Dear Emma

Today we celebrated your 5th birthday.  I can hardly believe it's been 5 years already!  You continue to amaze me with the capacity you have to love others.  You are beautiful on the inside and out.  Your love and concern for others far exceeds your years.  Your testimony of the gospel is so strong!  You are the one who always remembers we need to pray before eating and when Monday night rolls around you make sure we have Family Home Evening.  You love order and organization.  You volunteered to scrub the toilet and wipe down the table for your chores.  I love how you can keep track of things I've done better than I can.  Today I couldn't remember if I had worn a jacket to the church and you assured me that I hadn't.  You're so cute when you remind me of things.  Everyone always comments on how well behaved you are and how sweet you are.  You are very soft spoken and I'm consistently having to tell you to speak up.  I hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the butt!  Lately you have become concerned with others actions when they don't act in an appropriate way towards you or someone else.  We've had many long and in depth discussions about how to treat other people and I love that you listen and take the things we discuss and put them to action.  The world needs more people like you in it.  I hope that you will always be kind to everyone around you and befriend those who need a friend.  Always remember that everyone has a story and we need to not judge them.  I'm grateful every day that Heavenly Father sent you to our family. Your smile makes me smile.  I love that you still want to sit and snuggle with me.  I hope that will continue into your teenage years.  You are a wonderful, beautiful and intelligent little lady.  Always remember that you are of Divine heritage and therefore a princess of your Heavenly Father.  Daddy and I love you so much!

Some things you are interested in this year:

• Barbies
• Coloring (you have started trying to stay in the lines and use different colors to show greater detail in your pictures)
• T-ball (we had you try T-ball this year and you are so excited to play again next year)
• Reading!  You are sounding out words and with a lot of encouragement are reading simple books.  We have you read a sentence and go back and ask you questions about what you just read.  You are for the most part able to read and comprehend what you just read.  It may take you a couple times of re-reading to understand it but that's the hardest part of reading.
• Dancing.  You love dancing to music.