Emily’s 7th Birthday

 

Emily’s birthday is three days after Christmas.  There’s barely enough time to fold up the boxes and tissue paper from Christmas, clean up the family room and bake a cake. Emily had requested her cake and presents at lunchtime and Red Robin for dinner.  To begin her perfect birthday schedule she went with Dad to the grocery store to pick out her cake.  They came home with chocolate cake, chocolate icing, colorful sprinkles and seven white candles.  She and I made it together and then we waited for lunch to arrive.  

Luke was VERY interested in all of Emily’s festivities.  We could tell that he still vividly remembered his November birthday only six weeks earlier.  In fact, when we said, “It’s Emily’s birthday!” he would shake his head and say, “No, Doot’s bir-day!” and point to himself.  Emily was nice enough to let him remain extra close to all the action and be her birthday helper.

Emily singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to herself.   Luke thinking we’re singing to him.
 

Luke overjoyed when Emily blew out all her candles.



When Emily started opening her presents BY HERSELF, Luke was furious to not be included in the action.  He tried to get his arms in there but Emily kept blocking him.
   
From G&G Walton she got four Fairy plaques to go in her room and 7 dollars!  Thank you!
From G&G Johnson she got the Anne of Green Gables movies, a new ‘You Read to Me’ book and a new outfit.  Thank you!
From Aunt Lindsey, Aunt Ashlyn and Aunt Nikole… a Yoga outfit for her American girl doll.  Thank you!
From us Emily got a Lego camper, an American girl sweatshirt for her doll, a Rummikub game (which she wants to play all the time now), new white addidas running shoes, (which she LOVES!) 7 dollars (which she got twice and which is one of the things she asked Santa for but he did not deliver), and a wrapped up piece of paper with three movie options… Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeakquel, or A Christmas Carol.  All the kids were so excited with such a fantastic birthday afternoon surprise. Emily picked ‘The Chipmunk movie’ without any hesitation.  The movie times were listed right on her paper which told us the next movie was starting in only ten minutes.  Dad, Ryan, Katie, Emily and Megan rushed out to the movies while I stayed home with the sleeping boys.  Chris said it was torture but Emily absolutely loved it!

Emily’s birthday evening included practicing riding her new bike, dinner at Red Robins’ (spaghetti, fries and chocolate milk), being sung Happy Birthday to by the Red Robin staff, and going home to finally eat cake and ice cream while watching UP.  What a great day!  Happy Birthday big girl.

Check out Chris' first iMovie creation...
Emily's 7th Birthday video

No Empty Chairs

‘No Empty Chairs’ is our family motto.  After every family prayer we all put our right hands together, curl them around and shout our motto while moving our collective hands up and down.  We do it every day, after every family prayer, and have done it for years and years.  We have lots of special memories of our handshake.  Extra hands from visits of Grandmas and Grandpas and family and friends… several new little baby hands set on top for their first family handshake… little toddler hands grabbing on to thumbs during our handshakes and shouting CHAIRS at the top of their lungs… little lefty girls sticking their ‘wrong’ hand in for a backwards handshake… Lots of times our handshakes end in giggles.  Always they end with smiles.

Ryan, Katie and Emily have a great understanding of our motto… that we want our whole family to make it back to live with Heavenly Father, and that we need to help and encourage every member of our family to get there.  Megan and I were in the van alone recently and I began a conversation about our family motto.  I asked, “What does ‘no empty chairs’ mean, Megan?”  She answered, “We want to all get to heaven.  And if we are all there and we’re looking around and Emily is not there, then we’ll be sad.”  (I don’t know why she used Emily in her example!) 

One of my favorite Christmas gifts this year was from my parents.  They special ordered necklaces and key chains engraved with our family motto.  For me, a large square pendant.  For the girls, a round pendant with the motto on one side and their initial on the other.  For Chris and the boys, key chains with their initial and our motto below.  We skyped Grandma and Grandpa late on Christmas afternoon and opened the small boxes in front of them.  Yes, I cried.  Thanks again for such a thoughtful and meaningful gift, Mom and Dad. We love them!

Christmas Day 2009

We told the kids 7:30 but we were tired and didn’t make it over to their ‘wing’ until 7:50.  They were following the strict instructions to stay until we came over.  Ryan and Katie were up and pacing the floor.  The rest of them were asleep.  Dad woke them up and led them all one at a time past the family room into our room covering their eyes along the way.  We brushed hair, brushed teeth, woke and changed Matthew and said family prayer.  During the brushing hair part and with all the talking and excitement no one realized Luke had escaped.  “Mom, where’s Luke?”  Chris ran out to the family room and found him playing with his present from Santa.  Laughing, Chris scooped him up and brought him back in the room.  He was pretty ticked, but when he got back in the room with us, we excitedly asked, “Luke, Did Santa bring you a toy?”  He started jumping up and down.  “Ya!”  The kids asked him what was out there and thought they heard him say a sentence ending with ‘Choo choo’. 

After a line up picture in the hall we ran out.  Sure enough, Luke got a ‘choo choo’  GeoTrax train set.  So did Matthew.  Megan got a doll stroller, Emily got a bike, Katie got Legos and Ryan got a backpack and sleeping bag.  In our stockings we all got BYU football Pez, gift cards to Barnes and Noble,and M&M candy canes.  The girls got American Girl shirts and had a stuffed lion, cheetah, and tiger hanging out of the top.  The little boys got more animals and little Toy Story figurines.  Ryan got more camping stuff.  I got socks, perfume and bath and body stuff.  Chris got socks and more socks. 

The kids were thrilled with their Santa presents.  Ryan liked his backpack but was just as excited about the little boys train sets.  Within minutes he had them connected together to make one big set and was showing Luke exactly what to do.   A big boy to help with all the set up for the little boys.  Santa is so smart.  The girls were so excited about the stuffed animals hanging out of their stockings and spent the next half hour cuddling and naming them.

After enjoying our Santa presents and stockings for a while we paused to make breakfast. Sausage, potatoes, scrambled eggs and cheese all mixed together.  When we were done we settled back in the family room to start opening presents.  Ryan grabbed a small one from the tree and handed it to us.  “This has to be the first present of the day.” he said.  The girls opened the small box to find our little fabric baby Jesus with a note that said, “Remember the real meaning of Christmas”.  He is a sweet boy.  Our opening present tradition is that we take turns picking a present under the tree but you can’t pick one for yourself.  The kids get so excited about picking the presents that they bought or picked out for each other.  We took our time, opening one present at a time, giving thank you hugs, and even taking several breaks to just play.  When we finished opening at 3:00, the room was a disaster.  We left the mess, and Chris and I took a nap while the kids got out the legos, played with the train set and watched the movie ‘UP’ all at the same time.   When Chris and I woke up we ate leftovers of our fancy Christmas Eve dinner and straightened up the family room.  Later that night we skyped our families and opened up their presents.  It was SUCH A GOOD DAY!