Emma Kate's Birthday Part 2: Party Time

A Party In Pictures...

What a wonderful way to spend Emma Kate's birthday! We had a very girly "pink" party for her.

And lots of awesome, very dear friends and family here to help us celebrate her.

The party was from 3-4:30, which was a perfect time frame for her...she was exhausted after even that short period of time.

Dominic had a hand in welcoming some of the first guests(family) with shooting them with a Nerf gun from his upstairs bedroom window...oh boys...

The Birthday Girl.

She very gingerly explored her birthday cake.

Mmmmm....

That's about all she ate...she never REALLY got into it.

The kids had fun decorating sugar cookies.

I LOVE these ladies!

And of course this little lady too:) This is her favorite present...figures it would be a car (and not a doll!) At least it's pink! It's a Swagger Wagon like her mommy drives! I wish I had a pink one.

Check out her little outfit I found online! I LOVE it.

Connor and Great Gram.

More family and friends.

Another one of "my ladies" and her 3 month old little guy.

Maddie and Emma Kate...I see many more birthay parties with these girls together!

Emma Kate leaning in for a kiss from Aunt Becki.

By this point she was getting pretty tired, but I had to get a few more pictures.

Emma's Great-Aunt Judy drove an hour and a half to come for a party that was equally as long. Thank you!

Mommy on the other side of the camera...doesn't happen very often.

Thank you to all who came to celebrate. We had such a fun time with all of you!

Happy Birthday my sweet Emma Kate!

I can't believe it's been a year already.

Emma Kate's Birthday Post #1: Setup!

WARNING: Emma Kate's 1st Birthday is going to take several posts to cover! This year since her birthday fell on Sunday, we had her party on her actual birthday! Fun! Connor couldn't understand why she didn't get 2 birthday's...I had to explain that in our family only when our birthday falls during the week, do we get 2 celebrations...a birthday dinner with family on our actual birthday and then a party on the weekend...confusing!

Since Emma Kate is my 1st and only girl...of course we had to celebrate with a pink theme. The party was from 3-4:30...nice and short for a 1 year old. We had nothing but sweets for our guests...we sugared everyone up and sent them home...sorry:)

Scott and Shawna helped us pretty much all day in the getting ready activities! Thank God for them today! Shawna did all the chocolate dipping for me.

I did a mural of photos of Emma Kate every month of her 1st year so we could see how she had changed.

This was the main table.

I started the tradition with Connor in purchasing a book that goes along (at least somewhat) with the theme of the party, in which the guests sign the inside cover. Someday the kids can look back at the messages from that special day and soak up all that love!

And the best part of the party...!

Yes, those are circus cookies holding up the sticks...I better take those to work tomorrow to share or I'm going to be in a lot of trouble!

And mmm...cupcakes...Mary (my Mother-In-Law) came over Sat night to help me with the fondant E's and 1's. I had never worked with fondant before...I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's not that difficult. At least for little stuff like this.

Here's Emma Kate's cake. I got the idea for the ruffles from Martha Stewart's website.

A side view from the night before...

I found these cute little mailboxes from Target's Dollar Spot and used them for "Goodie Bags."

Mary also made cutout sugar cookies and I set up a cookie decorating station for the kids...and Uncle Nick...he got in on the action too! (FYI...there's grey frosting because Connor got involved and there were train shaped cookies included for the boys. We can't have pink choo choo's now can we?!?!)

I made a little banner to attach to Emma's high chair.

And of course the birthday kitchen towel was put out.

We topped off all those sweets with pink juice boxes, hot chocolate, coffee, tea, and lots of...water!

Stay tuned for Party Time!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's festivities lasted 2 days this year.

Sunday morning I made heart shaped pancakes for the family...nothing too exciting, but a little festive. (I did it on Sunday because I knew that Monday morning we would barely make it out of the house with everyone ready and fed with a quick breakfast. Pancakes are NOT an option during the week. I would like to pretend I am the mom has has her stuff together in the mornings...not the case!)

A couple of weeks ago Jeff and I were talking with Scott and Shawna, when we realized that we had never been out to dinner together without any kids...this is a tragedy! We decided that this should not be the case any longer...we made reservations at a local steakhouse for dinner Sunday night. Bunga and Papa came to watch the kids and we got all dressed up for dinner.

Shawna was very excited to be able to have a couple of coctails. She looked amazing after just having a baby 6 weeks ago!

I began taking pictures of our yummy spread...

Calamari (which I did NOT take part in!) I know I know...

And then somehow I missed the salad and main courses.

But I did remember to get pictures of our desserts!

Jeff chose the cheesecake with bluberry sauce.

I elected for the Walnut Turtle Pie. Mmmm.

Shawna chose the Chocolate Molten Cake.

And I think Scott couldn't stand the idea of my getting a picture of his dessert without him :)

The classic Creme Brulee.

The food was amazing and so was the company. We had so much fun! 3 hours went by in a blink of an eye. We all agreed that this needs to be a monthly occurance...probably not this fancy every month...but something.

Valentine's morning started with begging from Connor to open his gift at 6:30am. Usually we do gifts at dinner time. Not worth the fight.

So of course Dominic and Emma Kate opened theirs as well when they got up.

Connor and Emma got Zhu Zhu pets...have you seen these? The kids have a lot of fun with them!

On the way to work God blessed me with this beautiful full rainbow.

I may or may not have had someone else take this picture since that would be really unsafe for me to be taking a picture as I'm driving down the freeway.

Jeff called me while I was at work to tell me that he tried really hard to surprise me with a massage at a local spa...but he had to have an appointment time and date...things like these are next to impossible to plan for me. So he was really bummed that he couldn't surprise me with it.
I, on the other hand, was elated!! He told me to go ahead and make the appointment for one evening next week and made me promise I would do it.

Oh, twist my arm!

I love my sweetie!

When I got home from work I threw dinner together really quick...nothing too special, but I was really excited about the heart shaped ravioli that I found at Costco. My Mother-In-Law, who had the kids that day, also sent home a heart shaped loaf of homemade bread! Yumm!

After dinner it was off to get the kids to bed and fall into bed ourselves.

Happy Valentine's Day!