Dear Ellie

 

Dear Ellie, 

Happy Golden Birthday (14 on the 14th) Ellie Belly! 

This year hasn't been your easiest year. You've struggled with migraines, school was much more challenging this year, and your theater situation was not ideal. In summary, a lot of things just didn't go the way you would have liked them to go. But on the flip side you found friends that you really connected with and you learned what it looks like to work really hard at something, even in a frustrating situation. You ended up in Art 1 this year and we really saw you grow as an artist.  Also, you grew almost 4 inches this year so there's that! 

We love you so much. You make us laugh with your dramatic imitations of people, you impress us with your random trivia knowledge, and we sure do love your random big hugs. You love to learn new and interesting information (and you're real opposed to learning anything you deem "boring"). You remember EVERYTHING (whereas I remember nothing). You still have your love of a good book. We've all learned to only ask you about the book you're reading if we have a solid 30 minutes to listen to a blow by blow recap of the book (did I mention you remember everything?). I love how fully immersed you get into a book series. This year you started a book club with some of your friends from school and loved it so much you would even get up early to go to book club before school and that's saying something because you REALLY love to sleep. You are my night owl and you love to sleep in. As I mentioned you really grew as an artist this year, and at home if you're not reading you can be found sprawled in the middle of your bedroom floor drawing. It is definitely an activity that you find very therapeutic and relaxing and I love that for you! You always impress me with your creativity and your skill, much of which has been self taught. You are an animal lover.  You especially love cats, even though you have a bit of an allergy. 2024 was so hard with the loss of Franklin and you, more than any of your other siblings, missed having a furry friend SO much.  One of my favorite moments of this past year was when we surprised you with Teddy. You cried and then just held him for a long time. You adore Teddy and I've loved seeing how much having Teddy around has helped you on hard days. The love of a pet is just something special. You are our adrenaline junky and will try anything. You love a zip line, ropes course, ski slope, etc. You're probably going to give me some grey hairs over the years but I do love your love of adventure and your willingness to try new things. You make me laugh because you will only ask a teacher a question in the most dire of situations but you are always willing to be the first one to walk into a new situation and figure it out. You told me that when you grow up you want to travel the world and I love that for you and hope that dream comes true! 

I am so excited to see what high school holds for you. I know you're pretty nervous because many of your middle school friends are going to a different high school but I know you will find some new friends in high school. You will have the opportunity to take some great electives (sports medicine, theater, and art will hopefully be on your schedule this year) and further explore a few things you're interested in. 

Ellie, I hope 14 is a wonderful year for you. I hope you are happy and I hope you find your people in high school. I hope you remember that you are amazing and that you are loved. I love you so much and am so thankful that God chose me to be your mom.

Love, 

Mom

Happy Birthday Ruthie!

 

Dear Ruthie, 

Happy Birthday Roo Roo! Today you are ELEVEN! I look at you, the youngest girl, and I can't believe we are already to eleven. It's crazy to think that you will start middle school in less than a year. Some days I think you are eleven going on sixteen. You love alll the skin care/beauty products. You have strong opinions about what you wear. (Which is really funny considering you wore the same penguin hat every day for almost an entire school year when you were in second grade. And there was another school year where you wore the same ratty pullover every day.) From the day you were born you have wanted nothing more than to keep up with your older sisters and that hasn't changed a bit. It's fun to watch your relationship with them. Ellie is your buddy. You love to play Legos together and y'all will spend hours sitting in your room building houses for all your Lego people.  Emerson is the sister you want to hang out and do nail or talk about beauty products or what things are trendy at the moment. You also are more than happy to let her clean and organize your room on a regular basis. In fact at one point this year you had her on a schedule for cleaning your room! And then there is your relationship with JP. He is definitely your partner in crime. I never know what silliness you two will cook up next. Y'all will be snuggled up reading a book together one minute and the next you're rolling around wrestling. No doubt the relationship you have with each of your siblings is special and you love them all fiercely and I'm so thankful for that.  

Ruthie you are definitely our strong willed child. You won't ever back down once you take a stance. You are tough as nails on the outside (you hate crying in front of anyone if you get hurt) but you feel big feelings on the inside. While that strong will doesn't always serve you well at home, I know that there will come a day when it will serve you well. Nobody is every going to walk over Ruthie!

I am so proud of how you manage your OIT. You get your dose every day and you keep up with what time your rest time is over. Having worked with children with chronic conditions for years, I am always so impressed with how you take ownership of your allergy and your dosing. I am so thankful that you are so agreeable about dosing. I think it helps that you do remember what it was like to always have to question what you were eating and to often miss out on treats that others were eating at birthday parties.

This year we've had lots of fun! We did some skiing and you were good enough to go off with your sisters to ski which you loved (and of course you had no trouble keeping up with them)! We went on a cruise which of course you loved. We went to the beach. You did swim team. You moved to a new soccer team back in the spring and we have loved watching you grow as a player under the instruction of some great coaches. You learned to be an aggressive player and you've learned a lot more ball control and you are also a wonderful teammate. We've played lots of board and card games this year. You love to play Rumikub and are crazy good at it! This year you and I did mother/daughter camp. It was the BEST experience and I am SO thankful that we got to spend a weekend together. I loved the one on one time we had and I think you loved it too! You chose to do that again this coming year instead of going to summer camp with your sisters. While I'd love for you to experience camp with your sisters, I do love that we will once again get some sweet time together. It's so rare for me to get an extended period of one on one time with any of y'all and I so treasure it when it happens. 

This year you've had a great school year. Fourth grade had its ups and downs but you are thriving in fifth grade. You have SO many sweet friends in your class...and FINALLY ended up back in the same class as your bestie Abby R who was in your second grade class. This year you are doing safety patrol and I was pretty sure you'd hate it once you had car line duty on a freezing cold morning but you've been a trooper and love being a safety patrol! 

Not only do you have a sweet group of friends at school but you have the sweetest friends at church and in the neighborhood. As we get in to the "tween" years I am so thankful for the friends you have. They are good friends who love you and care about you. 

Ruthie, I can't wait to see what next year brings. You'll start middle school (!) which is crazy to me. You are growing up but I'm so thankful that at night you still want me to read to you and you still want me to sing to you and snuggle with you. Even though you are getting older you still love your stuffed animals and your nasty old pillow that you sleep with every night. You are at that age where your room has a box full of squishmallows and fidgets right next to your skin care fridge and caboodle. I'm so glad you still have some of that little girl in you!

I love you Roo!

Love, 

Mom

Dear Emerson

 

Dear Emerson, 

Happy 15th Birthday! 

This past year we had some fun adventures. We went skiing, went to the beach, and went on a cruise. I love that where you are quite hesitant in most activities, you don't hesitate to take on the bigger hills when it comes to skiing. You really do love it so much! This year you finished middle school and moved on to high school. You have had a wonderful first semester. You adapted quickly to a new schedule, new teachers (with some high expectations!), and some new friends. I love seeing you grow as a person and move closer to adulthood. I thought it would be hard to watch you become more and more of an adult but I have truly loved it! You had a great season of summer swim, breaking some pool records, made big improvements in your high school swim times and you made the regional team which was really exciting. You have had a great start to short course season with a new coach who has helped SO much with fixing lots of little (and big!) things to help you be a faster swimmer. Your coach has pushed you and made you do hard things (200 fly) but you have been able to see that you can do those hard things and I love how proud you are of yourself when you get the "good job" from your coach or you finish a tough race (200 fly!). This semester you took chorus in school and have loved it so much. You have a wonderful teacher and we were so proud of you for auditioning for and making the region choir. I love hearing you sing! This year you also took photography in school and it has been fun seeing your artistic side come out. I have been so impressed with all you've learned and am now designating you the family photographer!

It is hard to wrap my head around the fact that it was 15 years ago that I first held you in my arms. I will never forget the moment that I saw you for the first time and fell head over heels in love with you. 

I am so proud of you and the young lady you are growing up to be. You are strong, you are kind, you are funny, you are compassionate, you love big. You have gone through so much in your life. On the really hard days when all I felt was despair and failure I would just tell myself over and over that God had a plan for you and that everything you were going through was part of His perfect plan. I love that we are seeing the way He used those struggles to shape you into the person you are today. And I can look forward and see how those character traits will benefit you in the future. I am so excited to see where life leads you. You are one of the hardest workers I know and will work tirelessly on a task, always doing your very best. I know that comes from the hours and hours of extra time you had to put into school work early on. And I can look to the future and see how that will benefit you in whatever career path you choose. My hope for you is that you always remember what you went through, the pain and tears to overcome the obstacles that just kept getting thrown down in front of you, and that you were able to overcome them and find good and meaning in a tough situation. I hope you remember that God always has a plan even when we can't see it. I hope you remember that everyone struggles, even if we can't see their struggles on the outside and that you show kindness to everyone. 

I am so thankful that you are a part of our family. You are our nurturer. The one your siblings go to when they need a band aid or need to vent. However you are quite the germaphobe so you draw the line at nurturing anyone when they're sick...you will shut your door in their face if they have the slightest sniffle! You are our organizer extraordinaire and you always make everything look nicer than it was before. You are the one they all look up to (even if most of them would NEVER admit it!). Nothing makes me happier than to walk in a room and find all 4 of you laying around laughing or talking. 

As we look forward to the next year I am excited about all the new adventures that await you. You will start driving this year, you will finish your first year of high school, you will have highs and lows, you will grow as a person, you will learn new things and try new things and I can't wait to be a part of all you do this next year!

I love you baby girl!

Love, 

Mom

Dear JP

 

Dear JP, 

Happy Birthday sweet boy! It's hard to believe you are NINE! This year has been such a fun year with you. There were a lot of years early on when you were just a hard kid but you have really come into your own and it's so fun to watch! 

JP, one thing your teachers tell me about you is that you are a good friend. I love hearing that. You are a really sweet kid and lots of fun and tend to get along with most people. You also keep us laughing a LOT. I never quite know what you're going to say and you are quick with the funny comments! You love nothing more than to dance behind the blocks at swim, having lightening bolts shaved into your hair, and make people laugh. A great example of your fun personality: you're going to be a banana for Halloween. The costume came the other day and you ROCKED it. I am so thankful for your funny, easy going personality. 

You are a boy through and through. You move and make noises constantly! I laugh (when it's not driving me crazy) because even when you manage to hold still for a few minutes you are still making noises. A perfect day in your book would be one where you headed outside as soon as you ate breakfast and played and ran and biked until it was time for dinner (with some breaks for lunch and a few snacks of course!). Speaking of food, you sure do love to eat! It is a struggle to keep you filled up. I always tell people if you start to look pale, get whiney, or overreact to a situation you probably just need to be fed!

This year we had some fun adventures. We went on a cruise for spring break and you had a great time. You hung out with squirrel monkeys, watched Choir of Man (twice!) where you laughed so much, swam in the pool and ocean, ate LOTS of ice cream, visited some new islands, and had a BLAST. You are so fun to travel with and I'm so glad we got to do this trip as a family. We also took our annual ski trip and this year you didn't have to take lessons and loved having a whole day to ski wherever you wanted. You even did a black diamond! I love your sense of adventure!

You love sports and are very athletic. Your favorite sports to play are probably flag football, soccer, swim and basketball. This past year you played basketball at school and were chosen to be the captain for your team. You played flag football this past year with 2 of your best buddies and had so much fun. You had another great swim season and set a pool record in butterfly. This fall you decided to give soccer another try and you have absolutely loved it! You have a fantastic coach and you like the other kids on your team. It has been such a great experience and you scored your first two goals last week. We love watching you play allll your sports!

You had a great year in second grade. You loved your teacher and had some of your best friends in your class. This year you have another fabulous teacher and those same buddies are with you again. We are so thankful for some sweet school friends! Last school year you were elected your class representative for student council and really enjoyed it. You decided to run again this year and we were so excited that you won again (even though you FORGOT to tell us you won!). Your best subject in school is definitely math and you love to show off your math skills in everyday life. (Side note: You got a watch for your birthday and asked for it to be set in military time. I wasn't sure you would know how to read the time but you quickly proved you could.) Your reading has improved so much this year and while it hasn't always been easy, you pushed through and are doing great! After years of trying to get you interested in reading we FINALLY found a book series (other than DogMan) that you are interested in reading. At the end of the school year last year you got Runaway Ralph and we started reading a chapter here and there sometime at the end of the summer. All of a sudden you got sucked into the story and you're now reading the Mouse and the Motorcycle. I love seeing you getting excited about a book. And I really love that it's by an author whose books I loved growing up!

JP I hope you always know how loved you are. Your sisters love you so much. You have friends who love you. You have family who loves you so much. You make it so easy for others to love you and we are so thankful that we have you to love!

Love, 

Mom

Happy Birthday Ellie!

 

Dear Ellie, 

Happy 13th Ellie Belly! You are officially a teenager...and you're VERY excited about it! You have a had such a great year this year, you took some theater classes and discovered a love of improv, you did so well at summer swim, you had a great school year and I was so proud of you for working on organization and keeping up with your assignments. 

Ellie, you have such a fun personality! You are quick witted and you do great imitations of people. We never know exactly what you're going to say but its usually pretty funny! You bring a personality that is all your own to our family. I love that you are unique and a little quirky and I can't imagine our family without you. 

You love animals and will always jump at the chance to pet sit for the neighbors. You especially love cats...nothing better than getting cat snuggles while you read your book! This year we said goodbye to our sweet Franklin and that was hard. He was a part of your life for almost 13 years and we all cried a lot of tears. You have really missed not having a dog around and have asked me a LOT when we can get a new one. 

You still have your deep love of reading. You tear through books and your favorite store is a book store. I love that you are starting to read more and more books that I have read. You generally prefer the genres of adventure, fantasy, and dystopian novels. Percy Jackson and Land of Stories are probably your favorite series right now. I always laugh when someone asks you about a book and you just light up and give them a loooong synopsis of the book and detailed descriptions about all the characters. You just get so excited that you can't contain yourself!

You have really gotten into art this year. I love seeing the drawings you create and I love watching how your skills have developed over the last year. You got lots of art supplies for your birthday and I can't wait to see you grow even more as an artist!

This year we went on some trips...you went to Dollywood with school, we went to the mountains to tube and ski, went on a cruise for spring break, and went to the beach. You have become such a good skier and love hitting the slopes. You love going fast! The ocean is definitely your happy place. You LOVE to roll in the sand and you love playing in the waves. It brings you so much joy! You had a great time on the cruise. Ice cream available all day is probably your favorite thing but you also enjoyed all the different ports we went to.

This year I've realized that you're perhaps an adrenaline junky. You LOVE an adventure and are up for whatever. Among your siblings you have always been the one willing to "go first" when it comes to trying something new. This year you got a gift certificate for a ropes course/zip line park and you and I had the best time there! The longer and faster the zip line the better. And the higher and harder the ropes course the more you loved it. I love having a kiddo who is always up for a fun adventure! This summer we went to the lake with friends and you learned to drive the jet ski. You had a blast driving it and loved going fast. We're definitely going to have to find a way to channel your need for adrenaline into safe activities!

Ellie, I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for you! You light up our lives and we know you are going to do great things in life and will bring so much sparkle to those around you. Keep being the best YOU!

Love, 

Mom

Dear Ruthie

 

Dear Ruthie, 

Happy Double Digits Roo Roo! It is so hard to believe that you are TEN years old. 

When you were born I looked in those sparkly eyes of yours and I knew that you were going to spice up our lives. You keep us on our toes for sure! You are quick witted and funny and BRUTALLY honest. You are fierce but you also love fiercely. You are small on the outside but everything inside of you is BIG. You feel big feelings and have big worries and you love big and you have big thoughts and opinions. You are not one who accepts comfort easily. As you've said before "Ruthie doesn't cry!" When you get upset you don't want hugs and comfort unless it is YOUR idea. But when you decide you want to be comforted I get BIG squeezes. You don't trust others quickly but once someone has earned your trust you are very loyal. I can always tell when you've had a sub at school...there are only 2 or 3 subs at the school that have earned your trust. You're pretty sure all the rest of them are telling you allll the wrong things. It puts you in a very bad mood to have a sub who is not "Ruthie approved." You are competitive and you love soccer and swimming. This year we really saw you make lots of progress on the soccer field and it was so fun to watch! You work hard in school and will work hard on anything that is competition based. You always want to be the best! 

I love seeing how you fit in our family. When you were born we thought you would be our baby but now I can't imagine you as the baby of the family. And I can't imagine you without JP as your constant sidekick. You are a wonderful big sister and I love watching the special bond you and JP have. Saturday mornings its common for me to find y'all snuggled in his bed reading a book together or giggling or sitting quietly drawing. From the day we brought you home you were enamored with your big sisters. Ellie has always been your playmate. She's the one you want to play Legos with or other imaginative games. She's silly and rarely tries to mother you. This year you and Emerson seem to have settled on your roles in relation to each other. I think you may have finally accepted that she is in fact the oldest! Now it seems that Emerson is the one you look up to and go to for advice. And we can't forget Franklin. He tolerates you on a daily basis but he is very quick to curl up in your bed if he sees the nebulizer machine come out. He knows when you need someone to keep an extra eye on you! You keep all of us in line and our lives would certainly be boring without you around!

This year I have watched you grow more independent and I'm so proud of you and all the responsibilities you take on without being asked. You have always been so good at managing your allergy stuff and your OIT but this year you have really taken over your daily dosing. On days you are up before me you eat breakfast and do your dose and let me know what time you took it. You get two "off" days a week from dosing and you have thought it through and decided which days you'd prefer not to dose. If we have something that causes you not to dose on a different day you are great about adjusting your "off" day schedule. While I hate that you have a food allergy I am so proud of you from taking ownership of it. You've also gotten really good about grabbing your epipen bag as we head out the door. This was something I always did but this year you often get to it before I do. This year I've also loved seeing how you've taken ownership of your schoolwork. You write down your assignments each day and if you have a test coming up you always want to review the material far in advance so that you are comfortable with it. You're not always the easiest to work with when it comes to school work as you get frustrated very quickly BUT you still want to do the work even as you're falling to pieces! I'm hoping maybe soon you will learn to give yourself some grace when you don't know all the answers. 

One really fun thing we did this year is that you and I went to Chattanooga together with the fourth grade. It was a really fun trip and I loved getting to have the time with you one on one. In a large family it is so rare to spend more than a few hours one on one with any child and I got 2 days with you. I loved getting to just hang out with you and your friends. I really enjoyed getting to watch you with your peers. I would laugh because you would always start out with the girls but in the end you were usually hanging out with the boys. I loved getting to watch you try new things...like rock climbing. I loved watching you and your friends cheer each other on...and challenge each other to climb even higher. I am so glad you have friends that will cheer for you and then push you to do even more. 

Ruthie I am so glad that I get to be your mom. You challenge me and push me to my limits some days. You don't let me get away with anything and will call me out every time if you think I've dropped the ball. You have taught me how to parent a Ruthie...which is quite different from parenting any of your other siblings! And you bring me such delight. Those sparkly eyes will always remind me of your first few days in the world when I just knew we were in for something special. You are going to do big things little girl and I can't wait to see where your big personality takes you! I love you Roo!

Love, 

Mom

Dear Emerson

Dear Emerson, 

Happy 14th Birthday! 

I have absolutely LOVED watching you grow this year (and not just in height!). You have gained so much confidence. I think you can finally see what we've been telling your for years: that you are so talented and have so many gifts and not all of these talents and gifts are things that they test you on in school but they are things that will serve you SO well in life! I feel like you are starting to try to figure out who you are as a person, who you want to become and how you want to fit into your world. You have taken on some big leadership roles and have worked to grow as a leader. You are on yearbook this year and have really enjoyed doing that. It's been fun to see you learn some new skills and see how those skills can translate into the real world!

This year I feel like you've grown leaps and bounds with your school work. You have figured out a way to organize your work and keep up with assignments. I am so thankful to all those teachers along the way who went the extra mile and gave you tools to help you get to where you are today. Some of those teachers gave you organizational skills, some helped you academically and helped us find the tools that would help you learn, and some gave you confidence in your abilities and encouraged you when you struggled. I know that school has often been difficult and has often made you feel so down on yourself. I have seen you break down and I have seen you pick yourself back up and keep trying. I know that school still isn't easy for you but I see that you have taken all those struggles and used all those lessons you've learned to make things a little easier. You have really become so independent with your school work and I hope you are as proud of yourself as we are of you! 

You have found some great friends and I'm so grateful for that. I also love that you are still friends with your besties from Columbia. Those girls went through so much with you and their friendship never wavered. I am so glad you know what a true friend looks like and I hope as you grow older that you area able to use that experience to pick great friends. I know friendships at this age aren't always easy but hang in there. It really does get better the more life experience you have! 

I love watching you with your siblings. You and Ellie, with your completely opposite personalities, have always gotten along pretty well. And JP has always viewed you as his other mother. You and Ruthie have often clashed because you're both sure you're the oldest child. This year I've really seen your relationship with Ruthie change. I think you can finally see that she absolutely hero worships you and you will let her hang out in your room and you don't mind too much when she wants to copy you. I hope you realize just how wonderful she thinks you are!

This year you have continued year round swim. You always swam on the high school team for the first time. You have really grown a lot in your swimming and I am so proud of you. You had some breathing issues after having the flu last year and then had a minor shoulder injury. Both of those kind of slowed you down and affected your motivation. Then you did high school swim and it totally changed your perspective and you faced some hard truths and learned a big lesson on "you get out what you put in". I am so proud of you for facing the hard and being willing to listen to the improvements you needed to make to get better. 

Emerson Jane, 14 years ago you made me a mom. I held you in my arms and had no clue what life held in store for you but I knew that I loved you more than I could have ever imagined and that nothing could ever change that. I am so thankful for all you have taught me. I'm thankful for the hard times just as much as I'm thankful for the easy times. I have loved seeing you grow as a person and I can't wait to see what the next year holds for you! I know it won't always be easy but I hope you are always able to look behind you and see how you have faced adversity and come out on the other side a stronger person. I hope you always remember that God has a wonderful plan for your life even when it can be hard to see what His plan is!

I love you sweet girl!

Love, 

Mom

PS. In other news, Franklin seems to have forgiven you for pulling his fur when you were 8 months old. The other night he slept in your bed all night!