Emily's Second Birthday - Part 2

When we got home from Fair Oaks Farm, we almost jumped in to opening presents. Emily got distracted by a balloon that fell out of a box when we were getting tape for her adding her pumpkin to the wall. We blew it up for her and she played with it for awhile, which is always fun to watch.

I asked Emily to smile and she started with a closed face and scrunched eyes, followed by a grimace. Then she grabbed her camera (Christine’s MP3 player) to take my picture with. This is how the majority of picture taking goes now.

She picked her gift from Grandma Blomquist first because she really liked the ribbon bow on it. She was particular about getting all the scraps of paper in the garbage as she unwrapped it. She was making great progress but kept saying, “help me mommy” and then, “I did it!!” when I didn’t rush in to help and she ripped a piece off her herself. When she opened the box and saw a shirt she stated matter of factly, “clothes, baby boy.” When we told them they were actually for her she was very excited they were “my clothes.”

Emily wanted to open the “pink one” next, which took no explanation at all as she pulled out the tissue paper and pulled out her gift – the oven I made her. We plopped it onto a chair and handed her the gift from my parents to help make sense of it all. When she pulled out my old dishes and food she knew exactly what to do and recruited Aunt Christine to join in her cooking adventures.

Eventually we suggested she open another bag which had some more food to add to her kitchen. She pulled out a strawberry and piece of lettuce and went right back to cooking, ignoring the rest.

Andrew pulled out his present for her after some more playtime. He had designed tools (during his spare moments for weeks) and 3D printed her an awesome set including her very own hammer, saw, screw driver, and wrench. The apron my childhood set came with doubles as a fantastic tool belt.

For dinner we had papa johns hawiian pizza, another one of Emily’s favorite meals (the pizza part with pineapple anyway, I don’t think she’s ever had papa johns). We followed with her birthday treat of raspberries, oreos, with homemade frozen yogurt that didn’t freeze (turns out the can wasn’t frozen well enough but we tried again two days later with the leftover mixture and it was awesome).

Andrew put her two candles inside the raspberries and after we sang to her she tried to blow them out. After a few attempts she said, “Daddy help me” and Andrew obliged.

Emily really wanted to try a cookie and LOOOOOOOOOVED it. She ignored her raspberries and asked for one more cookie after the first. We indulged her on her birthday. That girl was in heaven and I was thrilled I didn’t waste one second on making a cake.

My family hung around with us on Sunday morning before heading home. Emily decided when we were at the grocery store the previous Thursday that she really wanted to buy fingernail polish and paint her toenails outside. The last time we painted toenails was when we visited my family back in March and Aunt Christine painted her toes on the deck, so I was shocked she remembered. I suggested we wait a few days for Aunt Christine to come. She was thrilled to have her toenails painted blue with pick dots.