Emma's 5 yr birthday

Emma's 5th birthday started with several presents sent the day before and day of. Then she had pink donuts for breakfast while opening present form mommy and daddy. She was surprised with circus tickets! She was pretty excited! Next she went to school and got to wear the birthday hat and bring cupcakes for snack. It ended with the trip to the circus.

THE PARTY

Two days later she had her "popular" (Wizard of OZ/Wicked) party with her good friend Casen. It was a joint party since they had several mutual friends and their birthdays are only 4 days apart. Mrs. Julie did a lot of work getting everything ready and setting up even though she had the stomach bug. She is awesome! The party was fun. Both kids had several friends come. All the kids had fun running around in the gym. We started something this year with emma which i hope to continue. Instead of her friends brining presents for her, they brought an unwrapped toy to help support a ministry by a local church who lets underprivileged parents buy christmas presents for .25 on the dollar. That way they don't feel like they are being given charity presents. They can choose toys their kids would like and they feel pride being able to buy the toys for their family. It took several times of explaining what was going on for emma and casen to understand and accept it but i think the more we do it eventually they will understand how they are helping other children.