Mia's 4th Birthday & Family Dinner

On Sunday, September 13th Mia turned FOUR! My how time does fly. We started the day at church and her super kind Primary teachers had gotten her a small gift. Mia was SOOOOO excited when I picked her up from class! They know she loves to color so they got her a box a crayons - she thought it was the BEST gift (more on that later!). They also made her this adorable pop-up duck card.
I know it's nothing big, but as a mother it seriously touched me that they would take the time to do something special and meaningful to her. They didn't just write Happy Birthday. They know she loves ducks (who doesn't know that?!) and did something just for her! She's lucky to have such great teachers at church.

After lunch we let her open her presents. Disney Princess DVDs from Grandma & Grandpa Hastings. I LOVE the look of excitement on her face here!

And Grandma & Grandpa Richards got Mia & Gavin this super cute animal jungle set. The kids have loved playing with it this past week! Plus Mia thought she was pretty special when her birthday card arrived in the mail with 4 dollars in it!!!

I really don't enjoy having the kids birthdays back-to-back. But there some positive things, such as re-using party decor and such!

Mia was sure excited about getting "her" bike.

Later that afternoon we headed up to Dan & Melissa's for a Richards' (plus the Hillmans) family dinner. In the car I was asking Mia about her birthday and asked her what she got. Full on expecting her to exclaim "A BIKE", you can imagine my shock when she said, "CRAYONS!" Nothing like being shown up by her primary teachers :)

Jared had asked his mom to make scones the night before and of course she did! She makes the BEST scones! Thanks for spending all afternoon working on them so we could all stuff ourselves! Some of the kids eating dinner.After dinner the adults played a fun game while the little ones were thrilled to sit with Grandma & Grandpa.Gavin got bored with that and went to check out what Tanner was up to.We ended the night with cake and ice cream for our birthday girl! She had one LARGE and LOUD group singing to her, that's for sure. I love this picture of her singing along with the crowd!Happy Birthday little Miss Mia!

Some things about Mia at 4:

She's extremely independent, for which I am mostly grateful.

She loves learning and I know I'm her mom, but she's pretty darn smart.

She especially loves her duck, but is pretty much obsessed with any duck she sees!

When she wants to be, she can be the best big sister.

She can spend hours with her craft box. She is very detailed when she makes anything and for a 4 year old does a dang good job at coloring. She is neat and always uses lots of different colors.

I always tease that she has OCD. Maybe it's not quite OCD, but she's more than a perfectionist :)

She loves to sing

We love having her as a part of our family!!!