Back to School!

Today is Emily's first day of school for the new year. She was very excited and was up and dressed with her hair done before 7am! She had some nervous excitement, but she also had a very good idea of what to expect. Her new teacher invited all the kids to visit the classroom on Sunday to pick out their seat, their cubby, etc. Also, on Monday afternoon we went to a pool party with a bunch of her classmates. She had a blast.

Of course, it was possible that all of her excitement would have disappeared by the time I picked her up, so I definitely wanted to wait for the official report before posting. It turns out that the day was great. It sounds like they did some work, but also had a fair bit of recess time. Also, she was very pleased because all of the kids with summer birthdays received a small gift (pencils, a slinky, and a homework pass). Perhaps needless to say, this is the first time that she has ever received a birthday present at school so that definitely scored her teacher a few brownie points.

Abbie has not started school yet, so there was a good chance that she would still be asleep when Emily left the house for the day. Accordingly, she made a point of wishing Emily a good first day before bed last night. As luck would have it, Abbie got up and ran outside just before we left this morning. Emily was so excited - she ran to Abbie and gave her a big hug. Yes, it is very blurry, but I was able to quickly capture the sisterly love. :)

Summer!

Emily has been having a busy, but fun summer so far. Before we left for our summer road trip she met a girl in our neighborhood that is her age, so she was able to entertain herself with lots of play dates. She is very social and seems to have an easy time meeting people. For example, there is a band shell near the house that we are renting in Minnesota. It is right on the lake and has concerts every night during the summer. It is easy walking distance from our house so we like to check it out when we can. The other night we went to see a Caribbean band and Emily was thrilled to join in with the people who were dancing. Almost instantly, she found two girls her age to dance with and they had a blast. Here are a couple of short clips:

At one point, many of the adults decided to form a conga line that wound around the seats. As we watched forty-plus people go past us, imagine our surprise when we saw Emily and her little friends near the back of the line. I tried to get a video, but there was no way to really capture it.

She is looking forward to attending summer camps next week as a way to get more time with kids her age. Her camps next week are forts and American Girl (yes, we brought Ann with us just for this camp). She is actually going to do American Girl camp the following week as well. Other camps this summer include a Magic Tree House camp and a Pixie Hollow camp. 

In the meantime, we have been spending lots of time at the mall. Of course, rides are always a must, but this year we had a practical mission, too. We needed to get Emily her new school uniforms. She starts school a few days after we return home and her uniforms need to be monogrammed beforehand so we are planning to get it done before we leave Minnesota. We have purchased everything that she needs, but it'll likely be next week before we get a chance for her to choose her monogram style. Eventually I'll post a photo of her in her uniform, but in case you are curious, she will be wearing navy blue jumpers with white polo tops. We have lots of flexibility to choose the brand that we like best and we ended up going with Lands' End. As you can imagine, she looks very cute! 

As always, Emily likes to make us laugh with her one-liners. I don't think that she always anticipates that what she says will be funny to us, but once she sees the reaction, she is pretty pleased with herself. We were in the car on our way to Minnesota, about an hour or so down the road when she said that she needed to go to the bathroom. As you can imagine, we hadn't planned on stopping so soon, so we asked her how long she could hold it for. "Until I get to the bathroom," she responded. Ha, Ha! Good to know! 

She's 8!!!

Emily celebrated her 8th birthday yesterday, although she says that she doesn't feel any older. As for having a birthday party, she decided that she would like to wait and do that later this summer when we are in Minnesota. Instead, she picked out what she would like to have for meals on her birthday. She chose some ooey-gooey cinnamon bread for breakfast and a fruit salad with pineapple, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, apple and mint for lunch. For dinner, she just had more cinnamon bread and more fruit salad.

Overall, she had a busy day. We opened presents in the morning, then she and Abbie played with one of neighborhood girls. After lunch, I took her to her friend Garrett's birthday party, which was a pool party (his official birthday is June 6th). They definitely looked forward to seeing each other and, according to Garrett's mom, Garret had been talking about seeing Emily for the entire week leading up to the party. After swimming for a couple of hours, I told Emily that it was time to go. Garrett asked if they could have a play date sometime. I said they could and he responded, "How about today?" LOL. Apparently he didn't want her to leave!

At the end of the day, I interviewed Emily about her day. Here is what she had to say:

Today, it is back to summer camps. Last week was tennis and swimming. This week is art in the Americas in the morning and sports in the afternoon. I think that next week she is back to tennis and swimming again.

Pill Bugs

Apparently Emily is very desperate for a pet. Lately, she has had a big interest in pill bugs and they seem to have a big interest in her, too. One day at school, she had a pill bug crawling on her hand when it suddenly decided to have it's babies. So, she had the mama pill bug and all five of its little white babies on her hand. She was so excited. I said, "Are you sure they were babies? Maybe it just pooped on you." But no, she confirmed that they were crawling around and her teacher helped her put them into a container with some dirt.

Lovingly showing off some of her bug friends

She was so inspired that she came home, put some dirt into a plastic container and started hunting for pill bugs to add to it. A few days thereafter, we ate dinner outside at a restaurant that had easily accessible flowerbeds. As we ate, she began her search and ended up coming home from the restaurant with thirteen more pill bugs to add to her dirt. She added sticks and decaying leaves to give them some excitement. This was a couple of weeks ago and she has been diligently checking on them, spritzing the dirt with water, and leaving old banana peels for them to eat.

A couple nights ago I asked her how they were doing. She got a bit sad and said, "I think I might have to let them go. I was looking for them and I saw one that was dead." I agreed that they might be better off in nature. It was tough for her, but last night she emptied out the container so that any living pill bugs could crawl to better places. Fear not, though, she immediately refilled with new dirt, went to another area, and began a new pill bug collection. Perhaps these will fare better. :)

Other than excitement with pill bugs, Emily is anxiously awaiting the end of the school year. Next Thursday is the official last day, but I think everyone is already checked out. They had a field trip yesterday and have a day of games tomorrow, so clearly the transition to summer has already begun. Of course, from a weather perspective, summer has long since arrived and the kids are regularly in the pool on the weekends. As for summer camps, Emily and Abbie will both start with a tennis/swimming camp, which will give them the chance to swim in a much bigger pool with a real deep end. I think they are both looking forward to that.

First Lost Tooth

Emily with her dear friend Garrett a few weeks ago

Emily is less than two months away from turning eight, and believe it our not, she just lost her first tooth yesterday! We had been getting very close for awhile, though. Over the past few days it had been looking pretty gross, positioned sort of on its side in her mouth (I decided to spare you by not posting a photo of it). I wasn't quite sure what was holding it to the gums, but she insisted that she couldn't get it out. She went for a routine cleaning yesterday and the dentist wasn't sure how it was still hanging on either. He put a little numbing cream on her gums and gave it a tug. It came right out and she was so excited. In the meantime, her adult tooth apparently got tired of waiting, so it decided to grow in behind the baby tooth a couple of months ago. We joked that she had become a shark with two rows of teeth. The dentist claims that, with the baby tooth out of the way, the adult tooth will magically slide forward somehow. In reality, though, all I can think about is the impending orthodonture required to get all of these misaligned teeth into their proper spots. Sigh.

Anyway, Emily was very excited to leave the tooth fairy the tooth and also a note that read,

"Dear tooth fairy, 

Will you come once a week? 

I need someone who can help me, like you.

Your friend,

Emily"

Apparently, she has some friend issues at school that she would like the tooth fairy's help with. When I volunteered to help she told me that the tooth fairy probably had more experience, so she would be a better option. Alrightly then. As you can imagine, the tooth fairy took the note and the tooth and left two dollars in exchange. Emily wasn't very impressed, though, because one of the kids at school gets ten dollars per tooth - ridiculous!

Other than the tooth excitement, Emily is anxiously awaiting the end of the school year. She has done very well this year and made a lot of progress, but she hasn't been too thrilled with the kids (too many boys) and the perceived lack of rigor at her new school. She has often complained that she isn't being challenged, which of course is a terrible thing, so we are going to try a different option in the fall. A school that still has small class sizes, but seems like it will be more rigorous, and has a lot more girls than her current school. She is definitely looking forward to the change.

As always, Emily keeps us entertained with her wit and humor. In addition, she often comes up with some interesting observations. Lately, she has been thinking a lot about time travel (who knows why). One night at dinner she announced, "Even if you go back in time, you are still going forward in time." Basically, the idea is that if it was in your future to go back in time, then when you actually do it, you are still progressing forward through your life. I hadn't thought about that before, but apparently I don't spend as much time on time travel as she does.

She also told me one day that she wished that she could know all the things that were going to happen in her life so that she could always make a plan in advance and be ready for things as they come. I tried to tell her that if she knew everything that was going to happen then life wouldn't be as good because there would never be any surprises. To this she replied, "There are no good surprises. Things only get worse. It is all a horrible nightmare." I'm not quite sure where all of that came from, but I assure you that she is actually a happy little kid (perhaps with a flare for the dramatic)!

One other piece of wisdom she gave us today was this - she said something to the effect of, "I put the good things in front of me and leave the bad things behind me." That is good advice. I told her that I was going to have to start practicing that one! Again, I swear that she is a happy, peaceful kid, but she does also seem to have an old soul that peeks through from time to time.

Adventures

Yes, it has been a long time between posts, but Emily has had a month of firsts that I think are worth sharing. First of all, she attended her first Trophy Festival this year. This is the event where student play for a teacher other than their own as a way to get their feet wet with performing and to receive feedback from someone who may have a different style of teaching. At the end, everyone who performs goes home with a small trophy.

Emily chose to play Twinkle Theme, although she has many other pieces in her repertoire these days. Most recently she has completed May Song and begun learning Long, Long Ago (for those of you familiar with the Suzuki system). All in all, it was a good experience for her and the teacher that she played for was very complementary, which I think helped build her confidence.

As for another first, Emily has finally gotten her first exposure to some real, substantive snow in at least two years. We are spending spring break in Keystone, and as we were driving up from Colorado Springs, we started to see minor, intermittent patches of snow on the hills along the road. She said, "Is that SNOW??? That's CRAZY!!!" We just laughed, knowing how much more snow was in store for her. As you can see, when we stopped off in Breckenridge for lunch, she was just thrilled! 

Being here ever witty self, when I asked her, "What is that stuff?" she replied, "Powdered sugar, of course!" As usual, she is good with the one-liners. Last month when were were talking about delaying the celebration of my birthday until the weekend, I said "I can stand being 39 for a couple more days." To which Emily immediately responded, "Yeah, I don't need an old Mom." :)

As you can probably imagine, Emily's next notable first is her first time skiing. She took ski lessons on our first day in Keystone, and by the second day she was a natural.

Looking adorable in her gear

She and I skied the bunny slope in the morning, and I was able to get some video of her in action.

Of course, as soon as she watched the video, her only comment was, "My turns are too small." She got a chance to remedy this in the afternoon when all four of us went down Schoolmarm. This is a 3.5 mile, family friendly trail. We didn't know exactly how Emily would do, but she was incredible and I think that she really enjoyed it. Perhaps needless to say, I was by far the weakest link, but she was kind enough to wait for me. :)

As for the rest of the week, we'll have to see if any additional firsts arise. I think that today we are all going to take it easy, although the girls may con Chad into some ice skating this afternoon . . .

Eve of Enchantment

Family photo

Earlier this week, Emily's school hosted their inaugural Eve of Enchantment. It was a fine arts event with all sorts of singing, dancing, and artwork on display. Many of the students performed in groups with the other kids that are in their music class. Emily did that, but she also elected (as did some of the other kids) to work with a mentor over the past few weeks so that she could do a solo performance as well. She decided that she wanted to do ballet, so the school found someone who met with her one-on-one for three separate sessions so that she could choose music and learn a routine.

Working with her mentor

At the time of the performance, I think that she was pretty nervous to perform alone in front of everyone, but it seemed to go pretty well and when it was over I think that she was glad that she had done it. She has a very serious look on her face, but there is one point in the video when she looks over at us and gives us a little smile - so cute. :)

Overall, school continues to go well (although I think that Emily wishes that there were more girls in her class). Violin is also moving along and Emily will be participating in her first Trophy Festival in a few weeks, so we are preparing for that.

The only thing that remains unpredictable about Emily is the stuff that comes out of her mouth. One day, completely out of the blue, she said to me, "Mom, I don't want to celebrate your death (referring to my funeral). Can I just not do that? Can we just have Abbie handle that, or something?" I told her that it would be fine if she didn't attend my funeral and that, yes, we would just have Abbie handle it. Then, she said, "Mom, I don't want you to die. How about if I die five minutes before you do?" I told her that plan didn't sound like much fun for me. She replied, "Yes, it does because then we can be ghosts together." Then she said, "Mom, if you ever die, can you promise to haunt my house?" "Sure thing," I said, "I'll be sure to haunt your house for you." LOL.

Christmas Catch-up

It has been awhile since my last post, so I guess that I need to get you caught up on Emily's holiday season. In short, it was a good one! She definitely enjoyed the time off from school, and all of the usual routines that go along with the holiday break, which usually involve food. Most important to her, there were desserts galore - her advent calendar, frosted cookies, desserts with ice cream, etc.

Although we did not go ice skating this year, we did get a chance to see Santa and Emily was very clear about her list - an American Girl doll and a giant giraffe were two of the big items. Perhaps needless to say, Santa came through on everything. The giraffe was too big to wrap, though, so it was just standing in the living room waiting for her on Christmas morning. She was so excited when she saw it (it is taller than she is) that she practically started hyperventilating. As for the American Girl doll, it looks just like her and Emily has named her Ann. As you can see Emily and Ann also now have matching PJs. :)

Emily also had her first public violin performances (the same performances that Abbie had) during the break. She accompanied the group on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Lightly Row, and Jingle Bells.

Now that she back to school, we are back to the usual routine. She continues to do well at school and received a number of awards during a lower school award ceremony this week - one for creative excellence in art class, one for athletic excellence in P.E., one for her performance in social studies, one for obtaining the most AR points in her class, and one for exemplifying engagement (one of the school's core values). She tried to play it cool, but I think she was happy about it. Although, that night I did find her entry in her journal in which she wrote about the awards that she received. She said, "My mom was so excited, but I was NOT!" Ha!

Holidays

Emily seems to be having a good holiday season so far. Consistent with what you might expect, she didn't sample much of our Thanksgiving dinner, but she was more than happy to help me make and eat apple pies! :)

As for Christmas, Emily's music teacher, quite unexpectedly, cast Emily as Mrs. Claus in the school's holiday performance. She had lines to learn as part of the performance and she did great with it.

 

It turns out however, that Emily doesn't really need a script. She seems to do great coming up with witty remarks all on her own. She has had a couple of zingers lately. One morning, she wanted me to work on a puzzle with her. I told her that I needed a minute, but that she could get started without me. She said, "But I can't start without you. You're the missing piece." :)

Also, Chad brought home some whole nuts for us to crack and eat. She was struggling with the cracking part, so Chad said that he would do it and then would hand the nut to her so that she could dig it out of the shell. She said, "You do the crackin', I'll do the hackin', then we can do the snackin'." Ha!

Of course, now that our tree is up, Frisbee (our elf) is back and Emily has been doing a very nice job of leaving water for her each day so that Frisbee doesn't get thirsty while we are gone. She has also been working on her Christmas list. She got smart this year and put a grocery order on the list. She figured that if Santa delivers then there is no reason for us to make a trip to the store. Santa can just deliver the food we need when he drops off the presents. Apparently she wants Santa to keep up with Amazon. :)

Last but not least, we received Emily's annual school photo. I think that it turned out pretty well this year.

As you may recall, Emily does not like to smile in photos for fear of getting lines on her face, so it actually took her teacher a fair bit of work, but she made sure that we got a photo in which Emily was smiling. :)

Performance Day

Yesterday was the big performance day for the show that Emily was involved with at school. As you may recall it was a compilation of various songs from various musicals. There have been rehearsals over the past two months and this final week was really intense with rehearsals Sunday through Wednesday. Then, yesterday was devoted entirely to the show.

All told, there were almost 60 kids involved. They performed in the morning for the lower school, in the afternoon for the middle school, and in the evening for family and friends. On the way to school this morning, Emily said that she is really curious to get to school and see what the middle schoolers thought of it because, "little kids and parents are easy to impress." Ha! In fact, she was getting irritated with me last night because she kept asking me what my favorite numbers were and I kept mentioning the ones that she was in. "Mom, you don't have to like it just because I was in it," she said with exasperation. :)

Anyway, there were other great numbers that she was not in, but of the ones that she was in, I think that Hard Knock Life was my favorite. The video quality is terrible (my doing), but here is a sense of it:

As you can probably tell, they just had the kids singing along with a recording. On the one hand, this seems kind of disingenuous, but on the other hand, it was great because it likely saved our ears from an evening of off key singing. :)

Overall, I think that it was a good experience for her. It introduced her to a lot of the older kids at her school, and they all thought that she was the cutest little thing, so now they give her big hugs whenever they see her in the halls, etc. I can tell that she likes the attention.

One of the other big events over the past month was Halloween. It was mid-week and on a very cold, wet day, so it was not nearly as fun as in past years. Emily made her costume this year. She went as a girl from the old days, so she wore a dress with an apron and a kerchief on her head. Somehow, I did not manage to get a photo, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

The only other event that I can think of is our parent-teacher conference that happened a couple of weeks ago. It was a really good opportunity to chat with her teacher, see what she is learning, and how she is doing in her new school. Perhaps not surprisingly, she is doing great, definitely making progress, etc. So, all is good on that front.

Now, on to Thanksgiving . . .

Busted

Emily got busted at school recently in their "Caught Doing Good" program. Each week they recognize students who exhibit outstanding behavior and present them with an award during morning announcements. As for Emily's good deeds, her teacher reported that, "Emily is always ready to listen, shows superstar work, and shares ideas with her classmates! She uses her manners and is kind, patient, and helpful!" As a result, she gets her name added to a bulletin board at school and her picture in the weekly newsletter.

In general, I think that she is adapting well to her new school. It is smaller so she feels like she has fewer friends to choose from, but I get the sense that she is playing with lots of different kids and getting along with them pretty well. Overall, we are happy with her teacher and the things that they are doing in the classroom. With such small class sizes, the teacher seems to be very attuned to each kid's needs, abilities, etc.

In other news, we just had Emily's 7-year check up, and she continues to be right on track with her past growth rates. She is 47 inches tall (22nd percentile) and 43.3 pounds (10th percentile). Vision, hearing, etc. are all good!

First Day of School

Emily has been back at school for three weeks now. As I may have mentioned, she is at a very small private school this year (rather than at the Montessori school). The school covers K-12, but the class sizes are what makes it small. In fact, Emily is one of only four students in her classroom.

So far, I think that Emily is very happy with her new environment. Her teacher is very nice and Emily seems to come home happy at the end of the day. Like Abbie, she is tired at night and is still getting used to having homework, but she is pretty good about getting it done right away.

The tricky thing about Emily these days is that she refuses to smile in any photo. If she feels a smile coming on then she tries to hide it, as you can see in the photo above, which was from her first day of class. So, I am working on being very sneaky about how I photograph her. Otherwise, she puts on a very serious face, which makes her look like she is miserable in every picture.

During the first full week of school, Emily auditioned for the fall musical. They are doing a revue this year in which they sing and perform to songs from a variety of musicals, including The Little Mermaid, Annie, and Little Shop of Horrors. She will be in a handful of the pieces and her rehearsals start next week. I think she is excited because this morning I heard her belting out "Under the Sea" as she got ready for school.

Emily's other new extracurricular activity is ballet on Saturday mornings. She has been begging me to sign her up for a ballet class for a very long time and I finally found a studio that offers the perfect class day/time for our schedule and it is even very close to our house, so getting her there has been really easy. Again, she would never pose for a photo, but here is one that I was able to get as she was leaving class. Just after I snapped it, she realized what I was doing and ran towards me to see if she could quickly delete it from my phone. Ha! No such luck! :)

Adventures

It has been a long time between posts, but that is because we have been busy with our cross-country adventure. We are home now, but it was a great trip. There is really no way to capture all of the things that we saw and did. When we left Minnesota we headed through Denver to Arches. After a night there, we went through Monument Valley on our way to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. After a couple of nights there, we doubled back into Utah to Zion. We spent three nights there (way too short) before heading to Las Vegas and finally to San Diego for a week. From San Diego, we finally made our way home. Here is just a taste of Emily's adventures:

At Arches

We only had about four hours to explore Arches. That was definite not enough time, but we made the most of it. Frankly, it is an awesome park, but it was also only a warm up in terms of what was to come on our trip.

Grand Canyon

I don't think that Emily was a huge fan of the Grand Canyon. The fact that we were on the South Rim may have played a role - the views are incredible, but what are views to a seven year old?

A rest in the Narrows

Now, hiking the Narrows in Zion, which is mostly a hike through the water, was right up Emily's alley. It turns out that she loves anything that involves water. This was a really big day for all of us. We started out early in the morning, before the crowds, and ended up with a really great hike. All told, we went almost eight miles round trip and Emily was a trooper through all of it. She finally hit a wall at one point, though, and as I looked at her, her lips were turning blue and she was shivering. Despite the summer temperatures, hypothermia is still a risk, so we turned around and got her into a sunny spot. After warming up a bit, she was good to go. The next day, we hiked Emerald Pools, which is a more strenuous hike, and has waterfalls and pools of water, but no water to walk in. She was OK with this, but nothing beats the Narrows.

A San Diego beach

Finally, on to the place of her birth, which she was really excited to get back to. We drove past our old house, and went to many of our favorite places. I am not quite sure what she is so excited about in this photo, but maybe it is just general love of the ocean. At one point, however, she was on a boogy board and ended up with a big mouth full of sea water. She was so offended! :) Other than that, though, the sea treated her well. We brought home some shells and some sand (from a few of the places that we visited).

As we all were, Emily was happy to be home. She had almost a week back in her own place before her new school started (today). I'll have to fill you in on the new school year, but that will be for another post . . .

4th of July

Emily was busy with a variety of camps during the month of June - art, soccer, karate, hip hop yoga, and Chinese culture. Among all of these, she says that karate was her favorite, followed by Chinese culture.

The week of karate culminated in a demonstration for the parents in which she broke a board with her hand and did a pattern. She loved the feeling of power, I think. As you can see, she is sporting a cute little bob, which is a big change from her long hair. She loves the new style and we can't believe how well it fits her face and personality.

The first leg of our giant road trip is complete and we are camping out (not literally) in Minnesota for a few weeks. Emily has already been to the lake and the waterpark for swimming, to the Mall of America for rides, and to her first ever fireworks and parade to celebrate the 4th of July.

Late night selfie, waiting for the show to start

One of our stops was at a local ice cream shop where she got ice cream with sprinkles. When a little girl next to her got upset that Emily had sprinkles and she didn't, Emily went over to her and said, "If you are upset, maybe you should meditate. I can teach you how." The parents laughed at how cute the suggestion was, but the girl wanted nothing to do with it. Can't blame her for trying, I suppose.

All zen at the ice cream shop

Next week, however, things will slow down a bit as she and Abbie spend two weeks in camp. The topic for next week? Examining where science ends and art begins. Could be a total flop, but also could be really great. I'll keep you posted.

She's Seven!

  

Emily's birthday went off without a hitch on Saturday. She had a very busy day. First thing in the morning, we opened presents from the family. Then, she and I went to swap her 1/16th violin for a 1/8th violin. On the way home, we snagged her cake - Star Wars again this year with blue frosting and a Dearth Vader Mask on it. From there we went home for a quick lunch before heading out to meet her friends at Pump It Up.

She had a great time bouncing and running around with everybody. It had been a pretty wet, rainy day, so an inside party was exactly what we needed. As a result, we had a pretty good turn out in terms of kids.

After the party, we went home to relax a little bit, and to let Emily open the presents from her friends (yes, between family and friends, she ended up with way too much stuff!). The last tradition on birthdays in our house is that the birthday person picks what we have for dinner. Emily wanted sopapillas (basically fried dough) for dessert, but didn't much care what we had for a meal. As a result, we got to choose the dinner location and then just followed up with a stop at a local Tex Mex place for dessert. All in all, it was a successful birthday, and I think she had fun.

Of course, the next day, she remarked that she didn't feel any different as a seven year old than she had as a six year old. Go figure!

Imagination Abounds

Emily has never been short on imagination and that continues to be the case. She is often dressing up and concocting elaborate stories or games in her head. What I find funny is how these games often result in a perfect combination of warrior meets princess. These are just two of her recent outfits. The first has that not so classic "ninja-ballerina" feel to it. She looks miserable, but she asked me to take this photo, and she is really just trying to look tough, I think.

The second photo was a candid one that I captured. Here there is a slight variation, but the theme is the same. To me, this one sort of screams, "Mom by day, superhero by night."

Emily also likes to internalize and act out stories that she hears around her (as I suppose all kids do). Most recently, we were recounting the story of a woman who owned a pet boa constrictor. She thought that her snake was sick - it hadn't been eating and just seemed to want to cozy up alongside her in bed all the time. When she took it to the vet, the vet said, "Ma'am, your snake is not sick, it has been fasting and sizing you up because it is preparing to eat you."

Of course this is the sort of semi-scary story that Emily just loves. Within a few days of hearing it, Emily began getting really snuggly with Grandma P., really cozying up next to her on the couch one evening, lined up right alongside her. Then she says, "I'm really hungry; I haven't been eating much lately." Still unaware of what was in store for her, Grandma P. says, "Yes, I noticed that. What's going on?" At which point, Emily turned to Grandma with her mouth wide open. This is the point at which it all became clear - Emily was the boa constrictor and Grandma was her meal. So much for innocent snuggles! :)

The other big excitement for Emily right now is her upcoming birthday. She wants the standard Pump It Up party - essentially a big place that specializes in bounce houses for kids' birthday parties. So, the location is set and the invitations are out. Two weeks away and Emily can hardly wait!

Disney and Easter

Emily was incredibly excited about the trip to Disney World. She literally had no idea what to expect, but I think that her imagination built it up to be as amazing as a trip to a new planet.

 

In actuality, I think that she ultimately loved it, but was also incredibly overwhelmed by it. There was lots of walking, and that tended to tire her out. Surprisingly, I think that of Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, and Typhoon Lagoon, her favorite was probably either Epcot or Hollywood Studios.

In Epcot, she discovered French butter and she absolutely loved it. She still talks about it and now wants to go to the real France just for more butter.

In Hollywood Studios, she went wild for all of the Star Wars stuff. She loves Star Wars, and was actually able to see Darth Vader, Darth Maul, storm troopers, R2-D2, C-3PO, etc. That was very exciting.

The trip also highlighted what a homebody Emily is, though. She asked us if, for our next vacation, we could just lay in bed all day. Goof.

Emily, like Abigail, also has some news on the school front. After two years at Montessori, she is moving in the fall to a private school that has very small class sizes. Our hope is that this will keep her from getting lost in the crowd. At Montessori, being in class with 2nd and 3rd graders has diminished her willingness to contribute and ask questions. Her new school will offer more structure and fewer opportunities to "hide."

Emily had a good Easter yesterday. She loves sugar, but I think that she may love money more. :) She was definitely more excited to find eggs with quarters inside than eggs with candy inside. By the time last night came, she was pretty tired, though. She asked to go to bed early, and she just relaxed with a book for awhile. Before I turned out her light, I asked her if she wanted me to re-start her CD for her (she listens to violin at night). She asked me if it was a recording, and I told her that it was. She said, "Oh, good. If they had to play all night . . ." I cracked up. Maybe all this time she has been envisioning little people inside her CD player, giving her a private concert every night. No wonder Disney was overwhelming!!

Beans!

Emily officially finished all of her Twinkle Beans last night. That represents 600 repetitions of variations on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. She was very excited. I told her that I wanted to capture the moment, and she promptly turned off the living room lights and turned on the single light over the fireplace to create a spotlight effect. :)

Here is the video that we took. When it was done, though, she wouldn't even watch it. She declared that she was unhappy with it and told me that we were going to try it again, but this time she would tell me what to say so that I would get it right. So, here is the revised video:

Slightly different, but not much. For whatever reason, though, she was much happier with the scripted version. Regardless of the version, I am sure that you can sense her satisfaction with this milestone. Next, we will have to schedule her Twinkle Recital as a way to celebrate all of her hard work. She is very anxious to make that happen, but I suspect that it will be a few weeks before we can get it lined up for her. In the meantime, she has already learned the next Book 1 piece, and begun learning some new technique that is necessary for the subsequent piece.

Aside from violin, Emily is very excited for Spring Break next week. We have had a busy few weeks, so I think that she (and the entire family) is looking forward to doing a whole bunch of nothing for a little while. Two weeks after Spring Break, we are taking the girls to Disney World for a week. I'm sure that I'll have lots to report when we get back from that!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Emily was so excited to celebrate Valentine's Day this year (although she was disappointed to discover that it didn't come with a day home from school!). She worked very hard making individualized cards for each of us. My card even came with a three dimensional heart that she made out of clay and painted red (and it was actually shaped like a real heart!). My card said, "Mom, I love you so much that no other love can make it up. Your brown eyes twinkle in the moonlight. No star is bigger and prettier than you. Love, Emily"

Chad's card said, "I love you dad (more than) any other love. You are as handsome as a star. You have beautiful (hair) blonde as the moon. Love Dad." As you can see, I had to fill in some words for her, but you get the gist.

Abigail's card said, "Abbie, I love you so much that there is no way to describe it. I love your brains(?). I love your personality. Love Abbie." So, all cards had the same sort of sweet theme, and she was very excited to have us read them.

Aside from the excitement of the holiday, Emily has taken to meditating in her room and listening to Enya lately. When she is in "the zone" she does not want to be disturbed! Also, she has started requesting privacy when writing in her diary. It has a lock, so she is using it to write secrets about the kids at school. :)

Life is not without its struggles, however. Emily has a few problems that continue to plague her. First, she has not yet started losing her teeth, and none of them are even thinking about starting to wiggle. This has bummed her out as many of the kids are loosing teeth regularly now. Also on Emily's mind are career concerns. She is really struggling with choosing a profession. Singer and baker are still on the table, but this morning she was also talking about wanting to be a scientist or a historian. She probably has a bit more time for the final decision, but I'll keep you posted as she resolves these dilemmas. :)

Holidaze

The holiday season has flown by quickly and there have been all sorts of activities. Before school ended, Emily's class got to go see a production of the Nutcracker and she was pretty excited for the opportunity to dress up! I think she liked the dressing up better than the actual performance. :)

Also, the kids wrote letters to Santa and received responses back just before the break. Above is Emily looking at Santa's response with one of her teachers. Emily had many items on her list this year, but the one thing that she wanted more than anything was a cotton candy maker, so this is what she chose to single out in her letter to Santa. Unfortunately, mean Mom exercised her veto power and told our elf, Frisbee, that Emily could not have a cotton candy maker this year. :(

Also before the break, the school put on the annual holiday program. In the end, I think that the kids cared more about running around with their friends beforehand than they did about actually completing the program. Maybe the school would be further ahead having a holiday party rather than a holiday performance. Above is Emily with two of her dearest friends - Emma in the picture on the left and Olive in the picture on the right. Such cuties!

Of course, the holiday season would not be complete without all of the typical activities. We had a visit from Grandma and Grandpa C. in the week leading up to Christmas, we made and decorated cookies, and we completed our annual holiday puzzle. Emily is old enough to help with the puzzle now and she is very good at it. She is also pretty cute about it. Shortly before we completed it, Emily had a piece in her hand and we heard her saying to herself, "Hmm, if I were this puzzle piece, where would I go?"

As for actual Christmas, I think that Emily did pretty well. She received the baking set that she asked for, a toy dog that walks and barks, etc. (not the chip pup that she asked for, but pretty close), and Secret Life of Pets to name a few. She also received Kubo and the Two Strings from Uncle Greg and Aunt Elizabeth. Her response, probably the most excited that I saw her this year, was priceless. This is definitely the look of true joy!

Finally, we did something new this year - we took the girls ice skating - twice! They absolutely loved it. Neither of them had ever been skating before, but they didn't hesitate to get out there and figure it out. Fortunately, Chad is pretty good on skates (a prerequisite for a Minnesotan), so he was able to help the girls quite a bit. I have a feeling that there will be a lot more skating in our future!

Lots of Updates

Emily was Death for Halloween. She did her own make-up and had very definite ideas about how her hair needed to be. Above, she isn't as miserable as she looks. I think she was just trying to be serious to pull off the look. Below, she is as miserable as she looks. By the time the night ended, she was tired, hot, and her tummy ached from all the junk. On the bright side, I like the way that her pumpkin turned out this year - she designed and I carved.

I may not have mentioned it too much before but Emily did soccer on Friday afternoons this fall. It ended recently and below is a photo of some of the kids on her team. It was a very informal team that met at a local park on Friday nights. Technically, it was for 3-5 year olds,  but given Emily's size, she blends in reasonably well despite being six.

Emily also had some excitement at school recently with a field trip to Young Chefs' Academy. Originally, they had planned to make bread and pasta, but they ended up making some sort of dessert and Emily was thrilled (yes, she still has a tremendous sweet tooth). Even before this field trip, Emily had started saying that she would like to be a baker when she grows up. I have told her that this is a perfect way to combine her interest in chemistry with her love of sweets. In fact, it is also a great way to channel her creativity.

As for Emily's parent-teacher conference a couple of weeks ago, the teachers noted that Emily's strengths include her kindness, respect, mature vocabulary, pride in her work, neatness and organization, handwriting, and creativity. Her areas for growth include learning to speak more loudly, being more attentive and contributing more to group discussions, and increasing her reading fluency. This feedback is definitely consistent with our impressions.

As for her 6-year old well-child check, which occurred earlier this week, Emily continues to be a peanut. She is now 44.8 inches tall (21st percentile) and 39.8 pounds (11th percentile). Her blood pressure, hearing and vision (20/25 in both eyes) are all in good shape. All in all, she is healthy and small like her mama.

Finally, we have a cute school photo this year - enjoy!

School Update

Emily seems to be enjoying life at school. Above is a photo from the newsletter in which the kids were sampling the parts of a plant - leaves, seeds, berries, etc. I am not sure that Emily took more than a small taste of each part (if that), but something is better than nothing.

Last week was Dad's night at school and both girls presented Chad with gifts. Each year, they tend to make decorative bowls for us and that continued to be the case this year. Before long, we'll have a full set! In addition, Emily presented Chad with a card that had her self-portrait on the front.

Apparently, this is something that they worked on in art class. Emily did not have any help with her drawing, but did receive advice about certain aspects. For example, the teacher recommended the wavy lines in the hair. We were quite surprised by the way that her drawing came out, and she seems to be happy with it, as well, so I think that we are going to frame a copy of it for her.

Speaking of surprises, we are often amazed by the deep thoughts that Emily has. A few weeks ago, she surprised us with the following:

Out of the blue, Emily said, "It's funny that something as small as a wedding can become something so big."
We responded, "What do you mean?"
She said, "After you get married, you are family, right?"
"Yes . . ." we replied.
She explained, "That's a big deal, but a wedding is such a small thing. So, its amazing that something as small as a wedding can lead to something as big as family."

So true, Emily, so true. :)

First Grade

Emily made the big move up to 1st grade this year. It is a big deal because it moves her from the primary building to the lower elementary building where she is mixed with 1st-3rd graders, many of whom are much bigger than she is. She handled it like a champ - jumped right in and tried to make sure that I didn't embarrass her by kissing her in front of other kids, etc. That being said, you can definitely see the transition from the confident look on her face in the picture above (before leaving the house) to the much more cautious look on her face in the picture below (after arriving at school). I had a chance to talk to her teachers recently, though, and they say that she is doing great!

In violin, Emily has started her twinkle beans! As you may recall from Abbie's adventures, a right of passage in Suzuki is to complete 600 repetitions based on six variations on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Each one completed warrants a bean in the jar. Eventually, she will complete the process and then will have a Twinkle Recital. In the meantime, violin practice has been hit or miss. There has been a fair bit of, "I hate violin. Violin is stupid and boring. I want to play guitar." Fortunately, Abbie has been able to give her a pep talk about how it started out not fun, but now she loves it and is so glad that she is doing it. Hopefully that will sink in because I do think it is important for Emily to see this through for at least a while.

Finally, Emily and I have been doing more reading together. We finished James and Giant Peach awhile ago, and now we are almost 2/3rds of the way through the first Harry Potter book. It is pretty advanced, so I don't really ask Emily to read any of it (she has easier books from school to practice with), but she loves the story and is disappointed every time we need to stop (regardless of how long I have been reading for!). Once we finish the first book, we'll let her watch the movie and see what she thinks of it. Also, I'm sure that we'll immediately move to book two!