Happy Birthday, Emily!

Emily's 6th birthday was on Monday, March 16. The celebrating began a week earlier when we decorated the house with streamers, the birthday banners (2), and the birthday sign. The birthday hat and birthday sunglasses were put on display.

On Friday, the 13th she went to Pump It Up with her friend from her former daycare, Anna. Pump It Up has large inflatable structures like castles. They had a Kid's Night Out event with playtime, pizza, and a craft. Anna spent the night at our house. It was Emily's first time having a friend sleepover. She was very excited about having a friend sleepover....but she ended up sleeping with her parents :).

Her family birthday party was on Sunday attended by Grandma Jim, Great Grandma Marie (Jim's mother), Grandma Joan (Teresa's mom), Grandpa Ken (Teresa's dad), Krista, Eva, and Wyatt (Teresa's friend from college and her kids), Aunt Heather and Richard (age 1) and Aunt Jenny. Uncle Jeff, Grandma Kristine and Uncle Dave/Aunt Crystal/Evan/Cole were not able to come this year.

The party began as they do every year with recording each child's height on the growth chart. We've been doing this since Emily's 1st birthday party. It's fun to see how much they've grown in the last year. And I love adding the newest babies to the chart. This year we added Richard and Xavier.

Games this year were Pin the Tail on the Donkey, bean bag toss, limbo and the pinata. The pinata has strings to pull to release the candy so now wild whacking in the house. The other fun activity was making ice cream using an ice cream ball - http://www.rei.com/product/743166. I purchased cream (!) from a local coop. The kids and a few adults rolled the ball back and forth for 30 minutes. As promised, the result was wonderful vanilla ice cream.

Nate, the Shelf Elf, made and appearance for her birthday - http://www.elfontheshelf.com/index_html.php. We "adopted" Nate at Christmas, and Emily named him Nate because we got him in 2008. Nate was supposed to return to the North Pole with Santa and not be seen again until next Christmas. Emily was surprised and delighted to see that he returned for her birthday. She talked to him and fed him fresh basil and a mini choc chip cookie.

She is excited about going to the Science Museum and loves the Cootie Catchers. They are very popular in kindergarten but she's never seen any made with pre-printed paper.

Xavier enjoyed the party but got a little worn out from all the excitement. I bundled him up in his swaddle blanket and he feel asleep in my arms almost immediately.

Hopefully I'll have some photos posted soon! Stay tuned!