Emma came into the kitchen this morning for school, late as usual, sporting some earrings she found in her sister's room. They looked a little large on this skinny little girl. I asked her if they were heavy and she said, "a little". They must have been because when I dropped her off at school on this blistery cold morning she was holding her ears to prevent the wind from blowing them. She looked pretty proud of herself though.

Emma at eleven. Emma is so fun and sweet. She is our most determined child. She has also learned to be very patient with Lily. Some times she gets agitated, but mostly she just humors her and then smiles knowingly at me. Very mature, Emma!! She is really working hard on the violin and loves to tinker around on the piano. She is ready to take up her cross stitching we started during the summer. She is pretty good. She also is wanting me to teach her to sew on the sewing machine. On Saturday she made a dress for her American Girl. She cut the pieces for it by holding the fabric up to the doll and measuring here and there to get it just right. It has a bodice and skirt attached with straps at the top. Pretty impressive. The other thing she loves is to draw house plans. Truly a day can be spent huddled over her writing pad drawing away. As I alluded to earlier, Emma is unbearably slow. She takes almost all afternoon to get her homework done. She is always the last one ready in the morning for school. She is the longest in the bathtub at night. It makes me crazy so many times.

So, Emma will not be winning any races soon, but she sure is a wonderful girl. So innocent and childlike still. She was introduced at New Beginnings in Young Women last week (I can't believe that she was even there!!!) and she told that her favorite TV show was "Arthur" from PBS. No peer pressure there..............yet. How thankful I am to have this great girl in my family.