What a day!

As I laid with Maisie in bed tonight she said to me, “Mama, today was an awesome, spectacular day and I had so much fun with you.”  My heart leapt and I’m so happy that my little girl totally enjoyed her final day of being four years old and I can only hope that she has many, many more awesome, spectacular days and hopefully I’ll get to share many of them with her.

I will say that we did have a pretty awesome day and boy was it filled with activities.  This morning Maisie and I attended a kids cooking class at a local Italian Restaurant.  Our friends Ilene & Michael took their daughter April to one of the classes many months ago and raved about it so it’s been something that I’ve wanted to do with Maisie and finally we got a date that worked for us. 

When we first arrived they gave each child a Toque chef’s hat which they all decorated while snacking on veggies & dip and watching the movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Love this sweet face!

Lately it seems that each time I go to take a picture of Maisie, she throws out her hips and strikes a pose, got to love the attitude.

Once everyone arrived and got settled the chef called all the children to the front where he demonstrated how to make pizza dough and then how to make a calzone.

After the demonstration everyone returned to their table where all the ingredients were laid out and each child and adult was able to make their own calzone. 

Maisie and I with our ready for the oven calzones.  Maisie chose to stuff hers with ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, mushrooms, zucchini, spinach, roasted chicken & pepperoni.  I chose ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, spinach and roasted garlic.  We both chose to pass on a myriad of other offerings including sausage, sundried tomatoes and I can’t even remember what else.  There were a lot of choices and anything that they didn’t have out, if you asked for it and they had it, they got it for you.

While we waited for our calzones to bake the movie which they had paused during the demonstration was started again and they served their house salad, Caesar salad and fresh baked bread with butter.  By the time the cooked calzones came out Maisie and I were already quite full but we gave them a try along with some delicious marinara & meat sauce.

Needless to say, we had a lot to take home with us as you can see from the above picture, we barely mad a dent in the giant calzones.  Then they brought out three kinds of fresh baked cookies to finish off the meal.  Those too got packed up and were brought home.  We both really enjoyed the cooking class, the food was good and when they next change what they’re making and if the day works with our schedule we’ll most likely do it again.  

Thankfully Maisie has no recollection of the night-terror she had last night which kept her up for almost three hours but it did all catch up with her because by the end of the cooking class Maisie was completely knackered, so much so that she was slurring her words trying to stay awake.  So we headed home and crawled into bed together and Maisie took a rare but much needed nap which was good otherwise she wouldn’t have made it through our afternoon activities.

This afternoon we met up with Lisa, Doug & Briana and Kathy, Matt & Chani for our annual trip to Cagle’s Dairy and the maize maze.  This is our third year doing the maize maze and the girls have grown up so much from the little munchkins they were two years ago and even from last year.  We had a perfect day for being out with bright sunny skies and warm weather, oh so different from the frigid temps last year where we were all bundled up in jackets.  This year the girls knew what was going on and didn’t want to hang out too long taking pictures as they were anxious to get into the maze.

And they were off and running…

Every once in a while they would stop and allow the adults to catch up with them.

The annual Dads & Daughters on the bridge picture.   

After we completed the maze all the little girls said that they were hungry so the Dads took the girls to the bouncing pillows while the Moms stood in the queue to get food.  After we all filled our tummies there were more things to do.

Briana, Maisie and Eammon doing a bit of dancing.

Eammon having fun with the girls.

The annual Moms and daughters picture. 

Maisie & Bri

Bri & Chani

Eammon, Maisie and I

Doug, Lisa & Bri

Matt, Kathy & Chani

Eammon & Doug…never trust those two!!    

Maisie doesn’t always want to be near animals or ride the ponies but this year all three girls enjoyed a pony ride.

Next we queued up to take a hayride to the bonfires and while we waited Maisie decided to strike a pose.

Maisie & Bri shared a moment.

Chani, Bri and Maisie were being silly at the entrance to the tunnel. 

Doug made Maisie laugh.

On the hayride to the bonfire.

The girls had fun roasting and eating marshmallows.

And they enjoyed eating them too!

Next we visited the pumpkin patch. 

It was the end of the day and we had been at the dairy for a couple of hours so trying to get pictures of all three girls was like trying to herd cats.  They were having fun though and posing for pictures wasn’t high on their list of things to do.

But we kept trying, without success, to get all the girls to look in the same direction at the same time…

Almost but not quite.  Still three adorable little girls.

 Even at the end of the day the girls were still full of energy.

The moon shining on our sweet little girls.  It was a good day at the dairy and it was fun to realize that we’ve done this three years running and the girls still have so much fun.  We look forward to next year when we continue this tradition.

Tomorrow my girl will be five!!  I hope that it’s another awesome, spectacular day for her and I love that we’ll get to spend the entire day together.