Happy Birthday, Emily!

This past weekend we, and apparently the whole country, celebrated the 5th birthday of my niece, Emily.  You probably saw the fireworks.  On Sunday, she had not one, but TWO birthday parties back-to-back.  The first was with her friends, and then the second was with the family.

While my daughter, Rachel, attended both festivals, the rest of my clan just attended the second.

Let me tell you, I have NEVER seen a pile of gifts like the gifts that were showered on this kid in my life.  It was quite amazing.  Emily, however, took all of this in with an unusual sense of calmness and peace about her.  NOT.  There were nearly hysterical outbursts of delight for EACH AND EVERY GIFT.  

Did I mention there were a lot of gifts?  There were a lot of outbursts.

In reality, instead of taking photos, someone should have been taking video of the event. Emily is quite the character and had us all in stitches.

 

Here she is giving her big sister Hannah the "thumbs up" signal on Hannah's gift to her.  Success!

 

This shot captures the tail end of one of her squeals of delight.  "Squeal" is definitely the correct word to use in this situation.

 

This, in many ways, was the grand finale gift.  This doll house was a collaboration between my dad, who cut out and assembled the house (from scrap lumber, amazingly), my wife, who did the painting, decorating and most of the furniture building, and my youngest daughter Rachel, who did all the furniture and decorating on the third floor, plus made a front porch.  

The interesting thing about this dollhouse is that it is scaled to match Emily's treasured Poly Pocket collection!  That meant that everything had to be custom made, as Poly Pockets do NOT match one of the standard dollhouse scales.

I was totally expecting huge, ear-splitting screams when she pulled the wrapping off the house, judging from the reaction to the rest of her gifts and the fact that about 2 weeks ago she mentioned to her mom how she'd REALLY REALLY like a dollhouse.

Instead, there was silence.  I think it might have been STUNNED silence, but their was silence non-the-less.  In short order, though, she made the trip upstairs to fetch those Poly Pockets and returned to play with the house.

 

Here's Emily feeding her very realistic baby doll, that responds to your touch.  You'll notice that in the background, full-grown adults are now playing with the dollhouse!

Happy Birthday, Emily!  I hope it was a great one!

Comments

[Nanna J]

WOW! How wonderful!
Happy Birthday Emily!!
Looks like it was a whole lot of fun!
Lots of pink!