Update on Emma

I can't finish posting today without an update on the cutest little girl in the world!! Although, she won't let me call her a "little" girl anymore!! She always informs me that she's "not a little girl, I'm a BIG girl!" The last 5 months have been a bit of a struggle for us. I think 3 years old can be challenging enough on it's own, but add in a new baby and it's even worse!!! I've loved watching the sweet little girl that Emma has turned into since she turned 3, but there's also been a little preview to the teenager we're going to experience down the road! We've been working a lot on first time obedience and, for the most part, she's doing very well with it. I really can't complain....especially when I see other kids and how they talk to their parents and behave so disrespectfully. I'm so thankful for the 2 times we've been able to take the Growing Kids God's Way class and how it's transformed our parenting!! We have a very compassionate little girl who cares very much about the people around her. I've learned that she's very much like me in a lot of ways, so we sometimes clash a little bit. We're working on that together, but I'm trying to work on it more as a mom. She's only learning these attitudes from me, I know. We're doing a lot of praying about this.....but anyway, on to more positive things!!!

In May, Emma finished up her first year of dance class at Body Language Dance Company. I was very impressed with how the class went and how wonderful her teacher was. She grew so much over that 9 months and it was neat to see how much she learned!! She has somehow come across some natural dancing ability (I think this is from Aunt Jody), so she picked up on everything really easily. Her favorite show around the end of dance class was "Dancing With the Stars." She'd watch it after dance class and try to do all the things that they did. She actually did it surprisingly well!! She loved learning tap and ballet, but informed me that she would really like to do jazz.....we'll see about that! On May 1st she had her recital and pretty much did the whole dance (with a few of her own moves added in). I was pleased with how well she did considering that she was the youngest in her class of 3-5 year olds. Her favorite part of the recital was getting flowers from all of her family afterward! She was SO upset when they died!! We're taking the next year off of dance to do preschool. Once she's in pre-k or Kindergarten she can start dance again if she wants. She's very much looking forward to soccer and t-ball though, so we might switch to those down the road. We'll have to be careful with her because she's going to be our child who wants to be in EVERY extracurricular activity if we don't keep it under control. I look forward to watching her do them though! She tells me all the time how she's going to play soccer and we're going to come and cheer for her! She's too cute!

Emma's other recent BIG event was being the flowergirl in her Uncle Josh's wedding! She did AWESOME!!! I've never been to a wedding with a 3 year old flowergirl and seen them to EXACTLY what they were supposed to! I may be a little bias, but she was the best flowergirl I've ever seen! She walked slowly down the aisle, dropped her flowers evenly, and stood with the bridesmaids to watch her new Aunt Angela walk down the aisle!! What a good girl!! We were so proud of her!!! I'll have to post some pictures of these things in a new post because I'm still learning how to do them!!

I suppose I should end this post before it gets too long. There are just so many things to write about this sweet little girl! It's been good for me to sit down and think of all the wonderful things about her. I've been struggling with her lately, and this was probably just what I needed to do. I'm very proud of this wonderful and beautiful little girl and it's good to remind myself of all the great things she does that outweigh the times her sinful nature overtakes her! She's developing a love for the Lord and it's neat to hear her talk about how much she loves going to church and how she wants to invite her friends. She's beginning to grasp the fact that Jesus died on the cross for her sins too. We're praying for the day when she can fully understand the gift of salvation that He gave her on that cross. You can bet there will be a big post on that day!!!