Happy 2nd Birthday Emma!

Today was Emma's 2nd birthday! I cannot believe it has been 2 yrs already! At times it seems like she has always been here and at times she seems so new! I have loved watching all of her growth over this last year. Really developing a rather large vocabulary for one. I don't know that there is a word out there that she can't say! The funny thing is how soft spoken she can be. You would think that being in such a large family you would learn to speak up to be heard but instead she goes the other direction. And sometimes, when you ask her what she said, she will say it even lower the next time! She does know how to get what she wants though! She is one tough cookie and isn't afraid to fight her poor brother for anything! She very much looks up to Kayla and would be fine spending every waking hour with her. And Hailey, she does love her and wants to hold her alot but is also ok with Hailey sleeping and Emma getting all the attention. When she wants to hold Hailey she will ask "Can I hoed her?". She can't say hold so it comes out hoed. And whenever she says something like spoon or snake it comes out as sa-poon or sa-nake. Love it! Of course, we have to be aware of not talking like her so she can learn how to say the word the right way. And more importantly, so we don't walk around talking like Emma at work or school!


So for her birthday we decided not to have a party and we would just have family over. Well geez, when there are 4 sets of grandparents plus aunts and uncles....that ends up being a party! We ended up having 5 grandparents, 1 surrogate grandma (my step-sister and step-brothers mom Rhonda), an aunt, and an uncle here. Plus my giant family! A couple of the grandparents weren't able to come because of already scheduled plans. So we had cake and ice cream and let Emma open her presents. Emma is so shy that it is kind of funny. She was hiding behind this little half wall when my dad was coming to the door and then wouldn't look at anyone but Rhonda. She sat on her lap for quite some time before it was time to open presents. She did finally decide it would be ok to hug everyone though by the time they were leaving.


We gave her one of her presents in the morning, then she went to Nana's house and got more presents there, then she had the ones everyone brought to her. But she still enjoyed opening every last one of them! And now imagine how confusing it must be for her to wake up on the 26th and there are no presents and people aren't telling you happy birthday (whatever that means) and treating you special! 1 of the big gifts we got for her was a Dora bed set for her "big girl" bed so that she can transition from her crib to a twin daybed. Wish us luck with that one!

Before the madness.....

You can't see Emma but it sums up the evening!

After presents we sang Happy Birthday and ate cake. She was too cute while we were singing to her. She was facing away from everybody because of where her chair was (and no I didn't think to move it!). When everyone started to sing, a smile very slowly crept up on her face until it was full blown and she was looking around at everyone. Her expression kind of said "hey...this is cool that they are all singing to ME!".