My daughter, the adventurer (NOT!)

Emma's Brownie troop had a field trip today...they went to a nearby Girl Scout camp where they had a zip line. The girls were supposed to climb up a rope ladder onto a small platform and then they were hooked to a zip line and they glided down the line about 500 feet. All the girls were giddy with excitement, except my little Emma. She is so afraid to try new things...especially anything that is a physical challenge. All 22 girls in the troop went down the zip line, except Emma and one other girl.

I tried not to make a big deal about it, although I'm sure she sensed my disappointment. I just wish she was more willing to try new things. Of course, maybe this timidity will be a good thing a few years down the line, when other kids are trying smoking and drinking and other things I don't like to think about.

Anyway, although Emma chickened out, she still had a great time...and that's the important thing.

Equestrian camp

Emma is spending the entire day at an equestrian camp. I'm a little nervous about leaving her there the whole day - I always stay for her lessons. I feel like I should be there in case something happens. But the instructor assured me she would take good care of her, so I dropped her off and left...



I've spent a glorious day grocery shopping, doing laundry and cleaning the house. I guess you could say I was at housekeeping camp all day.

A day at the farmstead...

Sorry for the lack of posting of late. It seems like the first couple weeks of school are so hectic - and it's a challenge getting back into the routine. But I feel like we're settled in a little and things are getting back to normal.

Of course, that doesn't mean we don't appreciate a nice long holiday weekend to get us all out of whack again! Emma's best friend Emme spent the night last night and stayed with us most of the day today. The girls have known each other since they were one, and second grade is the first time they have not been in class together. They have really missed each other.

It had been an absolutely beautiful day, so we decided to visit the local farmstead - along with about 75,000 other folks. But the girls had a great time. The day was filled with...

Feeding the goats


Mining for gold


Eating snow cones


And just hanging out


Now Emma is over at Emme's house...I half-suspect I'll get a call soon from my girl asking if she can have a sleepover at Emme's house. She loves her best friend!

First day of second grade

I'm now the mother of a second-grader! Emma had a few butterflies in her tummy this morning, but I think it was just the excitement of being in second grade...


We went to orientation last night and found out who Emma's teacher is. There was one teacher I definitely did NOT want her to get, and I was super-relieved when I saw she wasn't on his class list. I feel horrible saying that, and I'm sure it's no fun being the teacher that no one wants to get. But he has a reputation for being kind of a yeller and I know that would not be good for Emma.

Anyway, her new teacher is Mme. Valluett - she is from France and is super-nice.


I'm hoping Emma has a great year...she told me some kids say second grade is "really hard." Hopefully that's not the case!

PS this is the first year I didn't cry when I dropped Emma off at her first day of school...I guess the next time I will bawl will be when I take her to college!

Emma and her Biggie

I know there's no one who loves Emma more than I do, but my mom comes close. She adores my little girl and Emma loves her Biggie (that is what Emma has called her ever since she could talk.)

It is so lovely...

...when your child spends the day with a friend whose mother is a brilliant professional photographer. I was trying to get through a long day at work when the mom dropped me an email saying everything was going great and she attached a few photos of the girls when they were helping her out in her studio...




I love this last photo of Emma and her friend Nikita...they are such sweet and pretty girls (in my opinion!)

The expander is in...

I had been dreading this day for several weeks...Emma's appointment to get her palate expander in. I have been so worried that this was going to be painful for my little girl...and I was not looking forward to having to stick a key in her mouth every night to tighten the expander.

Well, Emma was a total champ...she didn't wince or complain once as they glued the expander onto the roof of her mouth. They had me tighten the expander for the first time...it wasn't as complicated as I thought and Emma said it didn't really hurt...it just made her nose feel funny (they told me that was common and it stopped after a few minutes.)

Anyway, here's a blurry photo of her new $1600 accessory...


And not to leave you with that disturbing image...here's a photo from Emma's horse show this weekend...she got two seconds, which made me quite proud!

A couple more from the photo shoot

A preview of Emma's photo shoot

As I mentioned yesterday, a photographer friend of mine came out to the stables to take a few shots of Emma before her lesson. She sent me a photo she took of Emma with her favorite horse Abra...


They both look so beautiful to me! I can't wait to see the rest...

Sunday at the stables

The weather here, like many other parts of the country, has been blissfully cool this summer. Normally, Emma's horseback riding lessons can be very taxing for both mother and daughter at her non-air conditioned barn. But with the cooler temps, it has been downright pleasant all summer.

Today was probably the warmest day we've had this year...upper 80s. A friend of ours who is a professional photographer came out to the barn to take some photos of Emma around the horses - I can't wait to see how they came out!

I snapped a couple photos of her too...




Emma spent her whole lesson practicing schooling patterns...she has a horse show this Saturday and she's going to compete in the schooling pattern class for the first time (up til now, she's just done walk/trot.) We'll see how she does next week!

Emma's summer playlist

I have a really old Ipod that I gave Emma and I helped her pick out some of her favorite songs to put on it. So here's what she's listening to this summer...

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Cyndy Lauper (I think it's cool that Emma loves a song I was listening to as a teenager!)

Pokerface - Lady Gaga (this is definitely the song of the summer for us - you've never lived until you hear a group of 7-year-old girls belting this song out in the back of your car!)

Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) - Beyonce (Emma thought this song was called Single Legs until I finally clued her in.)

Boom Boom Pow - Black Eyed Peas (I'm actually not crazy about this one, but Emma loves it.)

The Climb - Miley Cyrus (I'm pretty tired of all things Miley/Hannah, but this is a pretty decent song.)

Umbrella - Rhiannon (I love it when Emma sings the chorus...ella ella ella ella hey hey hey hey.)

Love Story - Taylor Swift (Emma worships Taylor...she even has a poster of her in her room - the only non-horse poster allowed.)

That's Not My Name - The Ting Tings (I love this one as much as Emma.)

Hit Me Baby One More Time - Britney Spears (classic Britney...I'm just thrilled it's not that horrible If You Seek Amy song.)

One World - The Cheetah Girls (In Emma's mind, the Cheetah Girls splitting was akin to the Beatles breakup 40 years ago.)

As you can see, Emma is heavy into the grrrrl power anthems...but she has pretty good taste for a seven-year-old!

Orthodontia...here we come!

Emma had her first orthodontist appointment yesterday. It was just a consultation and I was hoping the orthodontist would say yes, she would need some work, but not until next year...or even later.

But no, she showed me how Emma's permanent teeth coming in are already crowded and we need to make room for them...the sooner the better. So even though my daughter is just seven years old, she is starting down the road to orthodontia (I didn't get my braces on until I was 14!) The orthodontist put in rubber spacers between her back molars, which will make a bit of a gap between the molars. That's so they can fit her with a palate expander in two weeks.

I am a bit of wreck about the whole thing - both how to swing it financially and how Emma will fare. I love my daughter to death, but I have to admit, she is a bit of a wimp. She's been complaining all day about how the spacers are hurting her teeth...I can't imagine what will happen when they put that expander on (which looks like a torture device invented by the Nazis.) And the fact that I have to insert a little key in her mouth every night and tighten the expander...I just can't wait.

Oh well, I know it's become a extremely common rite of passage for kids now - and it will be fine.

Anyway, here is Emma before we headed to the orthodontist...she looked pretty happy then!

Signs your child is growing up

I've been picking up some subtle signs lately that Emma is no longer a little girl. For example:

She's more excited about going to the mall than going to the park.

Her favorite singer is no longer Laurie Berkner...it's Taylor Swift.

When we were window shopping the other day and passed Gymboree, she said "Mommy, don't even THINK about it!" But her eyes lit up when we walked by Justice.

When I asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she said a Blackberry so she can text her friends (uh, I meant THIS Christmas, not the Christmas when she's 12.)

The other night, the last thing she said to me before going to bed was "don't pick my clothes out for me...I want to do that now."

Sigh! Seven is a fun age, but it is so bittersweet watching your little girl slip away. Oh well, at least she still loves her stuffed animals!

Another sleepover

It seems like 7-year-old girls are obsessed with sleepovers. Every weekend this summer, either Emma has been asked to sleep over at a friend's house or she has begged me to let one of her friends sleep over here. I don't mind it all that much, although I'm trying to limit it to a once a month thing. It can kind of wreck havoc on the entire weekend...sleepwise.

Anyway, this weekend it was our turn to host...Emma wanted her friend Tori to sleep over here. The girls were pretty good and I got them to bed by 10. We went to the park and swimming the next day. The girls were starting to snipe at each other a bit by early afternoon, so I knew it was time to take her home.

Here's a few pictures of the girls...

Happy Independence Day!

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July. I snapped this photo just as neighbors shot off a bottle rocket (I think they took out a second mortgage to buy fireworks this year because they've been shooting them off for the last four hours!)


Sorry I haven't posted anything in so long...nothing much exciting to report, I'm afraid! Hopefully something worth writing about will happen this week...

Let's go swimming!

Emma and I hit the pool for the first time this summer...it really has been too cool to go. But the temps climbed into the 90s this weekend and we went to our neighborhood pool. We ran into several friends at the pool and had a great time.

By the way, those of you in the Midwest may have seen a burst of blinding light around noon today...don't panic - it was just the sun reflected off my pasty white skin. My apologies...

Emma had her friend Helen over last night for a sleepover. Helen and Emma have known each other for years and they are good friends, but they tend to squabble a bit when they get together. Or at least they used to! Last night, they peacefully played Littlest Pet Shop together for more than an hour and not once fought over who got which pet or whose pet got which accessory. I guess they are growing up a little...


I made the girls go to bed at 9:30, but they still weren't asleep by 11, at which point I got a bit cross with them (mainly because I wanted to hit the sack!) But they finally conked out and didn't get up until 7 this morning.

All in all, a pretty successful sleepover!

Walk for Hope

Today we participated in our local FCC's charity walk for children in Chinese orphanges. It was a cool and overcast day, which is fine if you're going to be walking a couple of miles. Some photos from the day...

Here is Emma with her friend Ella and Ella's little sister Mira. The two little girls adore Emma and followed her around all morning...


This is Emma with her good friend, Sophie. They actually scootered around the park, instead of walking...


All the girls in the organization were encouraged to raise money on their own for the event. Here are the four girls that raised the most money...Meredith, Ella, Sophie and Emma. Each of the girls won a gift certificate to Build-A-Bear Workshop, so I guess we'll be going back to that kiddie crack den before too long.


And just one more picture of my sweet girl...


We had a good time, but the whole thing was rather bittersweet. This was the 11th time for this walk and the sixth time Emma and I have participated. But we all have the feeling this might be the last one. Every year, fewer and fewer families attend. As our girls get older, they seem to lose their enthusiasm for these Chinese cultural events like the Walk and Chinese New Year. And because adoptions from China have crawled to a standstill, there are very few families with newly adopted children who are excited about coming. We only had one family with a child who had been adopted in the past year...five years ago, we would have had ten or more. It's just very sad. Our FCC chapter is actually considering shutting down, like a number of others across the country. I hope we don't...I've been on the board the past three years and have really loved it. But it's hard to put all this effort into these events when the turnout declines every year. We'll see what happens...

Au revoir, first grade!

Friday was Emma's last day of first grade...the year just flew by. She has a week off and then six weeks of summer school (which is a blessing - it helps keep her French sharp and helps me with summer child care expenses.) Then in August, we'll take a week off to visit family and the rest of the time, we are sharing a nanny with some friends of ours.

Anyway, here are a few photos of Emma's last day of school...

Here's the class with the gift they made for their teacher.


This is Emma with her wonderful first grade teacher, Mme. Cahoon...


And Emma with her friend Emme and Mme. Cahoon...


I'm sure fall will be here in a flash!

Helen's Mei Mei

Emma and I met our friends Helen and Mary at the park today. We also got to meet Helen's new sister, Amanda, for the first time. Mary and Helen got back from China a couple weeks ago with Amanda, who just turned three. I can't imagine the challenges of trying to help a three-year-old adjust to a new family, language and country. But they seem to be doing pretty well...


Amanda is very shy, although she warmed right up to Emma. She seems to understand English, but the only word she says is "mama." We're really looking forward to really getting to know her as she adjusts to her new life.