Birthday Weekend

This 3 year old was able to go to build a bear with her grandma and grandpa and go see their puppies all in one day.

She also got to end the night taking a bubble bath with her new Dora mermaid doll and laying in bed watching a new Dora movie. I think she felt spoiled. Actually she probably felt like it was any normal day getting pretty much whatever she wants.

Her Dad and brothers were gone camping and fishing all day on her birthday so we were able to spend a nice quiet day together starting with sleeping in till 9 followed by a bike ride.

We pretended that Sunday was her birthday also and she got to skip half of church as her gift followed by a little birthday cake with more grandparents and a crazy aunt.

That pretty much sums up our birthday weekend.

Born by C-section

at 8:08 am 3 years ago, March 14. Every time I look back at these pics of us in the hospital I want to go back and hold her little body again. I still think she was the cutest baby and looking at these baby pics is the only thing that ever gets me close to wanting another baby. (yes it needs to be a girl) She seems to have gotten older in the last few weeksand even days and really started to act 3.

The Good:
She seems to be talking a lot more and a lot more clearly.
I can start to reason with her a bit.
She can have really funny conversations with me.

The Bad:
Well it's hard to get much worse than how she has been so this list is pretty short.
She has really taken a liken to responding to whatever we say with "NO DADDY, YOU NO TELL EMMA NO" just cute little responses like that.

Despite being the busiest child with the most attitude we are always entertained by our baby girl. I love having a daughter and all that it entails, and yes I love the sassy attitude that comes with it.

Happy Birthday Emma!

My Emma

Neither of my boys were very into teasing other kids as much as this girl is. Today during preschool she was just walking behind different kids with a branch just listening to each of them cry about it. As I would walk towards her to take her to time out she would put her arm out trying to stop me saying "No MOM don't touch me, NO MOM. She is just completely entertained seeing the reactions of her friends while they are scared to be getting poked by a branch.

My mom always said that she hoped I would have a daughter just like me and this is what I get for always replying that the world would be better place if all my kids were like me.
Does anyone want Emma to come play with their kids????




Update for the day:
After Emma came home from her hour of dance class she usually is worn out and ready for some quiet time. However today while I thought she was having her quiet time and I was cleaning a bathroom she came into me with her hand covered in paint. I ran out to look for the damage and of course at first didn't see anything. Until I looked at the back of the kitchen island. Yeah , she pretty much used this as a giant canvas for her finger painting project. Last night after I had finished painting most of the playroom I left a paint tray that I thought I had used all the paint out of. Little fingers can dig into those corners and find some paint still wet and then use that to paint the house.
After this little incident I put her in her room (maybe got really mad at her) and then proceeded to put her back in her room every two minutes because she would just come out telling me not to touch her. After the 25th time of putting her in there she didn't come out. So I was at the computer and here a knock on the sliding door and look over and see her playing out there.
She had crawled out her window and decided to go play in the backyard since her attempts to come out and play in the house were not working. So now I get to paint the island again.
She is are always busy little girl!!! My life would really be so boring if it wasn't for her getting into things 20 times a day. Can you tell it's been a looong day.

It takes a lot to bring someone out of retirement...............a very high price............promises of babysitting..........and a cute girl wearing a very cute skirt. For the record it was the skirt that sealed the deal. I was trying not to post to many but I had a couple favorites from out photo shoot THIS morning. Oh yeah that was the other part of the agreement, her mom wanted them back within hours. Its people like this that forced me into retirement in the the first place.

In seriousness I loved this shoot! This reminded me why I like taking pics for people(well of there children) I love kids by themselves......no group shots..........and no families. Just the kids.

This is Emmas best frienemy Hadyn. They get along great at times and sometimes Emma get bored with playing nice and decides to tease Hadyn and make her scream her head off. Hadyn also throws fits better than anyone I have ever met. Really. So this makes for a great combination! Her mom is sooo proud of this. Last week as we were finishing up making our cake pops Hadyn started screaming(which is not completely unusual) and we look over and see Emma sitting next to her just looking at her saying shutup shutup shutup shutup shutup shutup shutup really sweetly over and over again. She is a litle sweetie, I know. She learned this from another little girl a couple weeks ago but i hadn't heard it since. I guess she was just waiting for the right time to throw that one out again.

**for the record I have really NEVER said that to any of my kids. I wish I could say that much for some of my other friends whose kids teach my little angel this language.

Cake Pops anyone???

What sounded like a fun little easy treat to make for the kids teachers and friends turned out to be an ALL day sprinkle infested cake decorating day. We managed to ruin a couple pounds of chocolate trying to get the right consistency(don't add milk or butter) but eventually we came out with some cute ones that were teacher worthy. These are fun to make in small batches but I'm not sure I would do 3 batches again. This was pretty much the extent of my Valentines day creativity. We did enjoy a kids free night while Dusty's little sister put on a Valentines Day Party for all the cousins that they LOVED. She had a ton of games and crafts for them to make and she had them all for 5 hours. My husband gave me the best gift of service and started painting Emma's bed so she can finally move out of her crib. She will be 3 next month so we figured we should start thinking about that. The real motivation for this is that we hope by her having her own big girl bed she will sleep in her own room and not with us every night. I am not very optimistic in this working.

3 weeks is a long time to leave that last post up but I couldn't bring myself to blog. That was actually a really fun birthday gift to myself and as I read over all the comments I had a good laugh. Heather, I didn't remember being late all the time. Sorry, but I made up for it with the good music. Thanks for all the mostly nice comments.
Dusty started a new job just before Christmas and this last month has had him leaving well before I get out of bed and coming home as I am walking out the door at 9 for basketball or later. It gets a little rough never seeing each other and the fact that he gave me gummy bears for my birthday didn't help. Needless to say he has been getting home at normal hours this last week and we were able to go out on a much needed date as well. Tonight he came home and took all the kids to the store to pick out a redbox movie and treats and they have been having a nice little movie night so I can work a bit(or blog). I love it when they spend time with their Dad.

My birthday bike from my parents.......... I love it and it
now has a baby seat on the back.