leah {finally} had a party

back in february, it was rainy, rainy, rainy. i wanted to throw leah a party, but i just couldn't muster up the emotional energy to do so. plan games and activities for other kids when leah can't do any of them herself? no thanks. but we LOVE leah's friends and we really wanted to celebrate. 

so, i decided on a park party. it would just have to wait until the rain subsided. and we'd have a rainbow theme because one - leah loves rainbows and two - rainbows are much better for parties than rain! ironically, leah's actually birthday was bee.yoo.ti.ful. remember how we played with bubbles outside? seriously, weatherman. not a drop of rain. sun was shining. it even felt warm. but, because we had trusted the weatherman, we postponed. until march. until a day where the aforementioned weatherman said only a 20% chance of rain {which always means no rain where we live}. so we sent out the invites and baked our cake. 

a rainbow cake, to be exact. 

i used three boxes of cake and FOUR, count them FOUR tubs of frosting. we had three and it wasn't enough, so we had to go back to the store to grab another one, which was barely enough. but i loved it! 

leah had her own ginormous piece. 

and when i was putting it together, ryan made me laugh because it was HUGE and when he saw the tops that i had cut off he said, "wow. did a clown poop in our kitchen?" that ryan, i tell ya.

leah liked it too. 

all weekend, it rained. and rained. and rained. and monday morning - the morning of the party - was no different. so we invited all 21 of leah's friends to our house. three couldn't make it, but 18 could. i zipped over to target that morning and, thanks to their new "spritz" party line, we found a plethora of rainbow-themed decorations and ran home to prepare.

it was fine. nothing spectacular. noisy and crowded, as was to be expected. but the party guests were fantastic and really showed leah how much they care. she has the best friends in the world. so do i. we're lucky girls. we ate pizza on blankets and popped balloons and pinned tails on a donkey and gobbled up rainbow cake. 

and leah had a meltdown. 

i tried to figure out why and my only idea is that she is really starting to see how much other kids can do all by themselves. and how much she has to rely upon me for everything. i was busy cutting the cake, so i couldn't feed her immediately. i was busy dizzying blind-folded kids, so i couldn't watch her. etc, etc. and she flipped. it broke my heart. but - for the moment - it was nothing a big, long hug couldn't fix. i just dread the day when there just isn't a hug big  enough to hide all the pain for my sweet, strong leah. 

but, we partied hardy. and it was a great morning celebrating our silly little four year old.

oh yah. right as the party was ending, it stopped raining.