For 21 years she’s been making this world a better and brighter place and we are grateful for her example...especially now as she sacrifices 18-months to serve, love, and teach the people in the Salt Lake West mission.
For your entertainment, here are 21 things you may or may not know about her….
1. When I found out that Emma was due on Halloween, I was quoted as telling everyone I hoped she would be born any day but her due date.
2. In true Emma style and with a little “I’ll show you” attitude, she came promptly on her due date.
3. She won a big prize from the local girl scout troop for being the first girl born in our hospital on the founder of Girl Scouts’ (Juliet Gordon Low’s) birthday.
4. She’s always loved being born on Halloween. I think she loves that everyone is celebrating anyway and it makes her birthday feel extra special. Plus no one ever forgets what day her birthday is.
5. In keeping with the Halloween birthday theme, Emma had bright red hair until she was about 4-years-old. When she was born, she completed her trio of kids with all different colors of hair. It was quite a sight to see -- Spencer with his dark hair, Cami with blond, and Emma with her red hair. It's not that red anymore, but I still delight in the fact when the sun catches her hair just right you can still see the red in it a bit!
6. Emma is full of energy. From the time she was a tiny baby, she was in constant motion and was my only non-snuggly baby. Her energy level is a few steps beyond my own and she amazes me with the amount she can accomplish in a day.
7. Emma was the biggest mischief maker of all my toddlers! Her high energy level was only matched by her high level of curiosity and she got into EVERYTHING!
8. Emma hates contention with every part of who she is and tries very hard to seek for peaceful solutions to contention. I have been humbled by her many times.
9. Emma loves, loves, loves music...and has since she was a baby. She loves to listen to it, loves to play it, and loves to sing it. She practiced for hours a day and is the only one of my kids who we've had to tell to STOP practicing her music so much, because someone is sleeping, or on the phone, etc.
10. Emma is self-driven and a very hard worker. In other words, she was the perfect personality to homeschool and she is good at making things happen.
11. Emma likes doing things her own way! Whether it be school, music, cooking, or whatever….she likes to figure out her own way to do things.
12.Emma is passionate about her pursuits. When Emma decides something is important to her, she goes at it 110%. Her mission is no exception.
13. Emma is our family's only natural morning person. I haven’t indulged my night owl tendencies in many years, but even still I struggle to pop up and get moving as quickly as Emma does on her own.
14. Emma is a baker extraordinaire. While I consider myself to be a somewhat simple baker, she is not intimidated at all by recipes that have weird ingredients or long instructions...not that she uses or follows recipes as written very often.
15. Emma rarely watches tv, but when she does it's invariably a cooking show.And even better than watching a cooking show, she absolutely loves to recreate the shows for a family activity. For her, what could be better than engaging the whole family in cooking with crazy ingredients or while performing difficult feats?
16. As a teen, Emma's room was never messy unless someone else left their stuff lying around.
Emma was such a mess-maker as a child that we teasingly said she kicked up a cloud of dust behind her when she walked, but she was the only one of our teens to consistently keep a clean room.
17. Emma is a gifted writer. She is an avid journal keeper and is not afraid of writing (like some of my other children). She definitely has a gift with words and I enjoy reading her work.
18. Emma seems naturally quiet when you meet her, but she is the loudest of all my kids. It may stem from her status as a middle born child, but between her constant singing, animated way of telling a story, and her dramatic responses to surprises, the volume of our home is several degrees lower when she’s not around and it makes us miss her all the more.
19. Emma is good at making the most of situations that don’t go the way she expects or wants them to. Everything about her mission has been different than she expected from when she turned in her papers, but she has handled all the changes with grace and maturity.
20. Emma only has about 2 months left on her church mission and we couldn’t be more excited for her to come home in early January.
21. Emma has a beautiful smile that lights up a room and she loves to share it with all she knows!
Happy birthday, Emma!!! We love you!!!
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