Red, Pink, and Hearts Party

Oh man, are we still celebrating Emma's birthday?! ;) haha - it seems like Emma's birthday has taken up the entire month of February... but I do love the girl, quite a bit, so I guess that's alright. :) We had her friend party on Saturday. We invited 12 girls (some from church and some from school), and 8 were able to come. It was a full house!

The red, pink, and hearts theme resulted in awesome Valentines clearance purchases for party favors and supplies... I didn't really realize I'd get that benefit, until I went out party shopping a few days after Valentines and was like "oh awesome! 75-90 percent off!" haha. :)

Emma and I hand sewed little invites - idea from HERE

Favor bags... tweaked an idea from HERE





Cute cupcake idea

Party activities~

Roll a Lovebug - we split them into two groups and gave each group a dice...





Made heart leis and heart rings...



Then we split them into two groups again and Ben manned the darts and I was in charge of "heart-a-stack"...








The most popular activity was playing "Don't Break My Heart!"... It was so funny to watch the girls get sooo into it. I was laughing. You have a 'game board' with different colored hearts on it and you place one candy on each. Then one person leaves the room while the rest of the group chooses a heart to be the 'secret heart'. Then the person comes back and slowly picks one candy off a heart at a time in hopes that they can eat through the whole board before choosing the 'secret heart'. If they grab the candy off the secret one, then everyone yells "Don't break my heart!", and their turn is over. We gave everyone a chance to play and they just LOVED it. Isn't it always the case that the simplest activity is the most popular? I would definitely play this again for another holiday or party - you can imagine that the theme of the board and the phrase you yell out could be easily swapped...




Cupcake time!




Presents! Emma's friends brought the nicest gifts... Emma's been going through each item one at a time and just enjoying everything...


Hooray for a successful party! It was fun. This weekend was "hosting" weekend, I guess, 'cause on Sunday we had Ben's family over for a belated President's Day themed dinner. Ben made a traditional shepherd's pie (a popular colonial food... he piped on the mashed potatoes and everything... he's the best). I made apple pie and I even made the crust... it's been far far too long since I've made a full-on homemade pie. I really should do it more often!

Pie crust recipe and Apple pie recipe

Aunt Emily captured a couple cute photos of Becca and Claire... I love that Becca is giving her cute lovely smile, and Claire's profile is just so sweet.

More hiking, more cake, more park

After doing Emma's birthday hike, the kids were begging to go hiking again. So on Saturday afternoon we ventured out on a different trail, near the house. The hiking trails around here are really amazing - I always assumed that desert hiking would be blah, but I've learned that the desert can be beautiful and diverse, so it's fun to explore. Ben was post-call and exhausted after working overnight, but he agreed to keep Claire at home, so I didn't have to have her strapped to me while we hiked...




















Here's a few videos - just for kicks - I've been trying to remember to take videos and not just pictures all the time. They are just SO fun to watch when the kids get older and look back to see how they talked, moved, etc. In the first video, Jake is saying at the beginning "I'm not going to fall down. I'm not." hahaha...






We had birthday party number 2 for Emma on Sunday. Emma's birthday is the same day as her Uncle Peter (Ben's brother). It's fun that they share a birthday. Emma's Aunt Emily made a really delicious cake/cupcakes - we all always rave about her chocolate cakes - so yummy! Emma got some awesome gifts - a cute purple bean bag from the Lee's (which she's been using daily this week - to read and watch t.v. in), and her Grandma and Grandpa Dangerfield got her an American Girl doll! What a lucky Emma! Now that the doll is home, she's seriously in love with it. She got some birthday money from her Grandma and Grandpa Szymanski and her Great Grandma Szymanski, and she quickly decided she wanted to use it to get some accessories for her new doll friend.








On President's Day, Emma wanted to make a list in the morning of 'fun things to do'. She definitely gets excited when she has a day off of school and can play - one of the things she added to her list was to have a picnic at a park. So we went to the West Wing park (first time), and took some lunch...

Dinner with Dad and a New Job!

One of our favorite family activities is eating dinner with Ben at his work when he's on overnight call. We realized that today was going to be Ben's LAST standard overnight call shift of residency - at first I was excited, and then I realized that this would be the last time the kids and I could come visit him at work for dinner.... which then led me to realize that's Ben's time at the Mayo Clinic is quickly coming to an end. Ben getting to do his residency at the Mayo Clinic has been an incredible blessing for our family - Ben's been so happy the past 3 years working with such wonderful people, in a beautiful and well-equipped facility. This great residency experience has been felt throughout our family - a happy daddy is a happy family! :D We hope to someday come back to Mayo! I mentioned to the kids that this would probably be our last time eating dinner with daddy at this hospital, and Emma immediately started crying and says amidst tears "but they have such fun milks and desserts!"

We had to wait in the lobby for a little bit till Ben was able to meet us. The kids stayed entertained...







I told Emma to figure out how many squares were on the wall... she was clever enough to know that she just needed to count one row across and one row down, but couldn't remember what to do with those numbers to get the answer. I was giggling to myself that I came up with such a daunting task to keep her busy while we waited for daddy :)

We enjoyed our dinner out with dad...


I posted this on facebook already, but Ben has officially signed a contract to work at Maricopa County hospital in downtown Phoenix starting July 1st! We took out an incentive loan during med school that paid for the majority of our tuition and expenses, and in return Ben agreed to work in an 'underserved' hospital in Arizona for 3 years. Maricopa will be a much different experience than the Mayo Clinic, but Ben will do awesome! I'm proud of him - I've never worried much about our future, because Ben has been so on top of things from the day I met him in regards to his career. He's a hard worker and a gifted doctor. I'm a lucky lady!

9 big ones!

Guess who's 9 months old?! Not me! yes, Claire bear! Love her! She is literally getting cuter and cuter and sweeter and sweeter every day - didn't think it was possible - but I really couldn't ask for a better baby. I feel like I've gotten lucky 4 times in a row with these kids of mine - maybe I better quit while I'm ahead? haha.

Seven

I think this every year, but where has the time gone?! My Emma is SEVEN! I sure do love her. She's silly, kind, oh so smart, loves school and reading. She's obsessed with writing - she loves writing and creating little brochures, books, posters, invitations, etc, etc - her and Becca are almost always together when she's not at school pretending and creating together. Emma is a caring and fun big sister. She LOVES to care for Claire and has so much patience when Claire is fussy and helps by getting her snacks and toys and totes her around the house to keep her happy. I couldn't ask for a more amazing oldest daughter. She's a keeper! :)

Our birthday tradition is they get to pick out any cereal from the store for their b-day breakfast (so easy!) - Emma went grocery shopping with me on Monday and after exploring the entire cereal isle, she picked Frosted Flakes. She also took mini donuts to school to share with her class. I also always try to have an activity planned for the birthday kid on their special day, but in the past we've had more time to do a fun little something - but now that she's in school all day, there's not a lot of time left in the day - she doesn't get home till 4 from school! Anyway, I was also trying to be thrifty, so I thought we'd go on a little hike on a nearby trail. I always keep these birthday activities a surprise, so when we picked her up from the bus stop, I told her we were heading to go on a little birthday hike. She was thrilled! I was relieved that this made her excited. Add that to the list of things I love about Emma - she really enjoys being active and doing outdoor activities...

My little goofs... Emma kept doing this fist to the air thing while we were hiking... what a interesting girl she is :)

And they're off! They literally ran the whole way... until we turned around to come back - they slowed down a bit then... but my, my... they were awesome little hikers! No complaining or whining... they must have really been in the mood for some outdoor exploring...
















We hurried home after hiking and Ben was already home from work with birthday flowers for Emma. I love this tradition that Ben started - the girls love flowers from daddy. :)




Emma picked out an interesting birthday dinner - she wanted german pancakes, strawberries, and this pink cherry soda that we've made in the past from her princess tea party cookbook. It was a SWEET dinner! :) After dinner she opened her presents. Becca was cute and the night before, she says "but mommy, I haven't gotten Emma a present yet!" - so I took her out really quick so she could pick something out - Becca was SO excited to watch Emma open her little gift (airhead candy)...






Happy Birthday Emma lou!