Emmy's Luau

Emmy's birthday this year was quite a production that lasted a whole week.

She turned 9.

She wanted omelets for breakfast

which we ate at 6:30 in the morning in order for us to leave for school on time.

She opened 1 present before school.



I picked all the kids up from school and took them to the Festival of the Trees for our Family Birthday Together Time.

The kids could not believe the gazillion variety of decorated trees.

To top it off we got to see Santa...

THE REAL ONE.

Gingerbread houses.

A birthday tree decorated for Emmy.

Then we went to Temple Square and saw the Christmas Lights.

We had dinner in The Garden and instead of giving you a dish of ice cream or a slice of cake with a candle in it or sing a goofy version of the Happy Birthday song...

They have you write a wish on a piece of paper

attach it to a balloon

open up the roof and announce to the whole restaurant that it's Emmy's birthday.  They all sing

then she lets go of her wish and balloon and watch it fly out the roof into the dark, night sky.

It was super fun and different.

Then on the way home, in the car, Emmy got to open the rest of her birthday presents.

She got books, and more books and some clothes and some craft projects.

But wait!!

That's not all!

On Saturday we got together with the family and at Emmy's request we had a

Hawaiian Luau.

Instead of games she asked that we repeated one of her favorites...

creative dancing where teams of 3 were assigned a song and given 10 minutes to come up with choreography.  Then we performed our dance in front of everyone.

It was a great afternoon celebrating Emmy.

Emmy is such an enthusiastic energy source to have around.  Lately she has been enjoying reading the book, What Every Third Grader Should Know.  She is like a little encyclopedia with all the information that she absorbs.  She'll come up to me and say, "Mom, did you know that..." and share something about sharks or the solar system or metamorphosis with me.  She's amazing.  She says the funniest things that just crack us up...  today even she said, "My body is really changing and it feels pretty weird."  She was exercising yesterday with a program from t.v.   After 2 minutes of doing the exercises she said, "I can't believe that this is really making my insides feel great."

Emmy's New Year's Resolutions this year were to exercise 2 times a week, to be the first kid in the family to finish the Book of Mormon by reading 5 minutes every day and to go off sugar for the month of January.  (She lasted 2 days then cheated for the next 5 days when she declared she was done with that Resolution.)

She is the Drama Queen world champion.   She talks with her whole face and big eyes and can follow me around the house talking and talking and talking, until she finally says, "Mom are you listening?"

She has a happy, kind heart and can make friends with anyone.

I am so happy that Emmy came to our home. 

She adds the carbonation.

Love you Em!