My big 4 year old!!

Mary turned 4 (I can't believe it) on February 16th. We had some family and friends over on Sunday and Jeremy's parents came down to celebrate. Mary had a great time and loved all of her presents. On the following Saturday Mary had a Dora the Explorer Party with some of her favorite friends.

We started off the party by noticing that Mary's present were gone! Who did we find... Swiper the fox! We all yelled, "Swiper no swiping!" But we were too late! Swiper told us (via a hidden baby moniter) that he had taken Mary's presents and her whole party to his hideout and that we would never find him!


So what did we need?... Backpack and of course Map! Each little girl got a Map to tell us which way to go and a backpack filled with everything we would need to get to swipers hideout!


First stop was the Yellow Bridge, but we couldn't cross because there were holes in the bridge. Each girl found a shape in their backpack and filled in the holes so we could cross and get to Boot's house.


We can't go on an adventure without Boots the monkey, but Boots was missing something and couldn't leave without it. We found his missing boot in our backpacks and then played pin the boot on Boots.


Now on to the Starry Forest, but of course we ran into another problem. There was a huge sleeping alligator in the way (a nice one of course.) We used moracas from our backpacks to wake him up so that we could get by.


We made it into the forest and collected lots of stars!




And guess who we found there...


"We did it! We did it! We did it, Hooray!" We found Swiper's hideout and the party!




Mary, Talia, Lorali, Hannah, Kelsey and Natalie (not pictured) ate lots of food, opened presents and played. It was a blast!


A special thanks to my sister, Liz (aka Swiper), Lori (who helped me color for hours) and my helper,cousin Emily, who I couldn't have gotten through the day without!

Emily, Mary and Natalie winding down after the party: