Nicole is 4!!!!

I would love to do a bunch of pictures of Nicole growing up and show everyone how cute she is now and how scary she looked when she was born, but there are too many to choose from so here's a summary of Nicole's 4th birthday:

7:30 am - wake up and open new clothes from Grandma Debbi.
7:35 am - run around the house giggling because she has new clothes.
7:45 am - finally into her new clothes and ready for breakfast.










8:00 am - eating coco puffs mixed with captain crunch (her favorite breakfast)
8:45 am - she remembers that Uncle David and Aunt Sara sent her a box. We absolutely must open it right this second or we might explode. It's a barbie and some movies. She's in love with the Barbie but doesn't care about the movies because she doesn't know what they are.
9:00 am - off to preschool where we receive a crown with "jewels" on it. We're feeling pretty special.










10:00 am - birthday party at preschool. Daddy made a yellow cake and mommy put green sprinkles in the shape of hearts (per Nicole's request).
12:00 pm - home from school and off to Safeway to pick up her Barbie birthday cake. Meanwhile, we have to tell everyone we pass that it's her birthday and she's 4 now.







12:30 pm - lunch that includes plain pasta, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, and capri sun. Her favorite. I decide to give her vitamins because proper nutrition just isn't going to happen today.
12:35 pm - I'm running around like a crazy person trying to put up pink streamers and balloons for the birthday girl.
1:00 pm - Lia Belle and Grace come over (in full costume) for the Barbie birthday party.
3:00 pm - Party's over and Nicole now has more jewelry for her non-existent jewelry box that was supposed to get here a few days ago from Target.com and mom is sweating bullets!
4:00 pm - The UPS guy shows up with the jewelry box. Whew!!
4:01 pm - I put the jewelry box on my bed and try to find the wrapping paper so that this whole mess can be behind me. then I hear her yelling, "Mom! You don't have to buy me a jewelry box any more! I just found one!" Sigh. So much for my big moment of "greatest mom ever". Oh well, she loves it, that's the most important part.
5:00 pm - We're all too full of cake to eat anything for dinner. More vitamins.
6:30 pm - Grandma Belva, Grandpa Wiley, Grandma Lisa, and Grandpa John all show up for the family birthday party. We have presents galore, MORE chocolate cake with pink sprinkles and vanilla ice cream. (I wrote exactly what she wanted)







8:00 pm - Nicole goes to bed and says, "Mom, I had 3 birthdays today. First I was 4, then I was 5, and now I'm 6!!!" Carefully explaining that she's still only 4 leaves a confused look on her face, so I tell her she can be as old as she wants tonight, but tomorrow she has to be 4 again. This compromise seems to satisfy her.

She's the greatest little girl that a mother could ask for. I don't know what I'd do without her and I never in a million years thought that a child could be so maddening, cute, and funny, all at the same time. Thanks for being such a good girl, Coley.

p.s. I may have also given Tori a piece of cake :-)