Happy 13th Birthday Emma!

This year Emma turned 13.  An official teenager!  In many ways Emma is a lot like your typical teenager and she has slowly started to care more about teenager things.  But I'm OK with that.  I am, after all, a veteran of this growing up thing.  I suppose that is the ultimate advantage of being the youngest child in the family...you get parents who have been around the block a time or too, who know which battles to fight, who can look at the big picture a little more and who have more confidence in their parenting choices. So Emma will benefit from our growth and wisdom and Rachel and Hannah will have a life's worth of ammunition to use against us as parents in the "it's not fair" war.  So anyway, Emma is 13!  We celebrated in bold fashion, a kid who has always been bold. Emma is nothing short of exuberant about most things.  She is kind, loyal and so affectionate that sometimes everyone in the family finds themselves craving a little less Emma affection...I know that we should embrace it while it lasts though because parenting has also taught me that things have a way of changing just when we don't want them to.  Something that hasn't changed though is the way we celebrate a birthday.  We stuck with tradition and had breakfast burritos for breakfast, corn chowder for dinner and lemon cake for dessert.  Lots of Star Wars gifts this year for the Star Wars fan as well as some cute new soccer pants that she has been eyeing for sometime now.  Happy Birthday to my sweet Emma.  I almost forgot...this year during her birthday weekend Emma was asked to act in a Robin Hood performance at the Renaissance Fair.  She played the part of King John and was hilarious!