Princess Ball

Each Spring our Stake holds a Princess Ball for all the girls 8-11.  This was Emma's first year to be able to go.  She was very excited.  As soon as she heard it announced several weeks earlier, she told me she knew exactly what dress she wanted to wear - her white dress from her baptism that my parents gave her.  Eric even let her choose the tie or bow tie he wore.  I gave her two options for her hair, and she chose the up-do.  Then I threw on her tiara for good measure.  Seemed appropriate.

The evening went as follows: upon arrival everyone had their picture taken (copies were given out the next day at church).  Then everyone went to the gym where they had tables set up for dinner.  Each table had everything it needed for the meal, so no one needed to get up.  They had rolls, meats, cheeses, etc. for sandwiches, along with chips and a vegetable tray and fruit bowl.  Sounds yummy, and not too messy for the girls in their fancy dresses.  There was a cake for dessert, and while they ate the cake, there a was a little program that consisted of a short slide show with pictures of various lighthouses along with quotes from general authorities about letting your light shine and about young women.  This went along with the theme which was "Let it Shine".  Following the slide show there were a few short messages given (mostly just testimonies) from some of the primary leaders from the wards.  Then the program portion was over.

The dance floor was quickly cleared of the tables, and the dancing began.  The DJ had a good mix of upbeat songs and slow songs, as well as one that was only the girls in the middle (basically to give the dads a rest).

Emma had so much fun, and can't wait until next year.  I love that they have this activity just for the girls.  It's such a fun opportunity for them to spend some extra special time with their dads.

Okay I think I could just die with how perfect this picture turned out!  I am constantly amazed by how absolutely stunning Emma is.  I know that's a total mom thing to say, but I can't help it!  She's gorgeous!

And here's a short video Eric took of the girls dancing.  This was one of the rest songs for the dads.  The coloring if off in the video because unbeknownst to Eric, the camera was on a really weird color setting when he took the video.  Oh well.  You can see Emma close the middle in her white dress and silver heels.  This explains why her hair do was falling out when she got home!

Spring Break

A few months ago my mom called me and told me she and my dad were wanting to come visit us in April. I had no idea they were even thinking about coming, so we were all thrilled. And then we waited (at times rather impatiently - especially Emma) for spring break to get here. Finally it arrived, as did my parents.  Emma was just a ball of excitement as we waited at the airport. I don't think she stopped smiling over the next 8 days. Until they left that is. Then it was all tears. BUT before the tears came we had some good times.

Easter sort of slipped in there amidst all the other activities. Knowing this would likely happen, we made sure to talk a lot about Easter and the Savior in the weeks leading up to it, including watching some fabulous church videos. So when Easter actually came we didn't worry too much about sliding right past the real meaning and having the candy be more of the focus. Usually we don't let that happen, but since we were heading out of town right after breakfast that day, I didn't stress too much about it.   Emma woke up to find her basket overflowing with goodies. I admit that I was super ready this year to not need to do the whole Easter bunny thing. Of course, Emma still believes so we went ahead and did it again, but I'm ready to be done with it. Just saying. I'd still get her treats of course, but the secrecy part sometimes seems like such a pain. But as I was telling Eric, I don't want to tell her yet, because then it stands to reason that she'll also figure out Santa. And I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. I mean, part of me is. Part of me would love that. But I love the magic of Christmas that comes along with Santa so much that I'd be sad for it to be gone. And since I don't have more kids who would continue to believe for years to come, it's all or nothing with Emma. So I'm torn. It'll end when it ends though (either her figuring it out, hearing about it at school, or me finally telling her because she's getting too old), so I'll deal with it at that time. Anyway, back to Easter morning.  After she perused her basket, we also gave her a fishing pole. We wanted credit for that one, not the Eater bunny. She was ecstatic! She loves fishing with Eric and can't wait to go again, especially since she'll have her own pole this year. Then she did an egg hunt. The egg hunt has always been from us, so no worries about secrets there. We just sent her to her room so we could set it up. Now I want chocolate from thinking about her candy...

We had a big breakfast with fruit, muffins, breakfast casserole, etc, and then headed out the door with our luggage. My parents thought it would be fun to go down to Nauvoo and Springfield while they were here. My family went years ago right before my mission, so they had both been before to both places, but the Nauvoo temple hadn't been completed yet. Construction had only just begun.  My dad was singing with the Tabernacle Choir when they went to Nauvoo and were inside the temple singing during it's dedication, so he had already seen the completed temple, and Eric, Emma and I took this same trip a couple years ago, so it was just my mom who hadn't seen the completed temple. I was excited for her to see it.

Emma was all set in the car. She was such a good traveler.
That's what video games, iPods and movies will do for you I guess.  =)

Emma was taking her own pictures like crazy on this trip. I think I enjoyed watching her do that more than anything else.  She was so cute planning out her pictures, sometimes crouching low to get just the right shot.

Enjoying the lovely evening light while skipping rocks along the banks of the Mississippi River

We stayed in a cabin this time just like we did on our last trip, and I think once again it was Emma's favorite part of the trip.  Before my parents got to town, any time we'd mention going to Nauvoo, Emma would promptly ask if we were staying in a cabin again, as if her asking was the only requirement to making it a reality.

My favorite part about the cabin. This porch swing. Eric and I spent the evening just
sitting out on the porch, looking at the stars, listening to the quiet, and enjoying the
wonderful temperatures. Love talking evenings away like that.

The three of us stayed in a huge room upstairs that could have slept 8. Emma chose the top bunk in a bunk bed and thought it was crazy that she could touch the ceiling.

We might have been the first people ever to play Mah Jongg in Nauvoo.
Being Emma's latest obsession, we had to bring it to play with my parents.

Our full day in Nauvoo was sort of rainy, but wasn't terrible.  Nothing like a little rain to keep the crowds away.  Oh, it being the day after Easter and a Monday didn't hurt either.  We practically had the place to ourselves!

Making some rope. You can never have too much rope.

The next day we went to Carthage and then to New Salem to see some Lincoln stuff. We ended that day in Springfield touring the Lincoln home and seeing his tomb. The next day after finishing up with museums etc, we came home.

The morning light on the jail was just beautiful. It seemed to add
such a amazing feeling to an already amazing place.

Emma's first selfie. Heaven help me - it's starting.

In New Salem Emma was trying to capture some pictures of wildlife.  Or maybe it was flowers?
Doesn't matter, she was super cute while doing it and I loved watching her. 

In the days after our trip we went to a great car museum which my parents loved. There were tons of classic cars and several very old ones. We've been there before, and Emma just loves it. I admit, I love that Emma loves cars. We also took my parents to see a Brewers game while they were in town. They won, so that made it even better!

Don't you just love it? I want one. But I'll take it in blue please.

I love having my parents here visiting, and like Emma am so sad when they leave. We love living here, but it is hard being away from my family. We miss them all like crazy all the time. Thanks so much for visiting Mom and Dad! We had so much fun with you!

Crazy Sleeper

When Emma goes to bed each night she reads for awhile.  The other night I guess she decided that she wanted to read in her chair rather than in her bed.  She got up and dragged her chair over next to her bed so she could continue to use her lamp.  Later when we went in to check on her etc before going to bed ourselves, we found her asleep in her chair.  Silly girl!

Class A Chicagoland TKD Tournament

Yes, another taekwondo entry.  Another tournament.  There are tournaments held all over the country each year that are open for anyone to come and compete.  If we wanted to take Emma to all these tournaments we could, no matter where in the country they were being held.  The only real incentive to do that is if you are competing for state champion or something along those lines.  If that's the case, you get points if you win based on the size of the tournament.  The bigger the tournament, the more points.  Emma is not competing for any sort of title.  We just wanted to go for fun and to experience a tournament this size.  We found out about it when she was asked to go by a couple of her instructors.  Class A tournaments are the biggest ones.  That's based on the number of people competing.  Smaller tournaments would be called class B and so on.  Being in the Chicago area this one can easily draw a huge turnout.  We went with no expectations, just looking forward to the experience.

There were tons of people there.  They had between 20 and 25 rings for the competitors to compete in.  They had competitors from all ages and belt ranks, from 4 year old white belts to over 60 year old 3rd and 4th degree black belts, and perhaps even higher.  The highest ranking black belt in all of American TKD was there - a 9th degree black belt.  There is only one of them at a time.  He's getting pretty old though.  I still wouldn't want to fight him.

There were several different events each competitor could do, but being our first time at a tournament this size, we decided to only have Emma do 2 of them.  She would compete in forms and sparring.  Those two events were sort of a package deal anyway - you did one, you had to do the other.  They were running very late on their events (I guess they misjudged how long each group would take), and Emma didn't compete until about 2:00.  She was supposed to compete just after 11:00.  I'm really glad I took some snacks for her, because all they had there was greasy stadium type food.

Anyway, they were dividing all the groups up by sex into fairly close belt ranks and ages.  Because of how they divided them, even though she's only 8, Emma was in the 9-11 year old group consisting of brown belts and red belts.  That equals 4 belt levels, because there are two levels within each belt color.  There was only one other brown belt in the group.  The rest were all high red belts (Emma was a low brown - she's since passed her next belt test and promoted to high brown).  It was definitely going to be an uphill battle for Emma.  We just wanted her to have a good time and enjoy herself.  We don't mind Emma learning that you can't always win at everything.  The idea of participation trophies?  Yeah, I think that's a terrible idea.  At least by the time you're Emma's age.

Anyway, they did their forms first.  The way judging for forms works, is they have 3 people come up and each do their form, then all 3 together stand before the judges to receive their scores.  After that, everyone receives their score immediately after they do their form.  The idea here is to help give the judges some perspective.  If the first person were to receive a fairly high mark, but then all the other competitors do better, the judges might run out of higher scores to be able to award.  Make sense?  In any case, the order they compete in is completely random.  It's better to go later though, because the judges often tend to forget exactly how the earlier competitors did, and might award a higher score to someone who was not in fact any better.  It seems a little unfair, but it's all subjective.

Of course, Emma was called to be one of the first 3 girls.  Bummer.  She did awesome though!  But we were on pins and needles while the remaining girls went.  And they just seemed to keep coming and coming!  Every time I thought it was done, and that she had secured a third place win, another girl would still need to compete.  It was torture!  I don't know how people do this all the time!  Crazy!  Anyway, they finally finished, and although they didn't officially announce anything then and wouldn't be awarding trophies until after all the events were done for this group, we knew from the scores that Emma had won third place.  We were thrilled.  Especially since the 2 girls who took first and second were amazing.  The first place girl must do nothing else besides TKD.  Ever.


Emma waited until the last event, which was the sparring, before she competed again.  It is again done by random who you spar against each round.  Emma had the great misfortune of sparring against the girl who ultimately took first place in each of the 4 events.  So Emma was eliminated in the first round.  Had she sparred against someone else she might have been able to earn second or third place, but maybe not.  We'll never know.  In any case, it had been such a long day up until this point that I think Emma was just relieved it was over.

After the sparring was done, they called all the girls up and handed out the awards.  We were so thrilled that Emma won a trophy.  These trophies were huge too!  She was so proud of herself too.  Not too bad considering we went into this with no expectations.  Emma said she would love to go to another one of these, even if she didn't win anything.  She really enjoyed to experience.  Awesome!

Emma shaking the judges hands when they were giving out the awards.

Emma with a couple of her instructors, including the owner of
the school, who came down to support the competitors.