It's her party and she'll cry if she wants to..

We ended up having to cancel Emma's birthday party. :( She started getting a fever late Wednesday night and was pretty miserable, hot and achey all day Thursday. It was the first time her fever wouldn't break from ibprofin or tylenol. Poor thing. I stayed home from work and pretty much held her all day. She didn't really eat anything- but would drink fluids. She was doing a lot better on Friday and thought we'd still do the party but then she got a low-grade fever Friday evening. That last fever was probably not really from the illness, but probably teething, because it went away with ibprofin right away and she was feeling happy and running around having a great time. She was getting her canines (all four of them just poked through about the same time..) so that made everything worse. We are still not sure what she was sick with, but didn't want her to still be contagious and make the whole nursery from church get sick.

Nancy and Kenny still came to Albuquerque on Saturday to trade cars with Ganes on Sunday and have a little family birthday party with us for Emma Jane. It ended up being a really busy weekend... and Emma was feeling a little cooped up and spoiled from all her special treatment so she threw several big fits.. it's her party and she'll cry if she wants to..thankfully I think that is all out of her system now! (and don't forget all the canines just poked though!)

Here are some things I got done before the weekend though..

My apron! It has some detailed pleats and I love the contrasting fabric.. but don't love the fit.. but I think it's because I'm hugely pregnant. (I'm somewhat worried about how much bigger I'm going to get in the next three months!!)

Our garden! I planted all the transplants last Tuesday (lots of chili peppers!!) and John and I tried to quickly build the fences around the boxes to keep Emma out. She has been digging in them for the past year and knew she would quickly destroy the garden otherwise. (we did get her a turtle sand box from a friend with lots of sand toys that she loves)

Speaking of gardens.. I signed up to get a harvest box from Los Poblanos Organics every other Tuesday. It is a huge box of delicious organic produce for 33$ (including shipping). Here's Emma enjoying her first bites out of the box.. (notice the chocolate yogurt all over her face)

I also made this little crayon holder for one of Emma's birthday presents. She loves to color and this is so much more fun than a plastic crayon tote.. that she just empties out completely right away anyways.. I love the monstor fabric.. I made it out of flannel because of the monstor fabric. Emma loves it.

Julie Tew brought over this cutest dress and jacket for her Saturday morning. She helped me decorate the cake while wearing it and then played in some water and the sand box and with Truman outside.. So it's already broken in! She was soo happy to see Julie's son Heath (or "Heaths", as she calls him). She really likes him and was really really needing some little kid interaction so I'm glad she stopped by..even for a few minutes.

Now we party! Because Saturday became so busy and we went to a graduation dinner at Quarters Saturday night we had her party kind of late .. but I guess that's not too suprising for us. Here's Emma around all the presents she openend that night. This awesome pink chair is from Nancy. It has a little shelf on the bottom for books. We LOVE it. The present she is holding is a little basket ball. Ganes had a big/little basketball hoop sent to our house. She didn't see it until Sunday night when Ganes was there.. she loved it and we all played some hoops with her for a while Sunday night. She was running around and it was really hard to get any pictures of her face.. but here are some valiant efforts..

This is the crayon holder..

I got this baby doll at a recommendation for the "Toilet Training in Less Than a Day" book. I haven't finished the book or started the training yet.. soon though. This baby pees and poops. I'm curious about the pooping part. She loves baby dolls.. but would play with this.. then throw her to the ground when she was all done.. she's not ready to hold any new infants yet!

Here is her cake! I became a lot more casual and sloppy while decorating it when we decided to cancel the party, but it has these little fun fondant shapes I made. I actually made the fondant! This was my first time working with it.. and only the second cake I've ever really decorated.. but the fondant was really not as bad or scary as I thought it would be. I found this marshmallow fondant recipe, and it actually doesn't taste too bad. I frosted the whole thing with delicious buttercream frosting, but I think I'll try to make a whole fondant frosted cake next... it's so beautiful!

Singing Happy Birthday to her and letting her blow out the candles was by far the highlight of her day. She LOVED it. "Happy to me!" She loved it so much, we did it about 5 times, and about 5 times the next day, and will for sure do it again this Saturday, the 22nd, when it's her real birthday! (and we'll be at the cabin.. horray!!!!!)

On Sunday we left Nancy and Kenny for a while so she could get some work done and we went out the the Tamaya in Bernallilo to see Ursula. We spent the whole time swimming with Emma. She LOVES the water! She did so great! She took swimming lessons last summer and did good but she is so brave now. She loves to jump in the pool and had her arm floaties on.. after about 45-60 minutes she was floating and spinning around in the water by herself! (and her floaties). She did not want to get out.. but when she finally did, she was starving and exausted. It was great. We're going to do swimming lessons again this Summer. We're going to do the second evening session at Montgomery Pool.. the Mom and Tot class. Anyone want to join us?