Saturday Morning

 

Hope you are enjoying yours!   

What you should know

...about Emma.

 

*she can make a cookie last longer than anyone else I know.  nibble, nibble, nibble. 

*she has a massive quantity of thick, healthy hair.

*she always pulls the sheets out from the bottom of the bed - EVERY NIGHT!

*she is the only one in our family who really likes the cat.

*she hates whipped cream.

*she is a deep thinker and challenges me everyday with questions like: "Mom why would God create people that He knew would never come to love Him."?

*she prefers to squeeze hands with me (vs. giving me a kiss) when I drop her off now. 

*she has an uncanny ability to find things that are lost.  Countless times she has retrieved remote controls, keys, wedding rings, missing shoes, and library books.

*her deep belly laugh is terribly contagious.

*her compassion towards others astounds and challenges me.

*she likes things to be organized and gets so flustered with my lack of ability in this area.

*she is her father's daughter (see above).

*she is a total sap and cries at all the "mushy" parts between Bob Saget and his daughters on Full House (her favorite show).

*she will not eat eggs without ketchup.

*she informed me recently that she no longer wishes to wear any pink.

*she's got some pretty smokin' dance moves.

*she hardly ever sleeps past 7:30am.

*she is transparent and freely offers her thoughts and feelings- I'm not ever left wondering.

*she is a hopeless romantic and is always asking about how her Dad asked me to marry him, or when we first kissed, or what I first loved about him.

And finally you should know that she is 8 years old now. We celebrated her birthday this week. Her infancy feels like just yesterday and also like an entire lifetime ago.  I am in awe of the way God trusts us enough to give us little human beings to mold.  I remember thinking when I brought her home for the first time, "I don't know what to do with her.  I am so afraid to ruin her!" There have been countless moments since when I have felt completely unqualified to be a mother- her mother.  But, Emma has a way of reassuring me, a way of encouraging me, a way of telling me that we're doing fine.

We are growing together.  Somehow, she has become this a long-legged, rosy lipped, amazingly intelligent, young lady. And I find myself exceedingly grateful to be counted worthy of the title, "Emma's Mother".

Happy Birthday Ems, I love you.

Big Ballet Birthday Bonanza

I may have mentioned once before my love of ballet, so imagine my thrill when Laurel requested a "ballet birthday party" (okay, maybe I planted a tiny seed). 

 

10 yards of tulle didn't go as far as I had hoped.  I have a love/hate relationship with tulle.  It is quite pretty but also quite itchy.  Long tulle tutus are hot and itchy and usually get ripped when you step into them. But, draping tulle from the ceiling...there's no itch in that!

   

All of our special friends came dressed in their ballet outfits- ready to dance!

 

And dance we did! Not sure all of it was ballet, Hannah seemed to have more of a modern dance flair going on.

I gave a short little lesson. (And yes, I totally wore my old ballet skirt over my jeans and a plastic tierra.  So nerdy. You gotta get those moments in before your kids are old enough to realize how ridiculous you look.)

We had just enough time to work on our plies and tandus.

 

Then it was on to the cupcakes.

   

 

   

Live piano music (courtesy of Emma), pink tulle, pink cupcakes, 7 dancing darlings, and one very big birthday girl- sweet stuff I'd say.