Ten

Today, our beloved Emily turns ten and as I reflect on this last year, I realize how lucky we are to be her parents.  She is a kind and loving girl - last August, she cut off eleven inches of her hair and donated it to Locks for Love; she always looks for the good in other people and tries very hard to like everyone.  She is very artistic - she started playing the saxophone this year, loves to sing and enjoyed being in the school play.  Emily is one of the sportiest girls I know - she excels at soccer and lacrosse and can't wait to run cross country (one more year) and play basketball for her school.  There are weeks at a time that she plays soccer seven days a week, sometime 2 or 3 games a day and she never tires of it.  As much as she loves to score, she also loves to stop other people from scoring and is turning into a very good goalie.  Lacrosse is a close second, probably because she scores so much.  She works hard at both sports and we are proud of all that she has accomplished on the field over the last year.  Emily is also studious and hardworking at school - she finished 4th grade with straight A's for the year, which is an impressive accomplishment, considering the extracurricular activities she balances with her school workload.  She takes a book with her everywhere she goes and she also loves to write (although she does not like to write book reports for school).  She loves learning new things and interesting facts - one of her favorite gifts at Christmas is the yearly kids almanac.  One of Emily's best qualities is her sense of humor - she loves to tell jokes; she loves puns; she is always laughing and smiling.  She is incredibly easy going and a joy to be around.  Emily is still a great sleeper, although those napper shots are becoming few and far between.  She loves animals, especially Baxter.  She spent at least two weeks this spring trying to talk us into getting a hedgehog for her - and was extremely frustrated with us when the answer was a firm "no".  She is adventurous and always willing to try new foods and adventures.  She loves, loves, loves Harry Potter and simply devoured the books over the winter.  She could watch the movies on a continuous loop and often spent her recesses talking with other Potterheads.  With all of this goodness comes.....stubbornness; pigheadedness; the refusal to believe that she is ever wrong; and sometimes a surprising lack of self-confidence.  We love every inch of her tiny (but strong) frame; we love every facet of her personality; and we are excited and lucky to be on a life-long journey with her.  Happy Birthday to our kind, funny, beautiful and sporty Emily.  You've finally reached double digits - enjoy it!!

(For those of you wondering where the annual video is, well, it's been delayed.  After 7 1/2 years without a single problem, my beloved iMac completely stopped working two days ago. I completed the video on our backup MacBook but because we haven't updated the MacBook in a while, I couldn't load the video to YouTube - or any other third party host. I will post it once we are back up and running).