Em's Fourth Birthday Week

I've been meaning to post this for a while now, but I've been too preoccupied getting my house back together after the chaos of the holidays and redoing our floors. At least I'm posting this while we're still in January (speaking of which... how on earth did February sneak up on me so suddenly??)! I'm pleased to say that things are almost all the way back to normal (I only have a few loose ends to tie up), and I'm now feeling much better about the state of my home. We even finally moved the never-used changing table out of Em's room and put a ClosetMaid Cube Organizer in its place, which is wonderful because it holds some of her books, toys, and even things like shoes, socks and underwear. I hope to post more on that soon, but not now. This is about my now-four-year-old's special week!!

Emily's cousins, H, Z and G, were in town for Christmas and went home just a few days before her birthday. This has happened the last couple years, and each time we celebrated with them before they had to leave. Both times it's been a pretty simple affair, with cake and a few presents. Last year I believe we had a not-very-good store-bought cake, but this time Grandpa made his famous chocolate cake. Mmmm. (It had been a while since we'd had it!)

Martha came over and was so nice and thoughtful. She gave Em a present, but funny enough (and Martha couldn't get over this), Em wasn't eager to open it (or any other presents, for that matter). This happened at Christmastime, too, but not quite as blatantly. This time, she had a stack of birthday presents that, as Martha pointed out, most kids would've been begging to hurry up and open. But not Em. She just left them there, seriously forgetting about them. I guess she'd rather run around than open presents. Even after we sang "Happy Birthday" and cut the cake, she didn't ask to open them, even though they were right there in front of her face! After she ate her cake, she left the table to go do something else, and I had to call her back and ask her, "Don't you want to open your presents?" And then she did. :-)

She received a cute Guess What I Am! game and a cool Crayola Explosion Glow Board from her Aunt Mona, and Martha gave her a nice Junior Chef enamel cookware set for her little house. For Christmas, she gave her an Easy Bake Oven, and our friend Lee gave her a Melissa and Doug Slice-and-Bake Cookie Set that she can pretend to bake. All of these gifts were given with the playhouse in mind!

The day before her actual birthday was her birthday celebration at school. Coincidentally, she was also chosen to be the Star Helper that day. (Each schoolday they pick a name out of a hat, and that child will be Star Helper the next schoolday. The Star Helper gets to lead the class in line, share something special with the class, ring the bell in between sessions, be first to do certain activities, etc.) She looked so cute with her birthday sticker and Star Helper sticker on her chest, AND her huge birthday hat on her head. I could tell she basked in the glow of all the attention she received that day! (Leah and I joined the class for the final hour so that we could watch them sing "Happy Birthday" to Em and to watch them enjoy her special birthday cookies that she and I had oh-so-lovingly made the night before.

Stephen had the following day off, which was her actual birthday. It was his first Friday off as part of the new "9-80" program they voted in at work. Nice timing! (Unfortunately it was only one of TWO, because now he's back on EWW, which is Extended Work Week. Oh, well. 'Twas good while it lasted.) I had been wanting to take Emily out for a special birthday lunch and outing, but I couldn't figure out what we should do. Finally Stephen had the very good and cute idea of taking her to IHOP and ordering the "Create-a-Face" pancakes, because he thought she'd enjoy that. He was right. She loved it! In fact, while enjoying her special pancake, she exclaimed, "This is the best lunch EVER!!" :-) After lunch (well, really it was brunch), we went back home for a few hours and then Grandma and Grandpa brought over yet another cake. This time Grandpa baked a *citrus cake (we call it a "rainbow cake" in our family) because they thought Em would get a kick out of the different layers and colors. There are three layers: yellow (lemon), orange (orange) and green (lime). It's made with the rind from those fruits, so it truly does have the flavor of lemon, orange and lime. It's pretty good! Personally, though, I'd almost always reach for the chocolate. ;-)

After cake and two more gifts -- my friend Angie sent her some *adorable* clothes and a dress-up doll, and Stephen and I gave her a tub full of fun Crayola stuff (all kinds of different crayons, markers, pencils, glitter glues, Silly Putty) -- we then went on our outing. We decided to take her roller skating! It was a surprise to her (she didn't know where we were going until we got to the rink), and when she realized where we were, she was pretty excited. She saw the roller skates behind the counter and couldn't wait to put on a pair!

Stephen got his and her skates on, and as the two of them were about to enter the rink, our friends Lee, J and H showed up. (We invited others, but it was a very last-minute event, and no one else was able to make it.) It was nice having Lee and the kids there. They helped make the night a lot of fun. At first, Em was very hesitant to get out into the rink. Actually, she refused. But all it took was watching her daddy and H skate around once or twice, and then she agreed to go with them. It was amazing to watch her go through all the stages of learning:

1. At first she didn't want to skate,
2. Then she wanted to skate holding onto both of Stephen's hands,
3. Then she wanted to skate holding only ONE of his hands,
4. Then she wanted to independently skate alongside him,
5. And finally, she wanted to skate ALL by herself -- as in, she didn't want Stephen to even be in the rink. (We of course said 'no' to that one, because she most certainly would've been mowed over by the big kids!)

It was a classic progression. It was pretty cool to watch.

Poor Stephen took a pretty big tumble fairly early on in the evening, and his right wrist bent backward to the point where he got a pretty yucky sprain. (Unfortunately, we didn't think to put wristguards on him until after the fact.) He's still wearing a brace, but he'll probably start weaning off of it pretty soon.






So that was Em's Week! Her birthday felt a bit more special to me than past ones, probably because this was the first time she was really aware of everything that was going on. It was a really fun Christmas, too, for that same reason. She understands so much more nowadays, and that makes these sorts of things a bit more magical.


* This is similar to the recipe my parents use, but not exactly the same.

Here are all the pictures from Em's birthday week.

From her birthday celebration with the cousins:




Unfortunately, I messed up these videos from her birthday celebration at school. I took them with my regular camera (not my video camera), and I zoomed in and out, which I guess I wasn't supposed to do. But at least they capture the idea of what was going on, and of course, the audio!