"I can do hard!"

"I can do hard!" said Emma.

Emma.
My great niece.
My niece - Natalie's daughter.
My 3 year old backseat comic and commentator.

Most Mondays I pick up Emma and her 5 year old brother Lincoln. Emma usually goes to my mom's house to play girl stuff with her and Lincoln hangs out with me for a few hours. The 15 minute car ride to and from Grandma Marshmallow's house (their nick name for Great Grandma Short) is never dull.

In 15 minutes...just 1 short car ride...Emma can tell me about her latest fashion (usually a pink outfit complimented by her well worn and loved pink snow boots), she can give me a breakfast report, request a her favorite songs (The Muffin Man or Peter and John or Jingle Bells), sing along with all the motions, read at least 3 books out loud, remove her snow boots and socks and during all this put her window up and down nonstop (weather permitting).

In those 15 minutes, Emma starts every comment...every sentence... every breath with "Aunt Jee'hanna..." But every once in a while she will get mixed up and she calls me 'Gramma'. I remind her, "Emma, I'm not a Grandma because I don't have any grand kids." The first time I said that to her, she actually stopped talking for at least 30 seconds to think about that. Her comment back was, " Ok...Aunt Jee'Hanna, so instead of grand kids...someday you will have Aunt-kids!"  ha ha!

That is our very funny and oh so wise Emma!

By the time I get her to my mom's house...Lincoln and I are ready for a few hours of Lincoln-time.

This past Monday, my mom wanted to come to my house with Emma to do some gardening. The kids brought their bikes. We were going to have a fun 'play outside' day to keep an eye on my mom. They gardened with my mom (probably for a whole 2 1/2 minutes), we played on the swings for a long time.

Emma loved showing me how high she can swing all by herself. 

After lunch we got out the bikes. 

Emma has just learned to ride her bike with out training wheels. 

She was showing me how well she can ride her pretty pink bike. 

 And how well she could ride and keep up with Lincoln too! 

Emma told me she was sure she could ride Lincoln's big boy bike too. 

I told her that his bike was too big...too hard for her to ride. 

Her comment right back to me was, "Aunt Jee'hanna, I can do hard!"

With that she jumped off her little pink bike and asked me to help her hop on Lincoln's big boy bike...

and no kidding.... 

she took off...

not just on the easy flat area...

she headed right down the hill...

pedaling her heart out! 

She sure can 'do hard'. 

Lincoln couldn't believe it....

he just fell over in the grass amazed.

Isn't that just like us. Life gets hard sometimes and we forget that God can do hard. He is really good at doing what we think is hard or impossible.

All we have to do is ask him to help us ...It's all down hill from there. Everyone around will see and be amazed at what hard things God can do in our life too...if only we would ask.

What hard place does life have you in? Remember ..."God can do hard!"

"O Lord God! You have made the heavens and earth by your great power; nothing is too hard for you!" 
Jeremiah 32:17