Meeting that "special" guy

I guess I will be continuously apologizing for all the pictures from the past few months. But I thought I should document some of this before I forget about it. Emma goes to therapy at the Courage Center and this past Christmas season, they ( courage center) threw a holiday party for all of their clients. So we, of course, attended. We left Evan at Grandma's and made it be for Emma only (he was invited to come too). There were a lot of people and it was neat to see all these kids and their families. Here is Emma with the snacks that they provided. (Just a side note: Emma didn't sit still the entire time.)

Here she is meeting that special guy. She liked Santa but really didn't want to get too close to him. He had presents, you know.

Here is another shot of Santa trying to get her on his knee. I wish I would have gotten a picture of her and Santa. She sat in a chair next to him. It was pretty cute. She then got her present.

Here she is opening her gift. She got a doll, stroller and some other things came with it but I cannot remember. She thought it was so neat that Santa gave presents. So she would keep going up to Santa and try to take the other kids gifts. Can you say embarrassing?!

Unfortunately, this is when we had to leave. Emma threw the BIGGEST fit and was screaming and crying. Not fun for her parents. It took quite awhile to settle her down. I guess I am glad she like Santa, even if it meant having a tantrum. Maybe next year will be a little better. Next post will be a current one and then back to the archives.

Snowmen and Mice-oh my!!

**Warning** this is a long post and it has a lot of pictures. So, this post is about birthdays and yes, we celebrated them in early December and late January (I told you I was going backwards. I am going to spare you all Christmas though. Just can't go and do that.) Anyways, first we celebrated Emma's 4th birthday. Since Emma isn't really into anything specific, we thought it would be appropriate to do a winter themed birthday. She also really loves snowmen, in particular Frosty. Hence, the theme. Our decorations were somewhat minimal because we had just finished up the kitchen. So in our dining room (which by the way, is now a big waste of space because NO ONE will sit in there for a party. I AM SO DONE decorating this space for a party).

We have this metal snowman that actually goes outside but we put in the corner of the empty family room off the kitchen. The little snowmen I gave away to the young kids at the party.

Here is the birthday girl opening some of her gifts. She really likes the snap on dolls from FP and this was her expression when she opened her gift.

Of course, no holiday would be complete without books for Emma. She just loves them and as you can tell she took time out to look at a book.

Here is the family. Look at Evan looking so intense at the cake. That boy certainly takes after his mother. Jim had to hold Emma's hand so it wouldn't end up in the cake.

My attempt at a snowman cake. I completely forgot to add the arms. Oh well. It turned about pretty cute, I thought and it was yummy.

On to Evan's 2nd birthday. It was hard to decide what to do for him but we ended up on Mickey Mouse. At the time he really loved Mickey.

This is party hat that I made for him. Unfortunately the hat was to big on him but I thought it turned out cute. I got the idea from Notes from a Cottage Industry. ( not sure how to link to it)

Of course, we have to get a family shot. Hard to get a great picture of all 4 of us.

Here is the birthday boy. Because his hat was too big, he wore Mickey ears. Thanks, Sue, for the idea. The other kids wore them too.

Here is Evan with his hat, see, too big.

I bought Emma this cute pillow case dress. She really looked cute but I couldn't get a great shot of her. Imagine that! Here she is dancing. All of our parties have turned out to having a dance floor with people, mainly little people, dancing. Lots of fun for everyone.

My disappointing, overly expensive birthday cake! It was small but ended up being fine and the red was more maroon then red. Aargh! Evan loved though it and that is all that mattered.

So that is our birthday celebrations. I did make a banner out of Mickey mouse ears that turned out pretty cute, but didn't get a great picture of that. Next up, random winter shots.

Happy World Down syndrome Day!!

I know, I know, it has been a long time. But I wanted to post this for today and then I may work backwards to catch you up on our winter. Today is World Down syndrome Day, 3-21! Or other wise known as Trisomy 21. We thought it would be nice to have a little luncheon with some family and celebrate Emma and her designer "genes". We had such a nice and relaxing lunch with Grandma Dotsy, Auntie Joni and Uncle Todd, Auntie Julie and cousins Jake and Colby. Below is the cake I made for the day. Jim did the lettering. For those of you who don't know blue and yellow are the colors for Down syndrome.

Here is the guest on honor. Grandma Dotsy bought the kids this darling Easter basket thing from Hallmark. I must say it is pretty cute and the kids LOVED it. Here is Emma playing with it. She just lit up when she played it.

Of course, here is Bubba (Emma's name for Evan). This was before the festivities began.

Grandma and Joni trying to get Evan to eat. All he wanted was cake. Can we say Junk food junkie. And we really tried hard to get him to eat healthy.

Here is sweet Emma enjoying her lunch.

After naps we plan to get the kids outside or whatever Emma would like to do. This is her day and we are honoring her the best we can. I will probably post random photos from the past 4 months. So be prepared. I am going to try to be better.