Emma's Birthday!

I am sure that you thought Emma's 'real' birthday had come and gone with all the birthday posts that we have had celebrating her, but there was one more celebration we had - the actual day she turned SIX!!! We loved celebrating this girl, but I am not going to lie, once we had this last birthday celebration

^ in the last post, you saw that I put out a few decorations for the morning of her birthday.  I didn't want to go completely overboard since she had a party full of decorations, but I also didn't want to do nothing because hello, I love birthdays and cannot stand the thought of my daughters feeling like we didn't celebrate. ^

^ the night before I prepped the cinnamon roll dough - I am using a new recipe that my sister gave me and these turn out even better than my previous ones. ^

^ and just like that it was February 16th and my sweet, smart, funny SIX year old was awake and tearing into her presents. ^

^ she was delighted because she got Shopkins from me and Wes. ^

^ I am not even sure what these are good for or how she knows about them (there are not really commercials here on our tv in China), but I do know that she wanted them for a really really long time. ^

^ she was pretty delighted. ^

^ Nonni sent me back to China with some gifts for the girls to pull out over the months (it comes in handy when the girls mention they are going to write a card to Nonni so that hopefully she will mail them something...) so I pulled out one gift each for the girls to open. ^

^ a rainbow loom! which totally brings me back to my childhood. ^

^ and then it was back to checking it out the Shopkins. ^

^ the cinnamon rolls were ready and we couldn't wait to dig in! ^

^ we sang the first happy birthday of the day! ^

^ made a wish! ^

^ and blew out a candle! ^

^ and then we let sis blow out a candle so we could keep the jealousy at bay and all enjoyed our cinnamon rolls. ^ 

^ I had so much fun teaching the girls how to use their looms. ^

^ I grabbed a snap of the card that Everly made for Emma - the cutest!! ^

^ such a big SIX year old! ^

^ twirls before heading out! ^

^ I love this picture of her :). ^

^ we delivered on our promise of Emma's favorite ice cream (its Haagen Daz (sp?) strawberry and it costs about $10 per little container so we only get it on special occasions). ^

^ the girls played with these poppable beads while Wes and I enjoyed our coffees. ^

^ I loved the bracelet Emma made for me ;). ^

^ before too long, we loaded up on our scooters and headed to our favorite playground to meet our neighborhood friends. ^

^ after the girls played, we all headed back to our house for a little cookout and one final Happy Birthday!! ^

^ that smile! ^

^ final wish! ^

^ and just like that, my first baby officially turned six. and I pleaded for time to slow down. as much as I love this new stage that we are in, I miss those squishy babies of mine every day. Happy Birthday Emma Lemma - we are all obsessed with you around here. Love you to the moon and back. and back. and back. and as high as our families arms can reach. ^