Happy 3rd Birthday, Emerson!

Emerson turned 3 on December 4.  Our little girl is an extremely social, outgoing, talkative bundle of energy with loads of personality and spunk.  She has recently decided that she adores all things princess, Barbie, and TinkerBell, and loves dressing up.  She loves playing with other kids, spending time outdoors, singing, and helping in the kitchen.  Emerson loves learning: she loves movies and toys that teach her letters, sounds, and words.  She is in the 81st% for height and 95th% for weight. 

After celebrating her birthday at Thanksgiving time with my family, we had our friends Dan, Tracy, and Jayce over to celebrate with us the night before her birthday.  On her actual birthday, we opened gifts at home, skyped with grandmas and grandpas, went out for lunch at Red Robin, and then she spent the evening with her cousin Mackenzie (we had Nick's company Christmas party that night).  Then she got to celebrate her birthday again the next weekend with the Mayra side of the family, but those pictures will be coming soon :-)

She insisted on putting on a princess dress before eating her birthday cake!

Blowing out the candles on her ocean-themed cake and cupcakes

Mmmmmm!

Opening gifts on her birthday (it's still dark outside...she was up early!)

Emerson and Red Robin

An ice cream sundae for the birthday girl! (Notice the princess doll on the table that had to accompany us to lunch?)

Opening presents another day...I think she got a gift every day in December!

3 Year Pictures

We had Emerson's 3 year pictures taken by Nikki Loren last month.  She did a fabulous job with our little girl!  I just can't get over how grown up she looks in some of these pictures.  Here are some of our favorites...enjoy!

  

Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving with my family at my Aunt Jane and Uncle Rex's house this year.  We were thrilled to see this whole side of my family.  It's been years since we've all been together!  And the group has grown significantly, as you can see!  My favorite part of the day: all of the grandparents sat at one table with the kids and we parents got to sit and enjoy a meal without children! :-)

Madison, James, Mackenzie

Me, Lisa, Pam

Lori, Courtney

Grandma Ross with her grandchildren

After the Thanksgiving meal, we went back to my parents' house to celebrate Christmas since we were all together and also celebrated the birthdays of Gary, Steve, Nick, and Emerson.  We packed a lot of celebrating into one weekend!

Anderson & Girls

I'm making an effort to FINALLY get caught up today!  My apologies!

Back in October, we took a trip to Anderson & Girls Farm in Stanton.  After dining on some delicious doughnuts, we wandered around to see the many animals they have.  There were reindeer, zebras, camels, tortoises, horses, pigs, sheep, goats, etc.  Emerson loved every minute of it!



She was so excited to see a reindeer up close!



She talks about riding horses all the time, but was a little hesitant to actually do it! 

This one was more her speed :-)

Finally...1st Haircut!

Emerson finally got her first haircut today!  It's not a drastic change by any means, but she got over 2 inches cut off the back and got it trimmed all over.  She sat really still (which is extremely rare for her) and after a few minutes, she loosened up and smiled.  I'm not sure that she enjoyed the haircut, but she did like the sucker, barrette, and stickers they gave her at the salon!

Halloween 2010

This slideshow generated with Smilebox

For Grandpa Mike & Grandma Lisa

Trip to the Farm

We went to visit Grandma & Grandpa Ross on the farm for the weekend.  Emerson had told them she wanted to "go to the corn" so we ventured out to the harvested corn field to see what we could find.  Emmie found lots of ears to take home and to "peel" (her words).  She took a short ride on one of Grandpa's tractors and had a fun time running around in his "little red wagon" too. 

On Sunday after church, we had a big family dinner, which at Grandma & Grandpa's house is always followed by dessert.  Emerson wasn't interested in the pie, but had a great time devouring the ice cream sundae--and making the biggest mess you can imagine.  I'm pretty sure her whole face was in the bowl at one point!  She entertained us all and loved the attention, of course :-)

I love this face!

Pumpkin Patch

We went to the pumpkin patch and apple orchard a few weekends ago with Aunt Pam, Uncle Steve, Mackenzie, and Madison.  Can you tell Emerson loves spending time with her cousins?  We had a great time picking pumpkins, petting the animals, playing in the corn, and of course, having cider and doughnuts!

ArtPrize 2010

Jeff, Lesley, Noah, and Koen came from Chicago to visit us this past weekend!  We all had a wonderful time together and the kids had soooo much fun playing with each other (and provided the rest of us with lots of laughs!)  After church on Sunday, we all went downtown and walked around at ArtPrize.  We saw some amazing sculptures, paintings, photographs, etc.  We had the most gorgeous weather this weekend...we thought about sitting outdoors at lunch but it was too warm!  Really--in Michigan in October!  It was a fabulous family weekend!

Emerson was tired of walking so she decided to push her own stroller instead



She loves the water and fountain by the Gerald R Ford Museum.  One of my favorite ArtPrize entries is in the background.  Check out the website 20 Liters for more info on the meaning behind this piece!



One of the exhibits was called "Play Me, I'm Yours".  It was a group of pianos (all decorated differently) placed around the city for people to sit down and play. 

Jeff and Lesley pushing Koen and Emerson

Uncle Nick pushing Noah