Happy 3rd Birthday Emma!

Today my sweet little girl is 3. This is the first year she has really looked forward to her birthday, and has been excited to celebrate! I bought her some balloons last night after she went to bed, she left her room around 9:30 and found the balloons... she was hopping and rubbing her hands together in excitement, saying, "my balloons are here, my balloons are here!!" It took her awhile to settle down and go to sleep!

 Here is Emma the day she was born, she has changed so much!

Only 1-2 months old

1 year old, now a blondie

Two years old, with that smile that we know so well now!

This morning Emma got her balloons, she has been carrying them around the house since! She gets 1 mylar balloon, and a latex balloon for each year she has been alive.

Happy birthday peanut butter waffles.

Putting the stickers are her birthday card

I asked Emma some questions this morning during breakfast, here are her answers!

How old are you?      3
What is your favorite color?     Orange
What is your favorite toy?     Elephant (Little People Toy)
What is your favorite thing to do at school?     Paint
What is your favorite tv show?     Dora
What is your favorite food?     Peanut Butter
What is your favorite game?     Shapes
What is your favorite animal?     Zebra
What is your favorite song?     Twinkle, Twinkle (little star)
What is your favorite book?     Hippopotamus (But Not the Hippopotamus by Sandra Boynton)
Who is your best friend?     Allie (Williams)
What is your favorite thing to do outside?     Take a walk
What is your favorite drink?     Juice
What is your favorite holiday?     A magician (???)
What do you like to take to bed with you at night?     Quinna, I like to cuddle her when I go to sleep (a stuffed penguin given to her by Shauna and Quinn Noble)                                                                                                 
What makes you happy?     Computers
What makes you sad?     Taking things from me
What do you want to be when you grow up?     Magician
What is your favorite thing to do with mommy?     Cook things
What is your favorite thing to do with daddy?     Pour juice in my cup
What does mommy do all day?     Read newspapers
What does daddy do all day?     Pours juice in my cup

Happy Birthday sweet girl, mommy and daddy love you so much!

A morning with daddy

This last weekend I had plans in the morning, so Nathan and Emma spent the day at a park and then at a local fair.

Emma's first ferris wheel ride.

I was able to join them for the last hour at the fair, I couldn't ride any rides, but Emma got to ride lots of them with her daddy.

 I don't think she could have been any happier, with a sucker free swag she got from various booths and some toys she won at games.

Making cookies

Emma has really wanted to help with cooking lately, and at the very mention of cookies she insists we make some! I really need to make her her own apron, this is one of my old ones that I pin to fit her.

Gotta love licking the beaters!

First day of preschool

Emma is now going to preschool Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9-1. She LOVES it!

 All of these pictures were taken the first day, there were certainly no tears! As soon as we got to her classroom, she headed off to play without a look at me! I made her come back and give me a kiss, and then she was off again.

I am happy that she is loving it so much! It gives me time to get things ready for little man.

Food Truck Friday

The first friday of every month they have what is called "Food Truck Friday" at a park here in St Louis. Food trucks from all over the city meet, and sell yummy yummy food. The first friday in August had nice weather, so we decided to go.

The parking was HORRIBLE, but the food was good and we were able to meet some friends there. Overall it was a fun evening, ending in Nathan chasing the little girls around the park.

Volcanoes

We covered a pan with baking powder and let Emma drip vinegar to make mini volcanoes... she loved it!

When we were done we dumped the rest of the vinegar on the pan, it was actually really pretty.

Naptime craftiness

I have found that sewing and other crafty things help me relax during naptime. Emma isn't normally a huge handful, but lately she has decided to start some terrible two moments. I'm trying to be more patient with her, but my crazy prego hormones sometimes win in the fight for calm. Here are a few projects I have been working on.

Nathan brought these bins home the other day. Normally they are used to organize contact lenses, but Nathan didn't need this brand anymore. (The sticky notes are there to cover the name up)

 I am pretty happy with how they turned out! I have three of them and am using them to organize my sewing stuff (snaps, buttons, velcro etc.) and scrapbooking/crafting items (stamps, markers, etc). I am SO happy my husband knows me well enough to know this is just the sort of thing that I love!

I have so many friends that are going to be having babies soon! They always seems to come in waves. I knew that if I waited to long to make them presents, there was a good chance I would feel like too much of a whale to do it! So I made a bunch of hooded towels

And a couple of baby blankets (one is for our little guy, the other will be sent out as a present)

I have decided to finally make a lot of the things I have been pinning on pintrest. This is a smock I made for Emma, she really likes to paint so I figured it was about time I found something to protect her clothes. The tutorial is found here, at tidbits.

Emma starts preschool in a few weeks, and they requested that all the kids have tote bags instead of backpacks. So I decided to make one, I haven't decided if I am going to use iron on letters to put her name at the bottom or not yet. I included a picture of Emma so you could see the size, I neglected to look closely at the picture of Emma after I took it... she is just like her dad, closes her eyes in half the pictures I take! I found the tutorial here at Hollabee. The hardest part was converting the pattern into inches... I have made two more since then for a friends little boys to take to preschool too.

This is a car seat cover that I made for little man, the car seat is still packed away in the back of a closet, so I couldn't display it the way I wanted to, but you get the idea. I found the tutorial here, at Sutton Grace

About a year ago I talked about how I wanted to make a felt fort for Emma, and all these huge plans I had for it. With school and everything else going on, I just never really got on it. I am HOPING to have the outside done in time for Emma's birthday, I currently have two of the four panels done.

This is another pinterest project, I have been looking for some new things for Emma to do at church to help keep her quiet and busy. I made these puzzles from a free calendar I got in the mail. This tutorial was found at The Rigneys.

I absolutely love these, and it was SO easy. Just velcro circles and popsicle sticks. If I hadn't painted the sticks it would have taken me 2 minutes to make. I found these over at Tot Treasures

Another project for little man, I made a diaper changing pad that holds diapers and wipes in the bottom pocket. Then it rolls up into a nice compact case. The tutorial is found here, at Cluck, Cluck Sew.

I have plans for various other projects, including an entire dress up wardrobe for Christmas for Emma... I should probably finish her fort first though.