What's a Princess?

One of our sweet nieces, Mary Claire, had her 4th birthday party yesterday afternoon at a very fun playground/splash park. Matt & I were the lone representatives from the Jones family since Steven had to work. We made the best of it though! I kept prepping Matthew all day for what a fun afternoon he was going to have with all of his cousins. Then after his nap and a snack he jubilantly put on his swimsuit and shoes and ran to the door to the garage clinging to the doorknob and shouting, "Audrey, Audrey!!!" In the backseat on the ride out there Matt talked about all of his cousins, and I heard the words pool and swimsuit a lot, too. And Uncle Zach. Matthew has had an explosion of new vocabulary words in the last couple weeks and it is just blowing my mind how much he's picking up. He's gotten to where he'll unknowingly repeat the last word or two of anything that I say. It's funny. And he always has a running dialogue going on all day long; it's really entertaining to listen to in the car. But I digress...

Matthew did his standard excited dance when he laid eyes on all his cousins when we arrived. We were thrilled to see some old faces we hadn't seen in a while. Matt cruised around the splash park for a little while then decided that he was "ah-dun!" so we made our way back to the picnic tables where he resumed his stance by the ice chests. He had a great time opening them and inspecting all the water bottles and sampling numerous pieces of ice. We played on the playground, and once the pizza arrived Matt & I gobbled it down. I've never really given him pizza before, but I would say that he's a fan. He attacked that slice of cheese pizza with gusto. Then came the artfully prepared and quite delicious cupcakes. I let Matt have his own, and as his mother I can appreciate this: he mostly just ate all the icing on top. Mary Claire then opened all her gifts that truly centered on one theme: princesses. She's a girly-girl for sure and was squealing as she pulled out princess dolls and crowns from her gift bags. At that point Matt was by the coolers again with Zach & Ava snacking on ice. He wasn't the least bit interested in Mary Claire's loot. After all that fun we finally had to say goodbye since bedtime was quickly approaching. I know Matt had a blast because he talked about the party all the way home and even in his bed before he fell asleep. I listened at his door and he was saying "pool...soo-suit...Audrey...(giggling)". It's like he was recounting all the day's events for his audience of stuffed animals.

So far, today has included church and a nap. If we're feeling ambitious we may later join the throngs at HEB, or we might just keep it lazy and have a day at home.