A Little About Emma

Ever since Emma was a toddler, it has been very apparent that she is incredibly talented. From the time she started nursery at 18 months she would carefully color pictures, making sure to stay in the lines. She learned to write letters on her own before she was 2. Since around the same time she's been able to match people's pitch when singing, and recently she has figured out how to harmonize. She started piano lessons last summer and despite the fact that she knew absolutely nothing about the piano, she skipped straight to the middle of most of her piano books, and completely skipped over others. She is in gymnastics and is a natural. She just got moved up to the advanced level today, after only 7 months in the beginner class! She reads way above her grade level, has an amazing ability to memorize things, is an incredible artist...basically this girl is good at everything she does. 

Tonight for her journal writing homework she sat down and whipped out this little poem in 15 minutes. I was pretty impressed! It sounds much more poetic when she reads it out loud than it does just reading the words, but here it is.

Emma's Bird Poem

Bird shine bright. Land on peace.

Live through live going to flight.

Penguin so white. Living on the ice. So much space.

Parrot bright with colors so shiny with romance.

You don't see them very much, but at the zoo you can.

A toucan's long big beak. Nice to crush and eat yummy berries up high in a tree.

An eagle flying so high ,so strong, not a sigh.

So brown, so white, he's never going to give up his very mighty flight.

The hummingbird so small. The smallest bird of all.

It can fly backwards which no other bird can do.

So now you have heard my poem, go and make your own.

This is a song she wrote in her writing journal, titled "They All Should Have A Home"

I have a home with my family so dear.

My brother, my sisters, my mom and dad.

And the poor should have a home too. 

They were out there in their home,

but then something happened, so terrible.

They should all have a home just like I do too.

They should all have a home so sweet and dear.

They all still have a family and clo-o-othes too.

They all should have a ho-o-o-ome.

I think she might have a future career in songwriting.  :)

Emma also loves to write notes and letters. For Valentines she wrote personalized letters to every single person in her class and decorated them. She wrote very specific things that she liked about each person...the way they dressed, their hair, how nice they were, etc. My favorite though was the card she made for Jose, who just joined her class in January. It said something like "I like you because you are short like me. Before you moved here, I was the shortest person in our class. But now, I have another short person so I don't have to be the shortest. Love, Emma". It was hilarious.

Today, a boy in her class was following her around during recess and it really bothered her. So, she came home and wrote a note to give him tomorrow. It said, "Dear Mohammad, On Wednesday can you really please please please stop following me around or I will tell on you.

Sincerely from not pleased Emma

P.S. If you stop following me I will play with you.

I got a good laugh out of it, but I am seriously impressed that she thought through it all and came up with this solution.

One last writing journal entry that I thought was cute...

I have a new room. That's because one night I was being so bad that my dad told me that I had to sleep in the other room. Me and Matthew used to call it the room of doom but now I call it the wonderful room because my dad told me that having your own room you get to decorate it how you want. And I get to sleep with Alyssa and get to stay up late and read. I have a night light to use to read and another one to use to make me not scared because I open my eyes sometimes at night time.

The room of doom...haha. I about died laughing. I had never heard them call it that. And seriously, do anyone else's kids think it's a punishment to have their own room? We have the oldest 3 in the same room because none of them want to be alone. It's mind boggling to me!

Anyway, we love this girl and all of her personality. 

It's Raining It's Pouring

California has been in a major drought this winter..the worst in years. Our church leaders asked members of the church in California to hold a special fast for rain the first Sunday in February, so we started our fast Saturday night. Admittedly I had my doubts that we would really see rain. It had been so sunny and warm. Even the Saturday we started the fast the weather was gorgeous and there wasn't a cloud in sight.

Needless to say I was incredibly surprised to wake up Sunday morning to rain. Lots and lots of rain. Heavenly Father hears our prayers and is mindful of us and our righteous desires. And he answers prayers. I was so grateful for that reminder that rainy Sunday. This was such a neat experience for the kids too.

It rained all day that Sunday, stopped for a couple days and then started up and didn't stop for several more days. Someone told us that we got more rain during that one week than we usually get the entire month of January!

Tidbits from the last few weeks

I've started blogging so many times and just keep getting stuck. So, I'm just going to sum up the last several weeks and hope that I can be better about staying up to date in the future.

January was rough. For so many reasons. Lots of screaming, not a lot of sleep. Alyssa randomly started having bouts of severe pain where she just screams and screams. The doctor can't figure out what's going on, but it does seem to be getting a little better. It's affected her sleep too, which was a huge bummer. I don't know that I have ever been so tired in my life as I was last month.

With all of Alyssa's issues and needing so much extra time and attention, Ellie started acting out, throwing fits, and hitting like crazy. So it was a rough few weeks with her too, understandably. I've been trying to make an extra effort to spend more time with her and give her the attention that she needs and it's been slowly getting better.

Jon also got the flu in January, which was rough. Thankfully the rest of us avoided it (he was the only one in our family who didn't get the flu shot). It was a rough few days!

One of the more pleasant things about January was the weather. It was absolutely amazing. A good chunk of the month was sunny and 70 degrees. We were out in shorts and t-shirts at the park, soaking up the sun. It was hard to be sad about the drought we're in when it was so incredibly nice outside.

I've been on a major spring cleaning kick lately and it has been awesome! It feels so good to get rid of stuff and to simplify. I feel so much better when our home is clean, organized and decluttered.

We went to the wrap party for Peabody and Sherman, which is the most recent film that Jon worked on. They held the party at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, which was so fun. Unfortunately the only picture we got was Jon drinking from the toilet fountain...haha.

Alyssa turned 4 months this week. She is 12 lb 6 oz and 24 inches. We've got another petite little girl! When she's not having one of her painful episodes she is a really happy girl. She laughs quite a bit. Her favorite thing is watching the kids jump. She thinks it's hysterical.

Emma is our resident note writer. She has surprised me so many times with the sweetest notes. I love it! She is such a thoughtful little girl. This was her most recent note.

Almost every night when Emma says her prayers she says she's grateful for Alyssa and follows with "and please bless her to grow up to be a smart, kind, beautiful girl like me". So humble!

Emma is really starting to understand jokes and especially loves making plays on words. I have a t-shirt with two surfers on it that says "I'm at a board meeting". Every time she sees it she cracks up. "I get it. A board meeting...like surf boards". Another joke that started around Christmas was when Emma and Matthew heard the word Noel. Now every time they tell Ellie no, they sing No-El No-El and then laugh like it's the first time they've heard it.

Matthew's class talked about Groundhog Day a couple weeks ago. He came home and said, "Mom, I know that if you see your shadow it means there's 8 more days of Christmas". Haha...close Matthew!

I bought myself a Bosch for an early Christmas present and finally got around to using it. I baked my first loaves of bread right after Christmas and they actually turned out! I've made all of our bread since. Oh how I've missed homemade bread the last few years!

These pictures capture Ellie's personality so perfectly!

Three months

First time in the swing and it put her right to sleep

We went to Pescadero Beach with Jon's family at the beginning of January. I love where we live!

And of course Jon's birthday was the end of January. He got some new headphones and a slack line. It may have been his best birthday ever.