Birthday Cut & Style

Emma turns 7 tomorrow. Took her down to the Great Clips today after school for a shampoo, cut and blow dry so she could go through her day freshly coiffed. Looks like we also could have opted for some aquamarine highlights in her bangs.

Emma shares a birthday with her cousin Julia, our bishop's daughter Becca, her violin teacher's father AND father-in-law, and David Letterman.

It's an off-year for a friend birthday party, so festivities will be low-key. Here's the birthday schedule:

1. Get sung to on the school bus.

2. Play violin at show and tell (I'm meeting her at school at 11:45 with the violin; she will play "Allegro" and "Song of the Wind" from Suzuki Book 1)

3. Distribute Blow Pop suckers to her classmates (Mandarin word for classmate: tongxue)

4. Have hot lunch with Mom in school cafeteria

5. Get picked up by Mom after school (she usually rides the bus, but she wants to hang out with her pals on the curb in front of the school while she waits to be picked up)

6. Open presents as soon as Dad comes home. She has been asking for one million things. I told her it's not like Christmas, yet what can it hurt a girl to ask. She wants a helium balloon kit, a scooter, musical bells, a "rock collection," a telescope, and bubble gum. She will get some of those things.

7. Have dinner at WaterMoon, a great Chinese restaurant down the hill next to Harmons.

8. Come home, have birthday cake.

9. Do ZERO homework.

Here's Missy Em just a few days after we met her in Hubei Province. Wish we could have celebrated her first birthday with her. But we've had lots of fun birthdays together since...and we look forward to so many more. Sure do love her. Sure glad she's our little girl. Happy birthday, sweetheart.