June: Emma's 3rd Birthday!!!

We knew this year that Emma’s birthday would be less eventful due to Corona Virus restrictions. Last year she had about 15 guests!! Before getting into this year's "party", I first took lots of pictures with her birthday shirt on, using decorations we had left over from last year. I didn't want to spend money on new decorations when it was just us. Mainly I just bought her a birthday shirt (the peach one with a rainbow), flowers, and the Happy Birthday sign on her brownie cake tower. 

I also took less decorative birthday pictures that were The Office themed, since that is what my friend Alex did for me the day before, on my birthday when I had to work. As Dwight Schrute said, "This is more professional!" She really enjoyed playing with the balloons though. 

Last year we had a lot of friends and family over to celebrate, but this year we did not even invite our parents because of the Corona Virus, so it was just the three of us. I did, however, advertise a “virtual birthday party” where I promised to upload pictures of Facebook every few hours so everyone could join us via the Internet. It was a stressful success. Michael told me to calm down and not post every handful of pictures or videos right after taking them, “but I promised!” If I could go back in time, I would not have done that and just simply uploaded all the pictures after she was sung to and the presents were opened. 

Michael putting together the bouquet for me,

and then a photo from a few days later when the flowers started to bloom!!

I like making her cake, but since she can’t even eat any of it, I made what I wanted: Brownies. And my 33^rdbirthday was the day before hers! Michael needed to work on Emma’s birthday, so we could have extra income, which was fine, so we did the photoshoots that day, and we saved the actual celebrations for when he was home on Saturday. I tend to forget that Emma does not like opening a lot of presents. Including Christmas, she often begins crying and gets tired after three presents. She is a humble Amish girl. So we took a break in between… and then I posted pictures of what she had already opened onto Facebook. We did light 3 candles on her brownie tower, but first made sure to turn off and unplug the oxygen concentrator and go in a different room so we would have no risk of our house exploding due to the small flames. 

The best part about announcing her birthday early on Facebook, was that I let everyone (well, people I am friends with/ family friends, etc, not any random stranger) know that if they wanted to send Emma a birthday card, they could send me a private message and I would give them our address. So she got about 10 extra cards than she normally does! And Grace, who was Emma’s first physical therapist at home, sent a beautiful sunflower quote frame that went perfectly with the “You Are My Sunshine” theme. Setting everything up for only us to enjoy made me think of that time I created a birthday spread for our dog, Sasha, when we lived in California in 2013. It was all for fun!

A couple of weeks after Emma’s birthday, using money she was given, Michael ordered her this princess tent with a shag rug and lights. She spends a lot of time in there now. 

We're looking forward to having a big, healthy party again next year!! :)