My Best Friend has a Birthday

Ali affectionally refers to me as her best friend (to the dismay of dad), and I thought I'd write it down somewhere since I know it'll be abruptly gone one day. Probably around the same time I ban short-shorts and midriff shirts- and that day will most likely be before she's out of elementary school since she already has a pretty strong opinion on her wardrobe.  Though I can deal with the current trends of must-wear-pink and must-wear-skirts and must-have-on-jewelry opinions.

Anyway, despite being the most emotional and dramatic person on the planet (I mean, that's a guess, but it seems likely) she's still really good at never getting in trouble.  Saying mean things to Mitchell under her breath and saying "No!" to Mike and I in the most hilarious, darling way ever, we just end up laughing usually because we're terrible parents.

I can barely handle it. I mean, she's been this way more or less her whole life, it's just shifting rather quickly to the right side of the mild-extreme scale.

So she turned 4, not 25 (just clarifying).  Her birthday list was extensive and well organized, giving people different answers (and the same answers for the same people every time. I was impressed).

From grammy she wanted make up with "lips" (this was a wise choice, as it was probably the only person who would have filled this request)

Including a pink purse?! Perfect.

From my inlaws she asked for pink bed sheets and a blowdryer.
She told Emma she wanted an Elsa dress (I was so relieved- those stupid things are hard to come by recently)

From Mitchell- a frozen game
And the one time I stupidly asked her after buying all her gifts, she wanted an Elsa castle with Elsa and Anna (uummmm you can ask santa for that one…..)

Her birthday fell on conference weekend, as it will often, and not wanting to set the expectation of skipping it, we decided to try and make conference fun for the littles.  Probably something that should have started years ago, but better late than never. To my surprise, it worked out pretty well.

I sent over 5 conference books I found on the internet over to FedEx to print.  I didn't check or care about the quantity of pages, and ordered 2 of each.  And then it was $15.  What the.  Since when do black and white copies cost $15?? I'll tell you.  It's when you order 180 pages. Yeah.  The kids are set for the next 2 conferences, actually.

And then we taped the first presidency/quorum of the 12 on the wall and put sticky notes all over their faces of things we learned about.  Ali just wrote "Ali" a bunch of times, but it was fun for the kids to match faces to the TV (and we drew our own pictures for the other speakers)

We had about 6 bowls out with words like "Family" and "Love" on each, and each filled with some sort of smallish candy.  Every time they heard a word they could eat a candy. Ali could never remember all the words (and she can't read) so when she heard any kind of word, she's jump up and get excited and Mitchell would bring her down to reality.  It was hilarious.  Ali: "SACRIFICE!" Mitchell:
"No, Ali, that says service" Ali: "CAN I HAVE A CANDY MOM? THEY SAID SACRIFICE"

I can't say no.  Probably not the best thing to do when you're having cake later, and cinnamon rolls for breakfast (the kids were on sugar high for days)

And the freaking cinnamon rolls.

"Ali, what do you want for your birthday breakfast? Eggs and muffins??"

"Yes."

(Mitchell): "No! Ali! Wait! Don't you want those big cinnamon rolls? With raisons?! LIKE CHRISTMAS"

"YESSSSS!! MOM. I want cinnamon rolls.  With raisons"

Curse.  Why is this happening to me?  So yeah, I was up till 3am making cinnamon rolls because #birthdays and because the day before her birthday was the busiest most complicated day ever.

After conference my mom and sisters and uncle thom (I don't know. Somehow "girls trips" include uncle thom every time. She specifically asked for him to be there) ventured out to the mall where she bravely got her ears pierced with pink diamond flower earrings. She didn't even really cry. Of course, when one fell out 3 days later and I had to shove a sterling silver stud into her ear, then drag her down to the mall to take out that earring, and replace it, she cried.  And then when it caught on something when Mitchell was jumping (I'm still not really sure) and the other side came out, and we (thankfully) found it and I shoved it in her ear again, she cried. And so now, when I clean her ears 3x day, she always asks "Are you going to take it out?" in near tears. NO! We're not taking these out till Christmas (that was later changed to valentines day, mostly because she thinks Christmas is tomorrow (most days) and freaks out about changing them - we don't have to! You can wear these flowers for the rest of your life!)

It's been super fun.

But she loves showing them off.  And she looks so big.  I seriously can't believe she's only 4.

At the mall, we got some candy from the candy store, Aunt Amy let her pick out the ugliest Elsa shirt ever (I'm super tired of frozen - can you tell?) and over to the toy store (of course) to find an Elsa barbie that was probably sold out because Elsa anything is always sold out. But she settled on a blonde barbie with a sparkly blue dress "she's pretending to be Elsa, right?" …. right.

And Mitchell, feeling left out, got a little lego set that was at least 3x more expensive than it would have been at Target, but whatever.

And we came home after priesthood and had a quick little party with a barbie cake (oh, yeah, and trying to bake and frost that thing in less than 3 hours, during conference, was not the brightest idea.  I basically ran out of cake and shoved various cake pieces around her waste, not having time to fix the fact that barbie's behind was abnormally huge. And Ali picked out this hot pink frosting that didn't look edible. The whole thing was a hot mess. The good news is there's always next year, it's apparently a new tradition to pick out a new barbie and make a new barbie cake every year. And with that, I wish sams club made barbie cakes.  Holy stressful).

This is how Mike cut the cake….

Same face as last year for the cake though. Ali was super pleased with the ugly barbie cake. All her dreams coming true just like that.

I found this electronic kitty that I knew she would love (and that, friends, is an understatement). This toy is my nemesis.  She named it "Alya" (not sure how to spell it, pronounced Uh-Lie-Uh).  The thing will not. stop. meowing.  Ever.  And she carries it around, denounced Daisy as her pet, and elevated this plastic piece of garbage to her personal pet status.  Whatever. (Mitchell: "SO DAISY IS MY PET? JUST MINE?" um, sure. What's happening.  Can you pay for her shots and haircut? Because it looks like she hasn't had either since 2008). I convinced Ali, opening Alya's belly up (that alone traumatized Ali) and turning the switch to "off" was "putting her to sleep" which I realize sounds like I kill the cat every night, but I didn't know how to explain it and there is no "sleep mode" so NO ONE can sleep because it meows more than a live cat.  Ali got used to that, realized she enjoys sleeping quietly, and now asks me to "put her cat to sleep" every night.  It's kind of funny.

That night, she asked me to put on her new pink bed sheets, which I did.  The pink sheets replaced the blue sheets she picked out 2 years ago.  And Ali climbed into bed and said, "Now, my room is perfect.  Right mom?"

Besides the fact that it's a disaster and you have a demonic cat now, yeah, it's perfect.

I had been telling her we should skip her birthday the whole week leading up to it.  "Don't grow up, Ali. Let's just skip your birthday.  You can turn 4 next year" And she'd laugh and say "No, mom!" And now she's telling everyone she's skipping her 5 birthday.  "We can skip my 5 birthday, mom.  I'll stop growing up"  I'm sure she'll change her mind when next October rolls around, but it's pretty funny. Mitchell's been concerned and has started praying that she turns 5 and has a birthday (to which Ali just says "no" during the prayer.)

I love these kids.

Happy Birthday best friend!  We love you!