where did my kids get this abnormal cream phobia from?!), so I sandwiched it with pink and white icecream and topped it off very elegantly with a picture of Dora the Explorer. Hannah's cake was carefully selected from the Women's Weekly Kids Cakes book after many weeks of poring over the pages. She opted for the 4 shaped cake but with the decorations from the 5 shaped cake. She must have reminded me of this approximately six hundred times before I actually made the cake. You can't see the decorations in the picture very well, but there were some very cool meringue grubs, and some spearmint leafed branches on a pink 4 shaped chocolate cake. The joy! We also had 'our favourite things' as the food choice for the party, so there were mini-hotdogs, tuna mornay and lasagne. Does it get any better than that!!??

Hannah is very excited now that pre-entry has finished and next time she goes to kindy (after the holidays) it will be full-time kindy (or 'four-time kindy' as she interprets it, which makes sense as she will go four days a week). Her and Ella get to share a term until Ella heads off to school!! How scary is that!
Hannah has really grown into being four and is currently the most centred and calmest child in this family. Ryan and Bethany seem to be permanently tired and crabby, and Hannah is just the quiet voice of reason, getting herself ready in the morning, helping out with Sophie, piping up with 'I'm being sensible, aren't I mum?' as often as she can without the other kids bopping her.