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! 

Dear JP

Dear JP, 

 Happy Birthday sweet boy! It's hard to believe that you are EIGHT years old. You are SO much fun and our family wouldn't be complete without you! You keep us laughing with your dancing, funny jokes and silly facial expressions. You love to make everyone around you laugh and I love that about you. I hope that as you grow up you continue to look for ways to entertain others and work to bring happiness to your little corner of the world.

 This year you've spent a lot of time hanging with your neighborhood buddies. You have your little group of boys and y'all are always up to something! You love to play any kind of sport. Pickleball is one of your favorites right now but you also love football, basketball, swimming, and kickball. You've made some great friends at school too. I love seeing you at lunch interacting with your friends. They are a really sweet group of kids which makes me so happy. Speaking of school, you are doing great. You love your teacher and classmates. You are VERY strong in math and your reading has really come a long way in the last year. Your teachers always tell me how sweet you are and how good you are in class. This year you decided to run for student council class representative and won. I am so excited for you to have this experience and I hope you love it but most of all I am so proud of your bravery. I know you were a bit nervous to stand in front of your class and read your speech but you did it! And to top it off you're getting to do something that your sisters never did...and when you're the youngest of 4 this is a rare feat. 

 For years and years you were our grumpy kid and then one day you weren't. I'm real glad you outgrew that! You are pretty easy going now as long as you are fed frequently...lol! You do love to eat and are hungry ALL the time. When you get hungry you tend towards the dramatic side. That's how we know it's time for you to eat again. 

 JP, you are my sweet little helper. You love to help me in the kitchen, you will help me clean, you love to help daddy in the yard, you are always looking for ways to serve others and I am so thankful for your servant's heart. You have started taking on some neighborhood "jobs"...watering plants and collecting mail when neighbors go out of town. You take your responsiblities seriously and you have big plans for when you're old enough to cut grass! 

You spend most of your days running around in athletic shorts and tshirts wihtout a care about what you look like. But every now and then you have an occasion where you feel the need to get dressed up. You will painstakingly pick out an outfit, gel your hair, and put on some cologne. It is absolutely adorable to see. And I love the days where you try to pick out an outfit that matches daddy's. I love the way you look up to him and want to be like him and I hope you keep looking up to him and trying to be like him! 

I get a kick out of watching you with your sisters. Each relationship is different. Ruthie is your partner in crime. I'm pretty sure that when y'all are teenagers the two of you will be responsible for a quite a few of my gray hairs. When you're not up to shenannigans you can also be found snuggled in a chair reading a book or talking to each other. Emerson is your other mother. She'll snuggle you, read to you, and is happy to take you under her wing. Ellie is a little of both. She's where you turn when you need a quieter playmate but she's also been known to come up with some pretty elaborate, fun adventures. You have such a great friendship wiht each of your sisters and I am so thankful for how close y'all are (especially since you were absolutely terrified of them for the first few months of your life!).

 I have loved watching you grow and change this year. You are an absolute delight and I can't wait to see how you grow over the next year! 

 Love, Mom

Dear Ellie

Dear Ellie, Happy 12th birthday sweet girl! Oh how I have loved watching you this year. You started middle school, finally made it back on stage, made new friends, earned a new nickname, and made us laugh more times than I can count. You are sweet and sassy and tiny and strong and I love every aspect of the person you are becoming. This year you started middle school and of course took theater as an elective and then of course you joined drama club and then tried out for the school play, Dear Edwina Jr. And of course you made it. And we got to see you light up the stage once again after 3 years of not being in a show. And it did my mama heart good to see you sparkle. You had a grueling rehearsal schedule and every day you came home so excited to be doing what you loved with other kids who loved it as much as you. You also finally found a theater class in Greenville that you liked so I'm excited to see where that takes you over the next few years. I feel that one of the things that gives me the most joy as a parent is to see my children doing things that bring them immense joy. This year you started middle school. It wasn't always easy as friendships changed and you also had to juggle having multiple teachers and organization is not your strong suit but you handled it. You tried out playing an instrument (viola) and decided that wasn't really your thing but I loved that you gave it a shot, stuck with it through hte year and then we'll try something different next year. Life is all about trying new things and figuring out what works for you. I love that you still love to read. I have a whole album of pictures of you reading in various places. You have no problem finding a quiet corner and pulling your book out in the middle of a party. It's who you are and as an avid reader myself I see no problem with this! I love that reading is where you go when you need a breather. You are our introvert and often just need a short break from a crowd. You need a minute to escape into a world of your imagination. I also love that even as avid a reader as you are you still want me to read a book to you at night. As soon as we finish one book you ask me what we're reading next. It takes us about 10x longer to read them together than it would take for you to read them on your own but you never read ahead and you never complain. I love that I get to have that time with just you and I think you love it too. You are our entertainer. I just never know what is going to come out of your mouth! You usually have some witty comment and I try to be close enough to you to hear it! You have made some wonderful friends in Greenville but Lucy, in Columbia, is still your best friend. I love that y'all can go weeks without talking and then spend hours on facetime talking and laughing. You earned a new nickname this year, Banana Slug. We were looking through the bin of summer clothes and you rejected a pair of shorts because, and I quote you, "I can only think of 2 words when I see those shorts: banana slug." Who even says that?? It was such an Ellie comment and so we now loving refer to you as Banana Slug! You are such a good sister. I have always loved the way that you just slid right into your place in the family. I love that Emerson and you complement each other so well. You understand each other and the needs that each one of you has. From the time you were just a tiny thing you were always willing to let her tell you what to do...until you weren't. And she knew that when you put your foot down you meant it and that was that. You are my child that I rarely find playing with all your siblings together but am more likely to find having one on one time with someone. I am so thankful for the relationship that you have with each of your siblings and I love to see how different those relationships are but they all work and are all beautiful. I can not wait to see what this year has in store for you. You are hoping you will grow (you're a little bitter that Ruthie can wear the same size clothes as you) but I do love that you are my tiny little one. I hope that no matter what you will be happy and content and have many fun adventures and opportunities. I love to see your excitment over little things and I hope you always find happiness in the small things in life. I love you my Ellie Belly, Banana Slug! Love, Mom

Dear Ruthie

Oh my sweet, fiesty Roo Roo. Happy 9th Birthday! Its hard to believe that 9 years ago I held you in my arms for the first time. One of the first thing I noticed about you was the sparkle in your eye. I knew then that you would give me a run for my money but that you would also bring lots of FUN to our lives. One of my favorite memories is bringing you home from the hospital, putting your carrier down on the floor, and watching your eyes light up when you saw your sisters. From that day on you wanted nothing more than to be a part of whatever they were doing. And it didn't take long before you wanted to be in charge of whatever they were doing! When JP was born you happily stepped out of your role as baby of the family and into your role of big sister. I love watching the relationship you have with each of your siblings. You and Emmie clash the most (there seems to be discrepency about who is the oldest and therefore in charge of everyone) but over this past year you have grown a lot closer. You and Ellie have always gotten along well and I love that y'all will play calmly together for hours. You and JP are incredibly close and always have been. I feel like y'all are always cooking up some kind of mischief! This year was a great year for you. You learned how to ski and really enjoyed it. This year you did summer swim team, finally mastered breastroke, and made it to championships and classics. You are definitley a fierce competitor and love to win. This year you played soccer for the first time and really enjoyed it. This year, after many, many nights of crying you stopped sucking on your fingers. It was way past time but I do feel like that was the last "baby" thing you had and I miss seeing my little curly headed baby with her fingers in her mouth. We went to Dollywood quite a number of times this yera and you rode your first roller coaster. You weren't a huge fan of it but you usually rode it once each time we went. We also went to Dollywood water park and you were the only one who would go with me on the slide with the really big drop. This year you wore your penguin hat more days then not...you sure do love that hat! You still drag your nasty pillow around everywhere you go and never go to bed without it. You love legos, baby dolls, calico critters, squishmellows, games, roller skating, and ART. You have turned into quite the little artist and I love seeing your creativity! This year you did an oral challenge for shellfish and apparently you aren't actually allergic...yay! (However you are most deifinitely allergic to cats.) You are fearless most of the time (I cringe every time I see you roller skating). This year you finished 2nd grade and started 3rd grade and you are absolutely thriving at school. You have made a really strong group of friends at and I am so thankful for the sweet friendships you have. I love that you have friends who will be your biggest cheerleaders and also aren't afraid to call you out if you step out of line (and of course you're not afraid to call them out either). I know with these friends by your side you will always be ok! Ruthie you have a BIG personality. You are very determined and you pretty much always acoomplish whatever you put your mind to. And if its soemthing you don't want to do then its probably not going to happen until you decide to do it. I know that this determination will serve you well as you grow older but it can make for some rough moments when you're a kid. I can't wait to see what you can accomplish when you use your powers for good...you will do BIG things! You are a "no holds barred" kid. You say what you think and have no problem calling people out. You say what is on your mind with no regrets. You feel BIG emotions about everything and you generally let us know exactly what you're feeling. When you're happy you give HUGE hugs. When you worry you become obsessive with your worries. When you're mad you can give a cold shoulder that a teenager would be proud of. You are fiercely independent and you want to do everything yourself. One of your favorite sayings is "Ruthie can handle it. Ruthie doesn't need help." Sweet girl, I am so happy that I get to be your mom. I love watching you grow into your big personality. I love watching your achievements and I love seeing you work hard to meet your goals. I love your determination. I love the sweet snuggles I will occasionally get and I treasure the moments when you want to crawl in my lap and just sit with me. I can't wait to see what this next year brings for you Ruthie Roo!