Natalie's Birthday party with her friends.

Natalie's birthday party was at Freestone Railroad Park in Gilbert, AZ. She wanted a party at the train park, with puppy plates/decor, and a Batman cake. What a fun place to have a birthday party! They have a nice party area, overlooking a pond, and right there is a concession stand, and four rides - Ferris Wheel, Carousel, Wave Runner, and a train that goes around the entire park. The nice part about it is the rides and party area are all in the same space - much easier for the kids to run around, and also for us to keep an eye on them. A bunch of her friends from school came, our friends Stacey, Donny and their youngest son Jackson, Aunt Jamie, Uncle Mike, Mitz and Pops.

The kids started off on the Wave Runner, and they all rode that non-stop for the first twenty minutes. It was like kiddie crack! After we got them all off that, we had pizza, cake and ice cream, all the kids were given engraved wooden train whistles from the park, and Natalie and Oliver were given engineer caps. Then rides, rides and more rides! Even Oliver got to ride on the train! All of the kids had such a fun time. I've never seen Natalie so happy - just truly joyful - everything being a kid should be. I couldn't ask for anything more. Even when it was time to go (we stayed after since the ride wristbands were good until the park closed), she was happy right to the end, no trouble about leaving. We rode the train, then the other three rides, got some lemonade and popcorn, and headed to the car. Jon left after the party ended so Oliver could get a nap.

When we got home, Natalie was chattering on about her party. "I had a cool party! And a cool whistle! And a cool hat! And cool lemonade! And cool popcorn! And cool goodie bags! And cool balloons!". She also told me "I'm 4 now. I'm not 3. I like being 4". I reminded her that she was technically 3 until Monday - she told me "I know Mommy. I'm just pretending to be 4!". We let her open her presents from her friends. I had forgotten that I started stashing random things in some of the gift bags during clean-up - extra plates, napkins, blowers, etc. As she opened bags, she'd say "Look Mommy! They got me plates! And blowers! And napkins - lots of napkins!". The last bag had the candle striker/lighter in it - oops. She pulled it out, totally scandalized tone "Look Mommy. Who gave me this? I'm not supposed to have that".

So, tomorrow, our baby officially turns 4. I really can't believe it. We have a full day planned tomorrow. We'll probably give her presents early, then Mitz and Pops are coming over in the afternoon for presents, and then we are going to a place called Organ Stop Pizza (we took Grandma Carol there this summer when she visited) for dinner/cake. Whew!

Oh, I don't want to make a huge deal about this. But we couldn't keep the cat. Natalie kept reacting to her, and the allergy worsened. By Friday, she was telling me her throat hurt and was tight. I took her to her doctor to find out if it was strep, but he took one look at her and asked me if she'd been around peanuts - ruled out a cold, upper respiratory illness, no swollen glands, throat wasn't red. It went downhill from there, and he told us to get the cat out of the house immediately. We called around for three hours, and found a place to take her - they adopt out 100% of their healthy animals - and since we'd already been to the vet, we knew CG was healthy, plus she's young and great with kids, so hopefully soon she'll be with her forever family. It was heartbreaking and devastating - we all loved that little kitten, but we couldn't take the chance of Natalie anaphylaxing/stopping breathing. As it was, she woke up Friday night at midnight, choking and gagging - even after we cleaned, and totally stripped her bedding, washed and replaced. She's gradually getting better, but she, and we miss CG so much.

I've been able to come to some sort of peace about what happened. At first I kept thinking why would this happen - why would she follow N home, then make her so sick we couldn't keep her - what good does that do that poor cat or us? It just doesn't make sense. Then I started thinking, well maybe this is just part of what God planned. He knew that we would take her in, take her to the vet, get her started on what she needs to lead life as a healthy kitty, and then when it all went to shit, that we would take the time to find the best place we could for her (in the short time we had to do it), so she'd then be available for her forever family - especially since we were able to give the shelter a good description of her sweet disposition, great nature with kids. That belief is what is helping me come to terms with this, because it hurts. I hated seeing my daughter hysterical, Jon upset, me upset, and we certainly would never have taken her in had we known - but where she is is still better than roaming the streets - she was clearly happy being an inside cat.

Note - pictures are up. Shutterfly made major changes to their site, one of which included removing the option to sort pictures by certain parameters - such as in order by file name. Of all things to remove, that really sucked. So the pictures never upload in order, which is why they always jump around - I don't have the time to manually arrange them. I also snagged some my mom took too, so those just got tacked onto the end.