Rosemary's Fourth Birthday

As you know by now if you've been reading this blog, Rosemary and Louis are two pretty well-loved kids. But for Rosemary's fourth birthday party, we had a very special treat -- all FOUR grandparents showed up! I don't for the life of me know why I didn't get a picture of the kids with their four grandparents, but I didn't.... guess we'll just have to wait until next time. In any case, not too many kids even HAVE four grandparents, much less have them all come to their birthday party, so it was a pretty special occasion. The first night when Grandma Mary and Grandpa Dan showed up Rosemary was so excited that she couldn't sleep.

For her fourth birthday, we had a camping theme. We set up our new NINE person tent in the backyard (really, it is the largest tent I've ever seen...)
Offered up hot dogs to roast over the fire (we made a fire in our fire pit -- not totally sure it was legal given the curren burn ban, but I think it was OK) and baked beans, with nice cheese and wine and olives (Rosemary's very favorite) for the adults + perhaps James's most amazing smoked salmon EVER...
Gave away bandannas filled with mini-marshmallows and hot chocolate mix...
And debuted the brand-new complete (remember this started in December 2010) TREEHOUSE! Its a work of art!

The kids played in the tent... (they each brought a pillow for the pretend campout)...
Aunt Mo made a state-of-the art, unbelievable S'mores cake, which I still can't believe she did so successfully!
And then we had a sing-a-long, led by the charming Gab (our babysitter Kyle's roommate's boyfriend! His first time to perform, ever!), featuring "Eensie Weensie Spider" and "I've Been Working on the Railroad," and other favorites...






The kids roasted hot dogs and marshmallows (Esme below roasted about six or seven hot dogs)...
We had a very multi-generational party with the grandparents, baby sisters (Elianah below is two months old), and several college-age kids (our babysitter and her friends, Maureen and her crew)...

And Nani organized everyone to put their "found object" (each kid was asked to bring a special piece of glass, shell, or rock in lieu of a gift) into our mosiac stepstone we'll put at the bottom of the treefort in lieu of a gift...
Things started to get a little silly as we hung out by the campfire well past everyones' bedtimes...
All-in-all we had a blast. Rosemary was a very charming hostess, telling everyone that she was happy they came as they left, and smiling and laughing and in generally having a great time (only once accidental croquet mallet to the head the whole time -- pretty good with a fire, a treefort, and loads of sharp sticks around!). My friend Amity told me that it was one of the best parties -- kid or adult -- she'd ever been to, which was very nice to hear. And I kinda have to agree...