Happy Birthday Emma

                Happy Birthday Emma

 

Austin and I met Emma for lunch on Friday.  We brought treats and got to be there when the class sang Happy Birthday to Emma.  Her normal teacher wasn't there so she was a little disappointed not to get a birthday crown, but it wasn't really her birthday quite yet anyway so I guess it really didn't matter.  She got spoiled plenty on Saturday which more than made up for it. 

 We started off with birthday breakfast, maple bars - Emma's favorite!

 ...and a few birthday gifts from the grandparents.

(She is turning 8 and I love that she still sleeps with her favorite blanket and even carries it around in the morning.)

 

My good friend Erin made birthday banners for each of my children.  It was so fun to have hanging up for everyone to see how she has grown over the years, such a cute idea.

 We had Emma's birthday party later that afternoon.

 It was so much fun!!!

 We played lots of games.

 The M&M game is a family favorite.

We played another fun game that we simply called tape ball.  It was a giant ball of tape with candy and prizes wrapped up inside.  When they rolled doubles they got to try and unwrap prizes.  Anything they could free was their to keep.  This game was probably the hit of the party. 

Oh, and then there was the pinata.  That was a lot of fun too.  It was raining outside so we had to do this in the garage instead.  It wasn't as pretty, but the kids didn't seem to mind one bit. 

After everyone had taken a turn, (and we were running low on time) we decided to give Emma the stick without a blind fold.  She went NUTS and began whacking that poor owl over and over while all of her friends cheered and chanted.. "EMMA, EMMA, EMMA!!"

Then, we all sang Happy Birthday and had cupcakes.  I'm just glad with all the paper decor that cupcake stand didn't go up in flames.

We were still opening presents as parents started to come, but the party was a wild success.  Emma had a great time and I had a blast spending the afternoon with all of these sweet, toothless, darling friends of Emma's.

The day wasn't quite over though...
Next we went out as a family and took Emma to Build-A-Bear.  That store was meant for kids like Emma.  She LOVES stuffed animals and creating her own bear was magical. 

In our family, turning 8 means you can get your ears pierced.  Emma has been looking forward to this and claimed she wasn't nervous at all.

 Then, we went out to Red Robin for dinner, Emma's favorite.  Could that smile get any bigger?

Sunday we had the McInelly family over to continue the celebrating. Emma and Aunt Carrie have the same birthday, and Papa's birthday is the next day.  We had one giant birthday party.  Dinner, another round of the tape ball game, and chocolate cake.

Happy Birthday to Papa!

 

Happy Birthday Emma!

Subzero Ice Cream

Subzero Ice Cream is one of the coolest ice cream places around.  It's not very often that you get to see Liquid Nitrogen freeze a few tasty ingredients into ice cream right before your eyes.  Austin's preschool class took a field trip to this fun ice cream store and got a really cool science demonstration too.

Liquid Nitrogen is so cold that it began to boil once the bowl was set on the warm table.

 He blew up a balloon and when it was placed in the nitrogen, it slowly deflated...

 cool...

 

The kids were wide eyed and there were lots of oohs and ahhs when the balloon was pulled out and got big again. 

This picture doesn't do justice, but it was really cool when he dumped liquid nitrogen onto the floor and ice crystals skated across the floor towards the children. 

 

 

 The best part was when they got to see their ice cream made fresh, oh that liquid nitrogen is pretty cool.

 And the ice cream was delicious!

We didn't plan this, but it sure was funny to show up and see Austin and his favorite friend Cade wearing the exact same outfit!!

 

Austin and his super cool, very sweet, loving and wonderful preschool teacher Miss Cindy.  We all just adore her.