An early birthday celebration for Ems ...

Emma Joy is almost 13 … which staggers me quite a bit because … WOW. Anyway, we had a little bit of an early celebration of her day here at my Beach House with a sleepover Sunday night and then a beautiful day at Grand Haven on Monday (I have too many pictures to post--almost!). 

For the most part, there were no surprises in these gifts. The children are old enough now to pick out their own gifts from catalogs and on-line sites, and that way I know that my money will be spent on something they actually WANT. So Emma and I did our "shopping" a few weeks ago at the LEGO site. Emma loves LEGOS (as do the boys).

I picked the kiddos up at 4:00 Sunday afternoon. We opened up Emma's gifts almost right away.

There was a "free" LEGO set (very tiny) that came with her two other sets--this is what she is examining below.

I'm not sure what this expression is saying !!

Oh! I almost forgot. I did surprise her with some paint brush pens because she just loves doing artwork and the set she had from Christmas was running dry.

I did sneak ONE little surprise in for her … she has no idea what it is ...

But when she opened it up, she was VERY pleased ...

It is a package of those very skinny balloons, a pump to inflate them, and a book that shows how to make cool stuff out of them. I had given her almost the exact same thing several years ago, but the pump had broken and the balloons were long gone. Emma is very mechanical and she just loves making stuff ...

Emma was very pleased with her LEGO sets. I thought she would want to assemble them immediately ...

But instead, she went right to work full charge ahead on creating balloon animals for the boys.

She is very good at it!

I thought her giraffe was darling too.

We had a special chocolate swirly cake with 13 candles to blow out.

We sang her a very rousing HAPPY BIRTHDAY and she successfully blew all the candles OUT, first try.

NOTE TO SELF:  The kiddos do not really like this kind of cake. :( Do not purchase it for future celebrations. PS. I LOVE it. Sigh.

The very cool poodle Emma created from her balloon present. The kiddos spent the night, did not sleep very early but finally all was quiet and peaceful. We spent the next day at Grand Haven. I hope to get around to posting those pictures soon.