Happy 3rd Birthday!

I debated quite a bit about Em's birthday--I thought I could do just a simple celebration at home with family and she would be fine.  As it turned out, none of our family was able to make it, so I decided to throw her a bigger party and invite her friends from school.  We invited everyone from her class, plus a couple of other friends, and ended up with about 13 kids total!

Em said pretty early on that she wanted a Mickey Mouse party, which surprised me--especially since she's been Peter Pan for the past couple of months.  Honestly, I think she would have been excited no matter what we had decided.  Mickey was easy for decorations though, and I went a little crazy with Pinterest inspiration :).  I made her outfit, and thought she looked just adorable (although the tutu didn't stay on long--she took it off for a different princess dress before the party).



We planned for a bounce house in the backyard, but it rained the whole morning, so I had to come up with toddler-friendly activities inside.  I bought this roll of craft paper and just taped it along the walls and set out crayons--Em needed to try it out before her guests arrived!

  I just can't believe how grown up she looks.

This was our front door welcome.

I think we overdid it with the food, but I didn't know what to expect, and didn't want to run out.  We had tons left, so it was a good thing it was all stuff we like :).

The paint table was a huge hit--I covered the table with a plastic table cloth and put out foam brushes, paint and paper.

These were our party favor bags and party hats (a must have, according to Em).  I made the hats, and got the bags from Etsy.

Heather is a friend of mine from work, and her daughter Emma is almost exactly one year younger than Em.  The older they get, the more they have in common.

Em and Max are in the same class, and good buddies.

I got her cake at Publix, and I thought they did an awesome job!  I found my inspiration picture on Pinterest and took it in--they said they could do everything except the ears, so I just made the ears from black foam and stuck them in.

It was yummy and beautiful--and this is when the white shirt lost the battle!

Em's little circus tent was a popular hiding place--I think there were at least six kids in there at one point.

This is Em's best buddy Declan, who was in her class at Gateway, and Riley, a little girl in our neighborhood who's 4.

This was the after-party mess.  It actually could have been a lot worse!

People brought so many thoughtful, generous gifts!  This was one of her favorites--Rapunzel dress and princess gloves and shoes!

A few more decorations--I put streamers on all the doorways,

and used all of Em's stuffed Mickeys for decorations too. 

I made these out of Styrofoam and spray painted them.

They looked a little better from a distance :).

I also made the Happy Birthday banner, and then finished everything off with balloons.

We were happy with the turnout, and everyone seemed to have a good time.  It's so unbelievable that we have a three-year old now!

St. Patty's Day Fun

Saturday was really our first taste of spring weather--it was supposed to be warm and beautiful, so we decided to go to uptown Charlotte for the St. Patrick's Day parade.  Em was very excited about seeing a parade, but it was so crowded when we got there that she took turns sitting on our shoulders for the best view.

Here's former Charlotte Mayor, turned NC Governor as the Grand Marshall.

This was one of Em's favorite parts--all the Golden Retrievers!

There was a big kids' zone with a carousel, bounce houses and games.  Em got on the first time and wasn't very happy because "the bunny is not my favorite animal."

She was more excited to get back on her favorite animal--the doggie--but then decided she was going to be shy for a picture.

She was pretty happy when she got on the swings all by herself like a big girl!

And even happier when they started spinning around--she held on for dear life.

She talked Daddy in to standing in line twice for the big slide!

We stayed for several hours, and Em enjoyed exploring some of uptown with all the people and dogs.  It was a great day for a parade!

She was exhausted from playing, so she wasted no time falling asleep in the car. 

We headed down to look at cars--since my job no longer requires full time travel (hooray!), I'm turning in my company car and we're buying one.  We've been looking at the Honda CR-V, but Em decided she liked this little 2-door Accord :).

 

We were close to home at that point, and because we had bribed Em with ice cream for being a good girl at the car dealership, we went to Baxter Village for ice cream.  We didn't realize there was a big festival going on there too, so Em got to paint a picture (she told the lady her name was Peter Pan, so that's how her picture was labeled :)).

Then we saw a cupcake shop, so she settled for a double chocolate cupcake instead of ice cream.  She might look just like her Daddy, but she definitely has some of her Mommy in her too :).

The weather was perfect, and there was music and lots of kids, so it was the perfect environment for her.  She met this green frog and was trying to give him 5 in this pic.

She had a terrific time dancing, and jumped right in for some of the group dances.  We finally stopped to eat Italian for dinner and head home.  It was a full day, and Em was exhausted (we were too!)



Charleston Trip

Mick's Valentine's Day present this year was a trip to Charleston--I booked our hotel on a golf course and reserved an early tee time for him on Saturday morning.  We took Friday off and drove down that morning (only about a 3 hour trip).  Mick decided that he'd rather hang out with us than play golf, so we had a great time as a family :).

 

The weather turned out to be a lot colder than we expected, but we spent Friday afternoon eating seafood and exploring downtown, including the Market Street, which I love.

We took a horse-drawn carriage tour of downtown, and Em decided it was a good time for a little snooze.  Mick lucked out because he had a built-in heater with this sweet girl on his lap!

On Saturday morning, we headed to the Children's Museum of the Lowcountry.  It was incredible, and Em could have spent all day there easily.  There was a castle set up with little mini stations set up--dress up clothes, furniture, secret passageways to explore.  It was right up her alley.

They had a water play room that was by far her favorite--we went back at least three times. 

This little table had canoes that you could race down the rapids, and rocks to move across and change the direction of the water.

This room was full of golf balls, and all kinds of ramps and chutes you could explore, rolling the golf balls and seeing what happened.

She got a butterfly painted on her face,

and put on a puppet show (which was my favorite thing to watch).

These pictures are so funny to me--she didn't get the concept of holding her hands up over the "stage,"

but she was totally into the conversation between this turtle and lobster.

There was a huge art room with play dough, paper, glue, scissors, etc.  She made some Dr. Seuss-like trees with a little help.

And of course she needed no help to paint a beautiful masterpiece.

The grocery store was a hit--if you look closely, you can see the big smile on her face (and her wet sleeve from racing canoes).

It was set up like a Publix, except for the fact that they had people handing out shopping money when we first walked in.  Too bad the real ones don't do that!

She was very responsible, and put her cart away as her groceries were being bagged.

Receipt in hand, and reusable shopping bag on her arm.

Outside, there was a huge fire truck to play on,

and even clothes to dress up like a fireman.  The museum was worth the trip, even if we hadn't done anything else!  She loved it, and I think we'll go back.

We ate more seafood for lunch, and Em took a nap in the stroller as we walked through downtown and to the Aquarium.  We sat down and rested for a little while, waiting for her to wake up so we could go in.  When we did, she jumped right in--one of the first things she found was some animals to touch--I didn't catch the picture of her touching the snake, but she loved this little crocodile!

This was her "jellyfish are yuck-ay" face.

 There was a cute little play area that she enjoyed.

The nap had come at a perfect time and gave her plenty of energy to power through the whole afternoon.

This was our favorite part of the afternoon--the Madagascar wing had these lemurs that Em really liked.  She found a little underground tunnel to crawl in that led to this up close and personal viewing area.  A couple of lemurs flew over their heads, and I think this little boy is covering his ears because of Em's screams.

They both ended up laughing and screaming, and were hilarious to watch.

When we left, Em took the opportunity to put on one of her shows for us--she's quite the little performer.  There's a cartoon that she's watched a couple of times called Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood (on PBS, and based on Mr. Rogers)--one episode had Daniel's teacher singing a song in class about showing something special that each kid in the class could do.  We've somehow picked up that song after hearing it a couple of times--it's "Hi Daniel Tiger, how do you do?  Show us something special that you can do!"  We of course have replaced "Daniel Tiger" with "Peter Pan," and Em always shows us something silly, like this little pose.

We all have to take turns doing something--she'll sing Tinkerbell and Captain Hook, and we all do silly poses.  One afternoon, I got to school to pick her up and the kids were all in a circle taking turns doing something special and singing this song--yes, she had taught her teacher the song and gotten everyone involved in the game.  It was great :).

We were walking into a restaurant for dinner Saturday night, and Em tripped and bit her lip pretty bad--we ended up going back to our hotel, getting seafood at the hotel restaurant, and getting in our pjs to watch Peter Pan.  Sunday morning, it was time to come home!  It turned out to be a good Valentine's Day trip for all of us.