Happy Birthday, Emma!

You are 2! I can't believe how much has happened in the last year - You are One Busy Girl!

You have changed so much in the last year and we are all so proud of how much you have accomplished. Here are just a few of the things you were up to this year:

• Lifting up your head and turn it from side to side without throwing your body around
• Learned to sign "more" and "all done"
• Received a cochlear implant, had it activated and are playing with your voice. Finnegan and Julia are your favorites to talk to!
• Know a lot of what we are saying - for example, when you slump over and we tell you to sit up without any visual clues, you sit up straight!
• Love, Love, Love to read books! Playing with puzzles, blocks and bubbles are also some of your favorite activities.
• Learned to give high and low fives!
• Started riding your pony Mercedes and learned to like the farm (thank goodness for the goats!)
• Reach out for anything and everything that we put if front of you so you can check it out
• Can sit *unassisted* for several seconds at a time and can sit with very minimal assistance for a very long time
• Started trying to crawl
• Started eating more foods - with birthday cake as the most recent food you like!
• Learned to use switches effectively and are using them to help with your language development
• Took lots and lots of field trips! With your car seat now facing forward, you don't start to fuss in the seat unless you've been in it more than 1.5 hours, which makes us want to take you everywhere! This year you went to the beach, had sleepovers at your grandparents houses without Mom and Dad, saw Sesame Street Live!, went to the Blue Rocks games a few times and made a lot of trips to museums, the zoo and the aquarium. You love to go out and people watch!
• Like to make a lot of noise in Church - and look around at all the people and smile while you are doing it! - and know that we will not shush you at all.

I'm working on making a slideshow of all the highlights of your 2nd year, but didn't finish it yet! I'll have it done soon so that you can show it to everyone. We LOVE you SOOOOO MUCH, Emma! Happy birthday, sweetheart!

*****

Although we will have a little family party for you on the weekend, we wanted to do something special to celebrate your actual birthday. So, you helped Mommy and Julia make a cake for your birthday dinner. You insisted on frosting it yourself and just loved playing in the cake and eating it while you were frosting it. I think it turned out to be the most beautiful cake I've even seen. It made me so happy to see you enjoy your cake so much!