Emmett's 3rd Birthday

A month ago today, on Sept 9th my baby turned 3 years old. I guess that means I don't have any babies anymore. Or at least, that's what my boys keep telling me, that they're not my baby.

Emmett couldn't decide what kind of birthday he wanted. Oddly, the most commonly mentioned theme was a carrot birthday. Carrot? What? Why? Who knows. He also said a squirrel birthday, which sort of made sense since he's been big on those lately, always excited to see one. In fact, when he starts falling asleep in the car and we don't want him to we'll yell, "squirrel!" a la Doug in the movie Up and that always makes his head snap up. Once he said a Patrick birthday as in Patrick Star from Spongebob, but I wasn't interested in that and that really wasn't defining for him either, so that was left in the dust. He once mentioned a Mater from the Pixar movie Cars which would have been okay, except we've already done Cars 3 times and it still didn't feel like the right fit.

Not too long after we started asking Emmett what theme he wanted he just said all sneaky-like or all cranky-like depending on the day, "I'm not telling you!"

Fine. Then I'm not making a birthday party for you.

Finally, I decided I knew exactly what he should have. A Roo birthday. Back at the end of June, I posted about how Emmett had decided he was Roo and I was Kanga from Winnie the Pooh and then the rest of the family received characters as well. Well, if anything that has just become more ingrained since then. Emmett regularly refers to me as Kanga instead of Mom and likes to be referred to himself as Roo. Dad and brothers get called their character names too but with less regularity. Mostly it's a Kanga and Roo thing.

So, he got a Roo birthday. Not that you can find Roo on any purchasable birthday gear, so I just used coloring pages of Roo I found online. Here's the little bit of decorations I did and he absolutely loved! It was really cute when he came in and saw them he immediately pointed out with great excitement, "Look! There's me catching dragonflies, and me hugging Mom!" etc.


I went the same route with his presents.


Aunt Angela made a Roo cake for him, which was pretty good since she was just working from memory instead of checking against a picture!


I love Emmett's response I caught to this gift from Papa and Grandma Hunsaker.


I also think the "would you hurry up and open it" anticipation is cute too.


Heavy present! Hmm, squishy, what is this?


And a matching blanket! Which of course should immediately be put on the head and spun in. And a matching stuffed dinosaur!


Which was SUPER exciting to have. Obviously I didn't quite catch his throwing it in the air in excitement. Then he wouldn't let go of him while getting the next gift... Which was a blue stuffed dinosaur to match the set.


Then it was time for cake and ice cream and he sang to himself.


After blowing out the candles, all the kids got a chunk of arm or tail which was rice crispy treats covered in modeling chocolate.


And once the party was over, Mom and Dad put together all the new bedding on the new (to him - it was mine as a kid) big boy bed that Dad got ready earlier in the day and Emmett hadn't seen yet. Up to now he's still been in his crib which we just hadn't bothered with since he's been getting himself in and out of it without any trouble since he was 18 months. When he walked into his room that night his reaction was priceless. He was so excited! For about five days we didn't even have any problems with him sneaking out of bed after being put there because he was so happy with his new bed. He's back to his old antics of getting out constantly now, but we're just glad he loves his new bed.


Emmett's 3 year check-up showed him to still be off the chart tall, but about 90-95% in weight so he a lot more solid than Avery's ever been in his off the chart tallness. Despite that level of weight and his being more solid, we still have a problem with pants being too fat for him, which just goes to show how tall and solid he really is!