Kaitlyn is FOUR!

My little baby is now four years old. For some reason, four sounds SO much older than 3. It's only one year away from 5, which is halfway to 10. Which is halfway to 20 when she'll be off in college. I can already tell that I'm going to be a gooey mess when she starts kindergarten in a little over a year.

But enough premature sadness...we celebrated her birthday with a princess party! There was lots and lots of pink. I let her pick out a cake from a local bakery. I was certain that she would pick out a Disney princess one, but she surprised me with this choice. I guess a real, sparkly tiara and wand outweigh Cinderella and Belle.

But the princesses did make an appearance in the tableware.

It was a very low key kind of party. There were no party games--just a chance to play with girlfriends, have lunch, eat cake and open presents.

When it was time to eat, Ethan dutifully put on a princess tiara (albeit backwards). All the girls giggled, and he enjoyed being the center of their attention.

Blowing out the candles...no help needed this year!

And her favorite present of all was her big girl bike from Gran!

And for some comedic relief, my little goofball sporting the sparkly tiara and flashing his cheesy camera grin. I really could just eat him up sometimes.

Happy Birthday sweet Kaitlyn!

Trains! and Cheekwood

On Kaitlyn's birthday, we decided to do something fun as a family. I had heard about a train exhibit at Cheekwood that I knew the kids would love. It was a gorgeous day of sunshine and mild temps, so we packed ourselves a picnic lunch, grabbed our buy-one-get-one-free-admission coupon (kids are free here too!), and headed out for a new adventure.

As expected, the kids loved the Trains! exhibit. They were mesmerized by all the tracks and trains. There was even a Thomas engine--a big hit! I think they could have stayed there for hours, but we had more of Cheekwood that we wanted them to see, so we finally prodded them along.

Ethan loves waterfalls and eagerly shouts out "wawafah!" everytime we see one. So he was all too happy to sit by one and have his picture taken.

A nice posed picture of the siblings at the mansion. Ordinarily I would not have let her wear a princess t-shirt when I knew there would be possible "nice picture" ops, but it was her birthday, so I felt obligated to let her wear what made her happy. Even if I secretly despise character shirts. And princesses make her very happy these days. Sigh.

Two cooperative, happy, smiley children--a rare sight, indeed!

*By the way, according to Blogger, this is my 200th post. I feel like I've reached some sort of milestone!

Music City Star

Given our kids' love of trains, we decided to take another ride on the Music City Star (you may remember our first ride when Ethan was still a baby). They were all smiles as they eagerly awaited the train.

And then the train arrived in all of its loud, horn-blowing glory...and Kaitlyn did not appreciate that at all. Fortunately the drama eventually subsided and we boarded the train with no further meltdowns.

Ethan is all smiles on his first real train ride (not counting the one I'm sure he doesn't remember when he was only 6 months old).

We timed it so that we had a chance to explore the riverfront before catching the last train out for the evening. Downtown exploration doesn't get much easier. The train pulls right into the heart of the city, you don't have to find or pay for parking, train tickets are cheap (and free for kids), and there's 30 - 45 minutes in between trains--a perfect amount of time to entertain two small children. The kids loved running up and down the hills at Riverfront Park.

Our little nature lover always has to stop and pick the flowers.

We explored the old fort. And then we hopped back on the train for the ride back.