Emmy's third birthday bash - the rainbow party

We celebrated Emmy's birthday on the Saturday before her actual birthday, which happened to be Cinco de Mayo. We had decided to have a rainbow themed party, which Emmy was super excited about. And of course, I was too, because I love planning a party with a fun theme!   While planning the menu, I realized that a rainbow theme would lend itself well to Mexican food, so we could celebrate Cinco de Mayo, too!  But more about that later.

Our dear friends April and John (AA and Uncle John) came up for Emmy's birthday. That's been one of the best things about being in KS, they are stationed only about 4 hours away in MO.  We decided to give Emmy her big gift from us on Saturday and AA and Uncle John gave her their gifts, too. 

We spent the morning doing some last minute  party prep and then we all went to lunch.  While Emmy napped, we finished getting ready for the big par-tay!  I'm sooo thankful for John and April's help.  We would have never gotten everything done without them!  It was a fun party and I think Emmy had a good time with her pals.  We just had three neighbor families come over to enjoy the afternoon with us and we missed having all our loved ones in SC and GA get to come this year.

Here are a few photos from the weekend, more are posted in Picasa.

 

 

Fabulous invitation, thanks yet again to the talented Aunt Sarah.

Checking out the "guest book" about rainbows in her super cute rainbow party dress.

Taste the rainbow of fruit flavors!

Our Mexican feast.

 

Frozen water balloons to keep the adult beverages cold.

Ribbon wands. I have no idea what I thought the kids would do with them, bu they seemed like a fun idea.

Party guests!  5 kids under 5, this is as close to a money shot as it gets!

Post party, she sat in John's lap and alternated between chips full of (super) spicy cheese dip and ranch veggie dip. Smart girl!

April and I celebrated a fun party with a Cinco de Mayo tequila shot.

Emmy's Three!

Emmy turned three on May 8th, and then this blog turned three the next day!

Emerson Elizabeth, Friday, May 8, 2009 10:07 am. 2 lbs 10 oz, 14.5 inches long.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Emmy!

Emmy has a book called "Elmo Loves You" that we've been reading a lot lately (even though it is a Valentine's Day book).  At the end of the book it asks what are some things that you love? So we've been naming things Emmy loves and I thought I'd share some of those with you.

Emmy loves mushrooms, humus, olives, pickles, candy, popsicles, spicy jalapeno chips, and chocolate covered raisins.  She still likes beans (especially in chili). She'll loves fruit and loves it when Daddy makes her a smoothie. She likes peanut butter and jelly, yogurt with peach jam, turkey, onion rings, BBQ, french fries, mashed potatoes, chips and salsa,and ketchup. She has also recently decided that indeed, she does love Coke. Her first taste at the Coke Museum in the fall didn't impress her much, but recently, she's changed her mind.  It's more motivation for me to quit drinking it so she doesn't see it and want some. I do love a good Coke, so I can't say I blame her.

Emmy loves Rags.

Emmy loves her family (SuSu and Big Daddy, Granddaddy, DeeDee, Aunt Beth and Uncle Griffin and Aunt Mer are at the top of her prayer list at night). She also loves a certain couple of members of our extended family: Uncle Josh (Aunt Mer's good friend and roommate) and Justin, my cousin Joanna's husband.  Yes, Emmy has a crush or two.

Speaking of family and friends, Emmy loves to Skype.  She thinks seeing y'all on the computer is the best thing.

Emmy loves her babies.  Her favorite things to play with are hands down her babies and baby accoutrements.  Anytime she plays at someone else's house or at hourly care, she's most interested in the babies. She's a good mommy and she changes them, rocks them, shushes them, and feeds them.  She tells me sometimes she has a baby in her tummy and she'll also nurse her babies. I'm glad she has some good breastfeeding role models.

Emmy loves her friends. Sophie and Clayton live next door, as you've seen in previous posts, and she loves to spend time with them.

Emmy loves to sing. Her favorite song is a Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" and she belts it out right along with it.  She also loves her Kindermusik songs, Wiggles, Rafi, and other children's music we listen to. But she will sing along to music that Charles and I like and songs she hears on the radio, which is great.  Oh, and she sings a rousing rendition of Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies",  which cracks us up.

She is a fun girl, for sure, and keeps us on our toes! She had a great birthday party on Saturday (photos to come later) and then today for her actual birthday I made her sausage gravy and biscuits (she also loves sausage gravy) for breakfast and she opened a few presents from family that had come in the mail and one more little thing from Charles and me.  After her ballet class, we went to supper at our favorite Mexican restaurant (she loves Mexican) and we had pink strawberry cupcakes for dessert from a delicious bakery in town.

Her big present from us was a glide bike. She has been asking for a bike, and Charles' recent bike purchase only prompted her to ask us more frequently  We went ahead and gave it to her Saturday morning before her party while AA and Uncle John were here. We thought it would be fun for her to have it over the weekend to play on.  Photos of that birthday fun to come soon, too!

Recapping SuSu and Big Daddy's visit

We had a great visit with my mom and dad! They flew out for a week and we kept busy! (Tons of pictures of the week are in an album linked at the end of the post.)


They arrived Saturday evening and Sunday we went to church and brunch. Here's Emmy and Big Daddy outside the Santa Fe Cafe, which is in the old train depot. Very neat building!


Monday, we visited the Steamboat Arabia museum, ate BBQ at Gate's, went to the Crown Center and the Hallmark visitor's center.

The Steamboat Arabia sank in the Missouri in the 1850s and was finally excavated from the middle of a farm in the 1990s. The effort was led by none other than the Hawley family...the dad and his two sons.  Crazy! We even met one of the son's during the tour, as they are still very involved in the museum.  

Arabia wreckage

The Hallmark Visitor's Center was neat to go through, definitely a walk down memory late! We saw an actual Emmy award (from multiple awards for the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies), how card dies are made, and lots of Christmas ornaments, come of which we have in our family. 

 
Tuesday was Emmy's first ballet class!  Mom and I took her and, well, let's just say this teacher has a lot of patience to try and teach two and three year olds.  Herding cats is putting it mildly.  She had fun, though she was pretty clingy and nervous in the new situation.  It's an 8 week class, so we'll see how it goes! It is really more gymnastics and ballet combined and I think it will be good for her balance and gross motor skills.


Wednesday was Emmy's Kindermusik class, which is a good 45 minute drive to the other side of Kansas City. Mom and Dad came along and got to sit and watch the class. Emmy was excited to have them there, but still did well participating. After class, we ran a couple of errands (there are lots of stores out that we don't have close by) and then had a yummy lunch before heading home. 

 Thursday we decided to go to Wonderscope, the children's museum down in Shawnee, KS. It took almost an hour to get there and our neighbors also met us there.  The museum was a neat concept, but it was a bit tired and in need of some updates. Turns out they are planning to build a new one, so that explains it a bit. Plus, there were lots of school groups there so it was surprisingly crowded.  I wish there was a staff person in each room (each room had a theme like Farm to Farm Stand, the vet clinic, water play, the LEGO Sea Exploration, etc.) to put the pieces back together periodically because it was so chaotic, the "stuff" was all mixed up. We bought a membership cheap off groupon so to get our money's worth, we will only have to go one more time, and I'd like to plan to go on one of the "member's come early" days when we can get there before it's all messed up for the day.  Anyways, after a fun morning, we went for more KC BBQ at Oklahoma Joe's (which, if anyone cares, is our current vote for our favorite BBQ in Kansas City...but we still have a couple more to try).   Lunch was in a word, amazing.  I still love chopped pork Carolina BBQ, especially mustard based, but this is yummy in a different way.  Of course, as our friend Steph said, I haven't met many pigs I didn't like.  What makes KC BBQ unique, I'm told, is they will smoke anything.  You see pulled pork, beef brisket, ribs, ham, turkey, and sausage on most of the menus we have encountered, whereas a lot of other regions focus on one or two meats. Thus ends your unofficial and likely inaccurate BBQ commentary.

Along the river, checking out Ft. Leavenworth

 Friday was extra fun because Charles was off from class for Good Friday and we got to spent the whole day together! We had been saving a trip to the museum on post and the Ft. Leavenworth history tour for when my dad came, so we headed over to the museum first thing. It is HUGE! We could have stayed there for hours, but with Emmy, there was only so much she could take, so we headed outside to view a few of the highlights. We stopped at I think 6 of the stops on the tour and it gave us a chance to explore the post a little more. It is very lovely here!  Can't imagine what it must have looked like when Lewis and Clark stopped here on their infamous journey.

Some of the beautiful, historic homes on post in the background

Friday afternoon we drove into Weston, which is  small town just across the river in Missouri.  There is a distillery there with a store in town where you can sample their products.  We wish we had planned to eat at the Brewery there, but we'll have to go back another time! Instead, we had reservations for yummy German food back in Leavenworth. 


Saturday we drove to Legends to take dad to the Cabela's. I tell you, it's an interesting store. Like the Bass Pro Shop, but with what we refer to as the indoor zoo...a whole bunch of stuffed animals that have been hunted. I'm talking elephants, tigers, mountain lions, yaks, if it's wild game, they probably have it there.   Also, we introduced them to the Nebraska Furniture Mart, which is seriously the biggest furniture store we've ever been to.  They had the Easter Bunny there for a couple of hours so we'd planned to take Emmy. Unfortunately, we misunderstood the time and it didn't start until Noon (we thought 10). So walked around other stores, then came back and of course had to wait in line. She was so excited, though, she didn't care and she was very good.  And, she love seeing the EB, even if she was a little shy.


Lunch we had MORE BBQ at Arthur Bryant's (so we hit three of the big ones during their visit) and spent the afternoon dying Easter Eggs and getting ready for Easter Sunday.


I already posted Easter pictures in my last post, so I won't recap all of those, but we had a great day going to church, eating a yummy lunch as a family, and then capping it off with an Easter Egg hunt and potluck supper in the park with our neighbors. Lots of fun was had by all!


I had to have Mom and Dad at the airport very early Monday morning. It was sad to see them go, but we're so glad they came to see us in KS! And,we get to see them at the beach in a couple of months. Yeehaw!


Some of my photos seem to have disappeared in the transfer to the computer. Fortunately, I copied Mom's photos before the left, so I have to rely on her photos for Monday-Thursday's activities.  I have uploaded them all to a new album in Picasa and there are are almost 400 for your viewing pleasure.


Also, I uploaded several more photos to the March 2012 album, so check out the end of that album, too! 

P.S. Blogger has changed it's formatting and I'm tired of fighting with it and trying to fix these weird paragraph/photo issues, so I'm sorry, y'all will just have to live with it, lest I toss this computer out the window! 

Happy Easter!

We'll be observing the liturgical calendar this year with our holiday greetings seeing as how it's the first Monday after Easter. :)  Hope that all our loved ones had a wonderful Easter weekend!

There is much more to report on from the last week. I have over 500 photos to weed through and edit down from our week in review with SuSu and Big Daddy. It was great having them here and they are now safely back at their house in SC.

Here are a few photos from our Easter celebrating. Enjoy! 

So excited to see the Easter Bunny!

She asked to sit on his lap as we walked away. Alas.
P.S. I want that tree in the background for her room! It's a coat/hat rack.
So cool!

Dying eggs.

She did a very nice job putting the eggs back in the carton.

She decided to put the snack for the EB in her basket. Very clever, I thought.

I found it!

 

Mom snapped a good photo of the church.

Easter dinner!

Sunday afternoon egg hunt and picnic at a park near our house with her pals Sophie, Clayton, and Evan.
Alas, we did not pause to make the four of them pose together.

Post dinner swinging. Gotta work off the yummy food and cupcakes.

Love it: kids pushing the dads on the merry go round. Is this child labor?