Birthday party hangover - the girl is 4

 My baby girl, that is.
Whew. Crazy weekend of activities all around. My birthday on Friday, Kyla's birthday yesterday. My baby turned 4 years old at 11PM last night- but we celebrated all weekend long.  Her party was Saturday, and my parents were here from Duluth from Friday until yesterday afternoon. CJ's parents came down, but left after the party.
I will do a good recap of the festivities, along with (she has) another party today at daycare! Who can keep up?
Anyhow, the girl had a great time. She barely slept with excitement, but we all crashed hard last night.

Unfortunately, her fish Dorothy decided to NOT be very joyous; she was dead on the bottom of our fish tank yesterday morning. Kyla was sad, but quickly got over it and cheered when we said we'd get her a new fish this week. Keifer's fish, Ethan ( a girl!) is still swimming strong.  

Anyhow, the day was off to a sad start with all of us saying goodbye as we flushed Dorothy away: 

 After we all got dressed, etc., we hopped into the van and drove to the mall.  The girls got a ton of new sandals and shoes (thanks, Nana Dian!), and Mama got a few new duds (thanks, Birthday money!).
We had lunch at the food court, and the girls had ice cream for dessert. As if they hadn't been eating enough crap all weekend! Ha!

 

After shoes and shopping, Nana and Papa got into the car to head back to Duluth. The girls were sad, but only for a minute, because they chose to spend their very own birthday cash on getting their toes painted at a nail salon.  Yep, Kyla's first Pedi. Really, they filed her little baby toes down and painted them, but she was squealing with glee, especially when they put little tiny flowers on them.
Keifer loved her pink toes, up until she smeared them all over in the van on the way home. Oye. 

Posing!

Yep, after our toes were done, we got into the van, just in time to have a torrential downpour dump onto us (sitting in the van).  Then CJ phoned: the sirens were going off - it was a severe weather warning and there was hail and high winds. Lovely. So Keifer got all in a panic (she gets this way with severe weather and her dad increases the anxiety with his 44 million weather alarms and radios). We turned on "Annie" on the DVD player, I sat back with my Iphone, and they managed to relax a bit.  We sat for about 30 minutes, then were able to head home, safely, no damage done, other than poor Keifer's smeared pink toes. 

More birthday stories to come soon!