This is Emily on her 3rd birthday. She had an Esmeralda party. At the time, we had never seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame, nor has since then, it become one of our favorites. However, for whatever reason, Emily was taken with the Esmeralda dress at the Disney Store. Emily and I were great window shoppers and the Disney store was one of our favorite places to go. I don't know if it was the jingle in the sash or the colors but it was all Emily would talk about. Well, Ryan and I decided we would splurge and get her the dress. Wouldn't you know that the store was out of her size. And, that was before you could jump on the Internet and order one. So the store said they could order one and it would be shipped directly to our house. I was thrilled. I had never spent so much on a dress, much less a costume dress, and it was going to be shipped to my house BEFORE her birthday, the sales lady assured me. Thirty minutes BEFORE her party was to begin, a friendly lady from the Disney store called to let me know that my order had arrived. We lived in Fletcher and the Disney Store was in Asheville - 30 minutes away. Needless to say, I was livid. We had the party, I had already bought Emily a little Esmeralda dress from Wal-Mart (just in case the Disney store fell through). When the party was over, Emily came into the house, laid on the floor and said she was sleepy. We checked her head, only to find a temperature of 102. So, a sick child, no present from her parents, no fancy Esmeralda dress. The day was a wash.
This is Emily the next day, feeling much better after a few doses of Motrin and a trip to the mall for her dress. It was not a pretty sight at the Disney store. Let's just say, we got five dollars off the price of the dress. It was years before I ever ordered anything from there again. Emily, however, was thrilled and I even let her wear her dress to school (daycare) the next day. For any of you that know me, that was QUITE a stretch! :) The crazy thing is, we are studying the Muslim culture in school and Alexa came down to lunch today wearing this dress. This is her idea of what Muslim women must wear. I guess I got my $25 worth out of this costume.
This is Emily's 4th birthday. This is the party where my love affair with birthdays began. It was by far, my most inspired party. At the time, Emily loved Blue's Clues. It had just begun to come on tv and the market was not crazy like it is now with Blue's Clues EVERYTHING. So, I improvised. My friend Tracey helped me orchestrate the games. We called it Emily's clues. Her cake had her two hands in pink icing on the top. We would play "Emily's Clues" to decide what to do. We had the clues for Duck, Duck, Goose, pin the tail on the donkey, have cake, and open presents. It was ALOT of fun. Ryan said I should sell my idea. Months later, you could buy it in blue's clues form along with a Blue cake pan for $19.99 at Kmart. 
These are her friends that came to the party. Poor Taylor, (the only boy) was subject to all of Emily's parties - they were great buds. I have to say, Emily endured her turn at the Tonka party he had. The baby crunched beside Emily is Owen. Our neighbor, Hope, insisted he had to be in the picture.
This is Emily's 5th Birthday. The craze at the time was Arthur. (A couple of months after this, she got a dog which she named Arthur Read.) We just had a small gathering at my moms and we took her to Chuck-E-Cheese. We had just moved to Youngsville a few weeks before and since the school thing hadn't worked out too well, we hadn't met many people. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures at Chuck-E-Cheese. I was still under the impression that GOOD mothers bake birthday cakes and have parties at home. Ha, have I learned MY lesson! :)
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