Emma's Birthday/Match Day

 March 16th was both Emma's birthday and Kurt's match day. Two very big events for our family in one day. It was a busy day! Emma started off the day with balloons and a banana, two of her favorite things. She also got lots of milk, which is pretty much her favorite thing to eat/drink these days. I'm pretty sure she uses it as a meal replacement, since she's a little pickier about what foods she eats.

 The night before, Naomi told me she needed green socks to wear to preschool since they were having a St. Patrick's Day parade at preschool (she calls it "Leprechaun Day"). But she didn't have any! Fortunately the leprechauns caught wind of her dilemma and sewed her some for her to find that morning. Emma got some as well. The leprechauns were also nice enough to leave some Lucky Charms, which we ate for breakfast.

 Emma got to open a present from Nana that morning. What could it be?

 A backpack! Or "ba-pa" as Emma calls it. Emma loves backpacks and is excited to have her very own!

 She also got cards from three sets of grandparents! "Day-Doo!" as Emma would say ("thank you").

 Emma has decided that rain boots go with everything. Doesn't matter what she's wearing. She'd wear them to church if I let her. I think she likes that she can put them on herself.

 Then off we went to match. Here we are walking to Kurt's school.

 This is the auditorium where we waited for our match results. It was pretty packed and we were kind of late, so we were pretty lucky to find three seats together in the back. Actually, we kind of kicked a guy out so we could sit together. Whoops.

 The gang. Emma wore her "birthday girl" shirt so everyone would know it was a big day for her, too.

 Before everyone could go get their envelopes with their match in it, a band played, and people got to vote for  "best of" types of questions. As you can see above, we are clearly tied for cutest kids in the class. :) (The most votes was for "all of the above" but we tied with Cesar for second highest).

 Emma had to take her baby. Baby goes pretty much everywhere with her these days.

 The countdown! All the medical students across the country who participate in the match find out at exactly 12 pm EST the location of where they matched.

 Naomi strikes a pose while we wait.

 Loma Linda, California! We tried to brace ourselves the night before for our worst case match scenario, but Kurt got his number one! We were all so happy, including Naomi who had told me she'd be sad if we matched anywhere else. She's excited we'll be close to Disneyland!

 The celebrate the match, the school fed us all Dinosaur Barbecue. Yum! Here is Emma sporting her sweet pea bib.

 That night was the ward Scout auction and spaghetti dinner. As you can see, we Naomi had blue ice cream afterwards.

 Emma got light pink ice cream.

 She wanted to stick out her tongue, too, like Naomi. Isn't that the cutest 2-year-old you've ever seen? Happy birthday, Emma!

That night before bed Naomi wanted to make a leprechaun trap. We didn't have a lot of time for anything fancy, so we made do with a box propped up on a chair. Naomi put some lucky charms in a container to tempt the leprechaun. I didn't get a picture, but the next morning she almost caught one! The leprechaun left a note saying how close she had come, and left some gold coins for her and Emma since they are such good girls.