Dear Cara,

You are four years old! Four! I can’t believe it. You are such a delight to have in our family. You are smiles, and sunshine, stubbornness and character. You still love Buzz Lightyear more than ever, although every once in awhile you’ll tell me you also like Princess Ariel (most likely because it is the movie we saw right before we went to Disneyland).You’ve worn your #buzzwings all over the country from the National Mall to the deserts of Arizona. You laugh, you love to make up your own language and talk “baby talk” which drives us all crazy. You love playing in the dirt, with sticks, with cars, and you asked for a transformer last year for Christmas.

You have a strong character. You are stubborn and definitely want your way most of the time. Your dad and I have given up trying to get you fully potty trained (much to our dismay!) and are most likely just going to wait you out. No external motivation or bribes seem to work on you. When you want (or don’t want) to do something, it’s hard to stop your determination so we will just be patient.

With our ever changing environment you are so patient.  You seem to thrive on new places, do well in uncertain circumstances and are a champ for going to a new Sunbeam class every week at church. Although you keep telling us your want to sell the Airstream and move the house to a campground, when we’re out and traveling you absolutely love it.

You want to be just like your older siblings. You can’t stand being left out of their Minecraft tablet games, or anything else they are playing. At the same time, you are happy to quietly play LEGO’s, cars, or with your “Toy Stories” all by yourself.

We love you so much and are grateful for the light and life you bring to our family!!

Love,
Mom & Dad

Cara’s birthday started out with decorations and German Pancakes for breakfast (her choice!). We always open presents from mom and dad in the morning, that way they get to play with them all day. I was very impressed with Rachel & Andrew this year. They were concerned the night before that they didn’t have a present for her, so they printed and put together a Rainbow Wand (from Jake and the Neverland Pirates). Cara loved it!

Although I was determined not to, she had a friend birthday party. About a week before her birthday I realized this was probably her last chance to have a friend party for a few years so I caved. Both my other kids had them by her age, I think I’ve just been lazy. We had 4 friends over for about an hour, but it was plenty! After waffling back and forth between an Ariel, or Buzz, or a Cars themed party, somehow she came up with Monkeys and it stuck. We had banana pudding (not a huge hit with the 4 year olds), chocolate cupcakes with monkey finger puppets, monkey ears, and they each went home with an awesome flying sock monkey and a banana.

I kept the activities pretty simple. We colored, cut out and glued out a monkey, played Musical Monkeys, and had a banana hunt.

Later that evening we had my family over for an epic waffle dinner, presents, cake and ice cream. My favorite part of the afternoon was when I started decorating her monkey cake, Cara walked up to me, looked at it and said, “But mom I’m all done with monkeys. I want an Ariel cake!” Sorry, kid. Maybe next year.

It was a great (if exhausting day) and I love how happy she looks in all her photos!