Roar! For Four!!!

Good morning Birthday Boy. I crawled into Emmitt's bed the morning of his birthday and had him, scooch over. I whispered "Happy Birthday Little Lion Man" in his ear. He simply stated that "I'm not 4 yet, I haven't had my party". I told him that with or without a party, he was in fact 4! I lead him downstairs to unwrap his gift from us. What better than a new (used) cowboy outfit! He promptly put it on over his clothes. Then I remembered that he was to go to school in jammies for a Valentine's Day, jammie, pizza, Lion cupcake party! He then put his jammies back on.

The Roar for Four party started with the 3 following paintings. I was actually considering doing these on my own, until I realized I was a bit under talented and out of time. So I called on my friend/employee Britt Brown to paint them up for me. I simply gave her a bunch of cardboard, paint and day at work with pay to paint for me. She is the kind of artist that can look at a picture and paint it free hand and flip the image in her head to give a mirror image if need be. She is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!
I thought these paintings would justify the theme. What I wasn't wanting to do was the whole cartoony Lion King theme. I love the colors of the Broadway decor and went from there.

This cut out was my idea and something I had her make so that the kids could go in it and look like they "Just Can't Wait to be King!"
All the kids loved it, but none as much as Gracie Lyn. She is just shy of three and spent the entire party playing peek-a-boo from behind the cut out.

No niece of mine is every too "old" to play with the little kids. Shelby will be 13 in May and jumped right in, whiskers and all. Most of the kids let me at them with my brown eyeliner. Both at the Broadway play and at the birthday party.
Little Simba who became King at the age of 4!Little Ruby, just shy of turning 1 was content with all the commotion our birthday parties tend to bring.
I made sure to have plenty of Lion King coloring sheets printed out to complete the decorations. It's easy to back out of doing treat bags for the kids with Emmitt's birthday being right before Valentine's Day and Parker's following Halloween. I have yet to hear a parent complain.
What happens when you are Auntie Tolle (Linda Tolle) and realize you don't have any wrapping paper for the gift? You paint on white paper that's what! Seriously, I am surrounded by uber talented people. When Emmitt started opening this one, I jumped up, yanked it out of his hands and had Bear cut around the painting so I can frame it! It's that cool.
Looking back at the video of us singing to him, it is priceless that he attempted to blow out the candles 3 times. Each time a song ended he readied himself to blow and then we would start with yet another song! It was hilarious. It's just one of those Emmitt moments that will stay with us for a long, long time.