The Best Laid Plans of Mice & Men Often Go Astray

I wouldn't dare complain about anything pertaining to Emma's birthday...since it's a miracle that she's here with us.

But let's just say I was less than thrilled with the wind at her little party.  Here are the cute decorations that now reside at our house because the wind gusts were wreaking havoc on them.  All homemade, all meticulously crafted by this uncrafty momma.  Sheesh.

So much time, so much effort, so much theme coordination.  And so much bleeping wind.  By the way, that banner will stay up for as long as I want it to, so if you come over to our house in a few months and it's still here, I'm warning you NOT to ask when I'm taking it down.  It's the equivalent of growing my own Christmas tree, cutting it down, pruning it, and decorating it, only to find out they've canceled Christmas.

Free

No, not free, as in no cost or unbound.  Free...as in the number that comes after two.

Actually, to me, free means a little bit more than just turning Free years old.  It literally means free.  Emma is more and more free to be herself as she gets older.  Every day we see her growing and coming into her own little personality.  Most days my body does wish she could be a little more free physically since lifting her is a lot more difficult than it used to be...but for now I will treasure how much she loves to be lifted and held and snuggled and cuddled.  She usually prefers to do this with Daddy more than anyone else, but she doles out the love pretty freely.

We had a little birthday celebration to commemorate Emma's Free-dom, in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse style.  She was looking forward to it for such a long time, and she has been such a good girl watching me make these little decorations with Mickey Mouses (Mickey Mice?) all over them (more on that on the next post).  I only had to tell her a few times not to touch them because they were for her party.  And then she went on her merry way to find some other forbidden fruit.

Here are some pictures of birthday number Free!

Birthday morning and her new Minnie Mouse chair

Minnie Mouse dress and ears from Mommy and Daddy:

My sister gave her tons of Doc McStuffins toys that she LOVED:

Aunt Kathey and Emma:

Emma had SUCH fun on the playground!

Sweet Elsie thoroughly enjoyed the grass and the sidewalks and had zero interest in the actual playground.

For some reason, Emma decided that when we sing Happy Birthday to her, it's the equivalent of a prayer...she did it once when we "practiced" and again for the real thing.  She literally bows her head and clasps her hands through the whole song.  What I love about this first picture is that Mason, who is 5 and definitely has the Happy Birthday song down pat, is looking a little confused.  "Am I supposed to be praying here?  I've never prayed through the birthday song before...???"

Happy Fird Birfday to our sweet, sweet baby.  I can't believe we've made it this far.

One of our favorite parks

I have a few favorite parks in Greenville.  True to my sometimes exaggerated personality, I realize that that statement is an oxymoron - you cannot have several favorites.  But I do, for different reasons.  I'll just focus on this one: Century Park in Greer.  It has all kinds of apparatuses (for all my grammar-Nazi friends, yes, this is the correct plural form of apparatus - weird, huh?)  for individuals with disabilities.  Cha-ching.

This thing here is one end of a big seesaw - I wish I had gotten a picture of the whole thing.

My mom was able to join us - hence, the floating head on the left.  You will also see a succession of pictures that all pretty much look the same, but please notice how the farther Emma goes through the mulch-covered tunnel, the more flexed her hands become in an effort to remain clean.  She loved this tunnel SO. MUCH, enough that she wanted to keep going through it in spite of the dirt.  Trying to get her in and out of that tunnel made us all feel so old and decrepit.  Oh, and her tongue inches farther and farther out of her mouth, too - no idea what that's about.

Old Hat

Mom and I took Emma to Shriner's yesterday for her semi-annual, routine tests - bladder function and kidney ultrasound.  I'm actually not sure how the bladder function test ended up, but the nurse didn't tell us anything was wrong....and she would have if there had been.  The kidney ultrasound looked fine, which is the more important test in my opinion.  Kidney trouble is more serious than bladder trouble.  We go back in a month to see the docs and get the official results.

Emma was such a little trooper - the perfect child for these tests - with a little help from my phone and Mom's phone showing Doc McStuffins and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes. 

Emma has these funny little fits of laughter where she can hardly breathe because she thinks something is so funny.  Here's a shot of this kind of laughter with her "silwee" Daddy.  If you know Russell, you have probably laughed at him that hard at some point, too.

Our sweet child carries on such delightful conversations, and I was able to capture one of them on video the other night.  Of course, I had to split it up because (a) it was so long and (b) Emma discussed her classmates at school.  There are just too many crazies out there to put all that on the blog.

Anyway, here are some of the funnier/cuter parts, in my humble opinion.  If you disagree, sorry....more memories for me, I guess :)

And here's our sweet girl praying for Nan and trying to remain animated and chatty so as to prevent falling asleep.

The month in pictures

Since it's been about a month since I posted on here, let me just show you what we've been up to in pictures:

Camped out by the front door looking at the snow:

Eh, kinda boring after a while:

Our puny little snowman sitting atop the mailbox, keeping watch on the neighborhood:

Organized playtime (none of which I organized myself):

Painting with Daddy:

Hanging at the park with Arrington:

Sharing my Daddy with Rose and Will:

Loving my new t-shirt from NYC (thanks Sally and Will!):

Missing Daddy: