How can she be 5?!

****Warning...... this is very heavy on pictures, I mean HEAVY! ******

It is hard for me to imagine as I reflect back 5 years ago. I had no idea what life had in store for me when I was given this precious little girl. Oh the challenges we faced then seemed like nothing we would ever get through, endless trips to the hospital, would she every get off of oxygen and a feeding tube. WOULD SHE EVER COME HOME? It all seems like a life time ago now but when we were in it, it seemed like we would never get through it. Here is Emma almost 5 years ago to the day. ( actually a few weeks younger.) Oh she was so small.

Well here she is 5 years later and although she is still a peanut I cannot believe how she has grown. Needless to say, I have grown too. Although the challenges have changed and gotten harder, I will never be less grateful for this precious girl. Oh how she teaches us!!

On to the birthday...... no birthday in our house would be complete without a little dancing. Evan and Emma danced to Elmo. ( I realize maybe I should have gotten them dressed but it was early and our day off from running. This is the actual birthday day!)

Here is the little cake we got her for her birthday.

Emma and her cake. She loved that we sang to her. Evan helped blow out the candles.

We gave her a few gifts that night. She got a 3 foot doll and a tent. Evan loved helping her.

The next day her preschool class had a little party and the parents can come and volunteer that day. We went for a little while and her is Emma showing us her classroom.

The kids all get in a circle and they put a crown on Emma and they all sing Happy Birthday! very cute. I think she was a little nervous being the center of attention.

This is Emma's little friend. She is the sweetest little girl. She waits for Emma to get off the bus and makes sure she gets to circle time. Here she is giving Emma a hug. It brought tears to my eyes to know someone cares that much for my little girl.

Here is the class doing the "Snowey Pokey". Emma was giving it her best effort and her little friend was trying to help her too.

Here we are enjoying a snack with Emma and her class. We brought in cookies.

On to the party day. Here are some pictures of the decorations. Nothing too fancy.

The table. No one sat at it until I made them eat cake at it. I thought it turned out cute.

Aa guest entered, the candle was Birthday cake (thanks Sue.).

Thanks again Sue for this idea. Books with their characters.

The birthday girl enjoying her presents.

The cake, it was hard to get it to look like a book. I could have gone much fancier but I didn't want to a fortune for a cake.

Getting ready to blow out the candles.

Here we are helping her. She wanted to touch the candles. Ouch!!

Here is her stash. In case you can't tell, we had a book party. Emma loves books and she got lots of them. It was fun and easy to do.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!

On Saturday morning (early) we awoke to this!! Yep, snow!! It is the kind of snow that is extremely heavy and wet. The flakes were huge and it was really coming down. Very pretty. Evan was so excited and he thought Santa was coming. Too cute.

Here is another shot looking from the house to the lake.

Sorry to bore you with tree pictures but it was so pretty hanging from the trees.

Another landscape picture.

After lunch ( and before naps) we decided to bundle the kids up and head outside. They loved it for a while. Emma kept eating the snow. It brought back memories of me doing that when I was a kid. Then she proceeded to take her hat and mittens off, so in we went.

Evan thought it was fun but he didn't like the snow hitting his face. Just imagine those big flakes hitting your face. He kept saying my eyes hurt. The snow was melting in his eyes. Do you notice the hat Laura? The funny thing is, he has both hats you crocheted on. He thinks it's fun to wear them at the same time.

This is our pathetic attempt at a snow man. Jim went a little crazy dressing it up, but Evan really enjoyed it. ( Remember I had to bring Emma in by this point.) The snowman is quickly melting away. A lot of the snow is melting although the ground is still white. Hopefully we will get some warmer weather to melt more of it. We have an outside project that needs to get done.

Well all this snow put me in the mood for Christmas. So on Sunday I put my very small tree up in my family room. It houses all the ornaments I have received or collected over the years ( and ones we have purchased). I still need to add a little more to the top but I am liking the way it turned out. I still have to add the tree skirt but I have not gotten any of my bins out yet.

Happy decorating!! Once Emma's party is done I will be in full Christmas mode. Can't wait for both!!

Halloween

Yes, it has been a long time but I thought I would give this blog thing another try. So I thought starting with the holidays would be a great time to do it. I realize that I should have posted all summer but it just didn't happen.

Well the day before Halloween we carved our pumpkins. The kids thought it was fun except for cleaning out the pumpkin. Emma thought it was fun to put the stuff back in.

Here I am with the kiddos. Oops.... we forgot to turn the pumpkin around for the picture. Evan was really into the skull thing for some reason. Daddy just had to add it to the picture.

Halloween day was a perfect day for this region. Not a cloud in the sky, no winds, cool and crisp. Just like a fall day should be. ( I know you in other warmer climates disagree but we like it like this in the north land.) Here is Emma in her costume. Emma was a cookie. She hates to wear things on her head and you can forget about putting anything on her face. So I tried to find the easiest costume there was. (not to mention overpriced)

Here is Evan in his costume. He went as Thomas the Train. Although the day before he really wanted to be a ghost. But he quickly forgot about that. He was so excited to get candy!!!

All in all in was a great Halloween!! The kids really got it this year and it was fun to watch. Now I need I need to shed a few pounds ( well more) from all the candy I consumed.

A Bridal Shower

Yes, I am finally posting. It has been busy around these parts. More on that in another post. A couple of weeks ago I hosted, along with my s-i-l Julie, a bridal shower for my nephew's fiancee.

Her colors are cream, black and green. Below are pictures of decorations. ( sorry, not the best and I am not sure what setting I should have it on to make them enlarge. I also need a better camera.)

The first is the food table. My sister picked up the paper supplies for me at Hobby Lobby ( we do not have one here in Minnesota). Of course, no picture! ( That is the bad part of being the hostess and doing it by myself-NO TIME before hand) The plates were black and with white flowers, very modern flowers. My silverware was the green. I was excited to find some fabric that matched almost exact to my plates. I used the fabric on the food table and on the dining room table. I tried my best to stay in the black, white(cream) and green theme, with using what I already had. If look close, you can see the bride to be in the background behind my mother in law. ( don't worry I moved the kids chairs out before it all started. Guests came a little to early.)

Here is the centerpiece for the main table. I took clay pots and spray painted them a green. ( I got the paint at Lowes, but I cannot think of the color.) Then I used my trusty cricut and cut some letters using vinyl. I have another fun thing to create with. The vinyl is so fun to work with. Then I just went to my local nursery and bought some plants that I thought looked somewhat modern and wedding looking. They looked really nice in person, not so good in pics though. I filled some little crystal glasses with black, white and mint m& ms. Those were a hit but I am hear to tell you, very expensive treat. It is hard to tell but the white flowers around the pots are lit. They are from Michaels and they are Martha Stewart. ( I also thought they would be fun for birthday parties or hanging somewhere in Emma's room.) I also wrapped tule around the base to soften it a bit. You cannot see them in the pictures but I also scattered some diamond rings (courtesy of Wilton, $1.99) Very simple, but everyone loved how it looked.

These are the cupcakes. Julie got them from Walmart and they were yummy. Again, we tried to stick to our color theme. The cupcakes were chocolate with white frosting and the design was green. What we should have done was put a C on them ( the brides future last name)
O.k. my pics are out of order but I am too tired to move them around. Here is a close up of the food table. You can get a better look at the fabric.
From my kitchen light I hung diamond rings from sheer ribbon. Another hit of the guests.
Well, there you have it. Very simple decorations, but I was trying to spend too much money. It was a very nice shower and the bride to be loved everything so that is what matters the most. I am off to Chicago today. Jim is there on business.

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.