Ryan and Emmalee's Birthdays

We decided to have the kids' birthday party on Dec 24th before the

Christmas Eve festivities began. By the time the kids' actual birthdays rolled around, there would have been no one here to celebrate with us!

The boys had plans to go to Fast Lane for racing (more on that later), and the girls

were just going to stay home. Nana came up with the idea to surprise Emmalee by

taking her to Build-A-Bear, her all-time favorite store.

Mom, Grandma Theresa and I headed to the mall. Once we got there, Mom sat on a bench and called Emma over to her. She asked Emma what her favorite store in the mall was. Mom told her that we were going to Build-A-Bear and she could pick anything she wanted, and here was Emma's reaction...

...totally priceless. That's one happy face!

She had spied Clarise in the window when we were at the mall earlier in the month, so she headed straight for her.

She had such a look of concentration on her face. She was very concerned that she was going to overstuff Clarise and kept stopping to ask if that was enough.

Ahhhh...thanks, Nana!

Nana and Grandma lending a hand.

This is my favorite photo! Emma's look of pure joy with Nana looking over her shoulder in the mirror. So sweet!

We made it back to Fast Lane just in time to take a group photo of the racers before they hit the track. Included are: Dad, Bob, Johnny, Brandon, Ryan, Dustin, Violet, Amanda, Uncle Bob,

Emmalee (she says she'll race as soon as they have a pink car) and Scott, with

Jeannie in the front. Randy R, Matt and Max came after the photo was taken.

Ryan and his favorite racing buddy.

The Racing Grammy with her granddaughter, Amanda, who I

babysat when she was an infant. Sigh...

My camera does not take very good action shots, but I liked these two.

That's Bob on the left and Ryan on the right.

Here's the birthday boy after the first race, which he won!!

And he got his best time so far...22.157 seconds.

After the trips to Build-A-Bear and Fast Lane, we all headed back to the house

for cupcakes, icecream and a few birthday presents.

Ryan ~ 10 :: Emmalee~6

Grandma and Grandpa watching the kids open their presents.

Got his "lipstick!"

Emma has wanted a lava lamp since she saw one on our trip to Arizona.

She was quite excited to get it and plugged it right in so it would warm up.

I've always thought that my kids were at least of average intelligence. Bob looked over after

the lava lamp had been plugged in for a couple of hours. The kids wanted to see if it was hot to the touch, so guess how they were going to test it? With their tongues!!! Bob saw them just as they were about to put it to the test. Oh my!

I went the easy route this year and made the kids' favorite Hershey

cupcakes from scratch (simply the best chocolate cake and frosting recipes ever...found on the back of the Hershey Cocoa Powder container) rather than

making shaped cakes and decorating them (for hours).

Trying out their gifts.

Thanks to everyone who helped the kids celebrate their birthdays!