outpourings from a mom's heart: Birthday Girls--4 years old!!

Today, my M&Ms turned 4. They'd been waiting for this day to come.....I'd been waiting too. A different type of waiting, though. Their waiting was a 'OMGoodness I'm gonna be 4 and be so big' kind of way. Mine was 'OMGoodness they're gonna be 4 and not so little anymore' kind of way. You know, right?
We didn't really have any big and definite plans for the day. They'd already had their friend party, and their family party is on Saturday. However, it's really the first year that they know it's their birthday....like really know. I didn't want it to be boring, but I didn't want it to be so planned out for them that it wasn't what they wanted. This was hard since I'm a planner.
I didn't really have many gifts for them either. (I know, you're thinking...what a terrible mom). Hear me out.....my parents have already given them their 'Big Girl' bikes as you know, and we purchased the helmets to go along with them. Grandma Donna usually gives them more clothes than they can wear in a summer so I don't need to buy them clothes. We already have too many toys, several games, puzzles, etc, and I didn't have many other ideas for them. We bought them season passes to Arnold's Park over the weekend, so in a way, they had already gotten many of their presents.
So here's a recap of the big day...
7:15am Girls got up from bed (Brandon tended to them so I could get a little extra sleep) and had breakfast. Maysen chose toast with butter, Myah a blueberry waffle.
8:30am Girls got dressed (choosing their own clothes, of course....I'm up by now) and want to play outside with their spray bottles.

10:30am We load up in the van for a family trip to HyVee. I usually do the weekly grocery shopping on Monday -we were out of town-so it needed to get done today. The girls got to pick out their birthday balloons. Maysen chose Disney Princess

Myah chose Rocker Girl because it had a cool crown on it.

They also got to pick out a birthday cookie at the bakery since they will have a cake this weekend.

12:00pm The girls got to choose where they wanted to have lunch. They could go anywhere. They chose McDonald's. That's probably what I would have chosen when I was 4, too.

They each had a six piece nuggets and we shared a large fry amongst the 4 of us. They ate part of their cookies for dessert.
2:00pm Nap time (yes, I'm the mean mom that makes them take a nap on their birthday).
4:00pm M&M and mom head to the 'Big Bucket.' (See why we needed a nap...no one wants tired, crabby swimmers)
6:00pm We head home from the 'Big Bucket' and each freshly made chicken salad for supper along with watermelon and more cookie for dessert.
7:00pm Wound down the evening with a bike ride around the block with daddy.

7:30pm Invited William (backyard neighbor) over to help make Glow in the Dark chalk the girls had gotten at their friend party.
8:00pm Watched two DVR'd episodes of Go, Diego, Go! and headed to bed.

They asked if tomorrow would still be their birthday. We told them 'no,' but that they do get to have one more party on Saturday. I'm pretty sure they enjoyed their day.

***Over the weekend, we had done quite a bit of traveling. Here's some pics.
My dad spearheaded the Veteran's Memorial Park in Lake Mills. On Thursday, a group of volunteers put up 124 flags in honor of Memorial Day. Myah and Maysen were there to help.
The first flag to go up, and last to come down is that with Vernon Oakland's name on it. He was from Lake Mills and was killed in Vietnam.

M&M helped pick up the caps to the flag holders once the flags were in place.

The four walls are filled with names of citizens from the community who have been in the military. Clarence Christianson was my grandfather and Greg Christianson is my dad's brother.

The tank was restored (and welded shut!) a few years ago.

On Sunday, we made the first trip of the summer to Okoboji. We were only there a few hours and went to Arnold's Park with cousin Caden. His birthday is the day before M&M's so we got to do some celebrating together!