March Madness

Abby, Emma, Ella

I am good at this lately. Good at not blogging for a super long time and then trying to figure out where to begin with all the crap I haven't blogged about. I used to at least blog once a week. Now I am trying to cram a whole month into one post. So my March is all jumbled up in my head. I will attempt to organize it so that this isn't just madness. I am sure it still will be, but let's give it a go. March 5 was the Thanksgiving Point Xtreme Competition for Emma's clogging team. I love watching cloggers. I'm actually kind of a brat about the whole thing. My favorite part about clogging competitions is the bad outfits. Emma's teacher actually has great taste and makes sure our dancers don't look like Beverly Hillbilly's. Other teachers try and miss the boat - big time. Hopefully the girl in the Egyptian outfit realizes it's her teachers fault, not hers. Ugh. So Emma, Ella and Abby did awesome. It's so fun to see the girls slowly break out of the shells they've been hiding in for so long. They took FIRST place in their age group. And this really isn't one of those "everyone gets a trophy" kind of competitions. Gag. The best part was at the end when the dancers all go up on stage together and do clogging style line dancing (or whatever those electric slide type moves are). They don't have to go up, but it's fun for them to all "show off" a little. And, crazy as it sounds, our girls actually participated.
From Soccer Mom to Clogging Mom (April, me, Karen)

If I am remembering right, Emma's Birthday was next. March has always been her month, but this year we have really dedicated it to her. She is my number 2 child. I am a number 2 child. Sometimes I wonder if this is why Emma and I butt heads so much... are we too much alike? It's amazing how easy it is for that "middle child" to sometimes get pushed to the back burner. I have been guilty of this with her and maybe I am trying too hard to make it up to her. I don't know. I just know that right now I have a tender spot in my heart for this little ten year old. She is awesome. She has been "blessed" with the gift of anxiety. Sucks. Truly truly sucks. But, she is amazing and has already learned to overcome this challenge. Last year at this time we were just getting on her roller coaster. She ended her third grade year with six weeks of absences and weekly visits to therapy. A year later, she is loving life and school and friends and is a top student. She is dancing and taking guitar lessons and has become so independent. It would be logical to give credit to medicine and doctors, but I actually believe there is more to it than that. I have said many prayers on her behalf and I have seen her change and learn and grow in ways that I wasn't sure were possible. I should know by now that all things are possible.

This is Emma holding baby Bryson. She is a baby lover. She always has a babe in her arms. This was at Grandma B's. We celebrated Bryn's big day and Emma's all at once. Em was funny - she was acting weird the whole day but when I talked to her about it, I realized she was uncomfortable with all the attention being on her. She makes me smile.

This is at Grandma J's. We are crazy and did both sides of the family all in one day. Again, Emma wasn't sure about the attention and it took me standing on my head to get her to smile. She was excited to get a new Madame Alexander doll from Grandma!

Emma decided to get a room makeover this year instead of having a Birthday Party. Even though I still took her Birthday shopping and she was spoiled the whole month, now that it's two weeks later she is questioning her decision. She is a stinker. I think her room turned out darling and we had fun shopping, but of course, there are things she thinks we left out. I have been calling her Dudly for the last two weeks 'cause I swear she counts the gifts to make sure there's more than there were last year.


Above is the before. It looks like a coffin, I know. It's actually her shelf on top of the bed with a sheet over it. I just almost forgot to take a before picture. The room was blue before for Josh. I'm excited about the pink she chose even though it took three layers of primer to cover up that blue.

So there is our month in a shell. There's so much that I haven't blogged about. If you ask Jer, it's because I've been too busy at all my church meetings. Lol. Hopefully I can get caught up now that General Conference and Girls Camp are pretty much planned (he keeps giving me crap about planning General Conference since our meetings go so long).