Emily and I spent the day shopping, since my goal is to be completely done by Thanksgiving. Here is one of our stops....

Santa was ok, but what she really wanted was to ride the reindeer!
130 am.....COMPLETION! Lots of praying this birthday cake that I had begun mixing up icing for at 8 pm and started icing at 9 (had to put a little girl to bed in there) would still be intact come morning. (but just in case I took pictures as soon as it was done to show people at least I'd finished it) Dont look at the background, it was 130 am, my normal bedtime is 9 pm, I ran out of umph to clean!
I decided on a merry go round cause Emily likes lots of things and this was how I could incorporate several of them. There was an elephant, a fish, elmo, and flip flops....
a schnauzer (the top), a horse, a slide....
a chicken (or doodle doo in emily language), and crayons
These are a few of her favorite things... (yes, think sound of music and sing that)
Party day arrived! Decorations were minimal, not exactly what I had planned, but really there are only 24 hours in any given day and eventually a person does have to sleep! If you were to look closely at the banner behind her, you would see pictures of her last year.
We've been practicing posing. Funny thing, I was trying to get her to sit in front of the presents, but she moved the one in the center and sat down front and center!


She wanted to open and play with presents as soon as they were opened and when mommy wouldnt get it out of hte box for her, she went on the go to try to get someone else to open it for her.
She was determined to get every bit of paper off of this present and was practically standing on her head to do it!
She soon figured out that there were more fun toys or shoes in all the packages.
And she had the excited suprised face down pat!
The last one was in this bag. Her daddy cut a hole in it so she was peeking in.
This was what was inside. Just have to get some chain or rope and get it hung up outside for her.
As soon as they were opened it was time to play with stuff and try it on. New houseshoes went on first.
Happy Birthday and blow out the candles.
And now play!
Jump in the bucket and ride (she loves it grandma!)
Notice the purple shoes, the princess dress up outfit and the new vacuum. Then everyone went home and we went to bed. Saturday rolled around and the dog got her hair cut, we attempted to restore order in our house, and then it was off to target for pictures. It was great! They didnt exactly pose where they were supposed to a lot but we got several cute pics. If you want to see them just let me know and I can send you a link to the pictures (it wont let me just post them)./