BIRTHDAYS!!

I love sharing a birthday with Emma.  When she was a baby I was kind of sad for her that she had to share a birthday with me, especially because mine comes first.  I remember thinking I wish she was born the day before my birthday instead of the day after so that she could be in the spotlight and we could just kind of forget my birthday.  That's not the hand we were dealt though so we make the most of it and every year we get a two day party!  

This year was good for Emma because my birthday landed on a Sunday. There's not a whole lot you can do on Sunday so we were pretty low key.  I had to go to Ward Council in the morning and was commanded to come home between my meeting and the beginning of sacrament meeting. When I got home I was surprised with a great present.  Everyone was ready for church and lined up with something behind their backs.  They sat me down in the "birthday chair" and they each took a turn to wish me happy birthday.

Ethan was first:  "Happy Birthday Mom! I love you! I promise to be more helpful."
Then Emma: "Happy Birthday Mom! I love you! I promise to be more loving."
Hannah: "Happy Birthday Mom! I love you! I promise to be more patient."
Isaac: "Happy Birthday Mom! I love you! I promise to give you more hugs."
JayDee: "Happy Birthday! I love you! I promise to give you more time. Specifically tomorrow."
 
As each of them wished me happy birthday they also handed me a $20 bill rolled up and tied with ribbon, so at the end I had $100!  JayDee's promise was to take me and that money and go shopping the next day for whatever I wanted.  We had a great time shopping together.  JayDee was so amiable and helpful. He sat in dressing rooms for hours and didn't complain one time. It was way fun!  And yes, we shopped on Emma's birthday but she never missed us because she was at Boondocks for most of the day with Grandma.  Happy Birthday to both of us!

After church, where I was sung to by all my cute primary kids, I got a Sunday nap and then we were off to Grandma and Grandpa Taggart's for our birthday dinner.  I picked the menu, Dad's famous BBQ chicken, spinach strawberry and mandarin salad, corn on the cob, and watermelon and Emma picked dessert, Chocolate Chiffon Cake.  YUMMY!

That was it for my birthday but just the beginning of Emma's.  Emma turned 8 this year.  She is so excited to be 8.  She found the baptism schedule for the year in my primary binder in January and has been telling everyone since that her baptism is going to be on August 6th.
Look forward to that post.  It'll be a good one...hopefully. :)

Emma woke up to the customary birthday decorations and presents.  

She got new clothes (mostly for school), hair stuff and a real set of scriptures.

I loved after we sort of dispersed to get ready for the day that Emma told me her most favorite present was her scriptures.  She said she had wanted those most.  Really she had never mentioned scriptures to me or JayDee before but I sure was happy that she loved them so much.

Like I said before Emma spent most of the day with Grandma Taggart at Boondocks for her birthday date, and then at 7:30pm she had a late night birthday party with her friends. Her party was so much fun!  I love her friends.  I love that they are all good girls and get along so well.  Emma wanted them to come in their pajamas, they watched Evan Almighty (which I thought was kind of an interesting choice for a group of girls but they loved it! I loved listening to their shrieks of laughter when something funny happened. I could almost predict when the laughter would start and every time it made me smile).  They ate popcorn, candy, cookies and drank lemonade.  

Getting ready for the movie

  

They ate so much during the movie that no one wanted cake after.

We lit the candles and sang anyway and then went straight to presents.

After presents we were getting ready to go out and light fireworks when JayDee came in and said it was raining.  Awwwww... I told them as long as the fused stayed dry we could still light them so out we went.  

We opened the garage and they stood inside at first.

It didn't rain for long (which I suspected) and soon they were running all over shrieking with delight.  And because I love Emma so much I bought ONE aerial firework for the finale.  I did not however get a picture of that one but I did get a picture of this one. Hooray for fireworks!

We finished the party with a rousing game of "Ghost in the Graveyard."  Another opportunity for more shrieks and laughing.  They had so much fun that one little girl started crying when her mom came to get her. 

I was completely exhausted after our birthday celebrations but we had such a good time I wouldn't have had it any other way.