emoticons pop-up problem

I've searched all over for a solution to this problem but it seems to be pretty unique

The emoticon pop-up (the one you get when pressing ctrl+cmd+space) appears every time I'm indside a text box. Its driving me crazy as it pulls the focus each time so I end up typing in the pop-up. Short of re-installing mavericks, I'm not sure what to do? Is there a way to disable this?