Countdown to Emma's second birthday
The countdown is on! Emma began celebrating her second birthday six days early, as Emma and Mommy had another whirlwind trip to NJ this past weekend. On the way down, we stopped off in Syracuse for Emma's first visit to SU and had lunch on M Street with Mommy's friend Kathryn. Emma had her first taste of a Varsity grilled cheese and bacon (one of Mommy's old favorites) and her first Cosmo's milkshakes. That would be plural because Emma had many, many sips from both Kathryn's vanilla shake and Mommy's chocolate shake too! After stopping by Mommy's old building for a brief visit, where Emma discovered just how wonderful the echo is in the Hall of Languages, we got back on the road and made our way down to NJ through lots of road construction. Emma said it was a good thing that the Wiggles and Sesame Street crews were along for the ride or she would've been a lot more antsy.

Friday morning, Emma and Mommy met up with Aunt Lauri (who has been friends with Mommy for twenty years!), Aunt Lauri's mom and her friend Alice for breakfast. Emma enjoyed the breakfast out, especially all the food on everyone else's plates, which looked much more appealing than the food Emma on her own plate. Fortunately, Lauri's mom was very willing to share her breakfast with Emma, since Emma was being very polite and using her manners. After breakfast, we headed to Lambertville to check out Aunt Megan and Uncle Matt's new house. Emma also met her cousin Kirsten for the first time. Em and Kirsten checked each other out and Em tried to play with her baby cousin before spotting one of Kirsten's cats, Heathcliff, and deciding to chase after him instead. After checking out the new digs, we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa Hunter's house for a nap before Emma's birthday week celebrations kicked off. Grandpa decorated the kitchen while Emma was napping, so when she got up and everyone arrived, the house was looking appropriately festive for a 2nd birthday party! When everyone arrived, we tried to take some pictures of the three Hunter grandchildren who were together for the first time. (For the record, Uncle Mike said Mommy could crop his head out of the shot!) As you might imagine, it isn't too easy to get a nice shot of a 2 year old, 1 year old and 2 month old where everyone is looking at the camera and smiling. This shot is the best one we got of the three Hunter girls with the three grandkids before Emma and Hunter decided they'd rather get down and play than pose for photos. Soon, it was time to eat. Everyone enjoyed the pizza and salad before Emma started to open her birthday presents. (The Richard Scarry book she is opening here is from the Bielefeldts, and Aunt Honda told Em that it was one of Uncle Sean and Uncle Joel's favorites when they were little.) Aunt Mimi put together Emma's new shopping cart while Aunt Mamie put all the appliances together. Emma thought that the new kitchen appliances Grandma and Grandpa Hunter gave her were really fun to play with. Mommy the photographer got a cute shot of Uncle Mike and Hunter while the toy assembly was being finished, too. During all the playing, we remembered that the birthday cake was ice cream and was starting to melt, so we quickly put two candles on it for Emma to blow out. (Yes, that is frosting on Mommy's sleeve, courtesy of the birthday girl who grabbed a handful and wiped it on Mommy's arm!) Emma was more interested in pushing the shopping cart around than blowing out her candles, but once the cake was served, Emma and Hunter discovered how delicious it was and began clamoring for bites of cake using any "utensils" they could find. Once Uncle Mike's cake was gone, Em and Hunter went over to Grandma to get some more! Once everyone's cake supply had disappeared, it was time for everyone to go home and for Emma to take a bath with her new bath baby doll and wash all that ice cream cake and pizza off!

The next day, Mommy went to Aunt Lauri's bridal shower while Emma went to play at White Oak Park with Grandpa and Grandma. Mommy had fun hanging out with Aunt Lauri and her friends (l-r Andrea, Lauren, Alice) and eating some more yummy cake - the cake at the shower was "Mega Chocolate" and it was "deeeelishis" as Emma would say - and Mommy got home just in time for Emma to get up from her nap. Grandma and Grandpa sure tired her out at the playground! Sunday morning we got up and hit the road for the drive back to Rochester. Emma took a snooze in the back, which made Mommy jealous, since she wanted to take a snooze too, after staying up late watching a movie with Uncle Joel Saturday night. Emma was very excited when she realized that all her cool new presents came back to Rochester with us, and she has been cooking up a storm in her toy kitchen since we got home Sunday! Emma is very excited that Gramma Bindert is coming up from Florida today to visit, and can't wait to show off all her amazing cooking skills.

As part of the countdown to Emma's birthday on Thursday, we went to see the doctor for her 2 year appointment Monday morning. Emma's official "stats" are: 34.5 inches tall and 24 lbs, 10.5 oz, which is the 76th and 25th percentile, respectively. Since "they" say you can take a girl's height at age two and double it to find out how tall she will be, it seems as though Emma will be 5'9" when she grows up - that's a tall drink of water!
- posted by Heather @ 7:48 AM