emilia claire

This is my daughter Emilia Claire. She is five going on six in December going on 16! She is sweet, smart and full of the wiggles. Her cup runneth over with self-confidence and she is the cheekiest monkey you'll ever meet. She is aware of everything and everyone around her and likes to keep us on our toes! I love her so much and I am glad that she is my firstborn.

Emi has many interests, but music and athletics are her favorites. We don't have a piano in our house but she has taught herself to play many songs on the church piano or on the piano at Grammy's house. She is in a music club at her preschool and at the sports day she played the snare drum in a marching band. It was very cool. She loves to sing and make up songs. Actually it's hard to listen to a CD with her because she asks questions the whole time about the singer, the singer's age, when did we first hear this singer, etc.

Emi also loves athletics. When she started preschool in December, the other kids in her class were practicing jumprope. So Emi practiced and practiced and in a few months she could jumprope forwards and backwards and a variety of other special jumps. We were very impressed.

At the sports day this year, she also impressed us with her running. She was so fast! We shouldn't have been surprised, though, because she kept telling us she was the "fastest in my class". As I said before, lots of self-confidence. This is a picture of her race - she's the one out in front! During summer vacation, she took swimming lessons at the preschool and learned how to put her whole face in the water! All in all it's been a big year for her!

But all of this doesn't really tell you who Emi is and that is always the hardest to express in words, isn't it? Emi is a leader. If you can imagine the child at the playground who organizes the kids into a game or the child in the classroom who actually listens to the teacher and follows the directions to the letter while helping the person beside her, that is Emi. We could also probably categorize her as bossy (where does she get that from?) and strong-willed so Chikara and I have made a concerted effort to teach her the difference between leading and being bossy. We still have a ways to go but we feel that Japan needs kids that have healthy self-confidence, the ability to lead and know the difference between right and wrong and have the support of their family help them back up when they fall.

So we pray for our Emi and her future while enjoying her antics and the funny stories of all the interesting people and things she encounters everyday.