Happy Birthday Ellie!

 Dear Ellie, 

I am SO excited to write this letter for you this year. You are FIFTEEN and what a year it has been! Over the years that I've been a mother I've learned that there are seasons where your heart aches for your child and all you can do is support them and give them guidance as they navigate tough situations. There are also seasons where you get to rejoice in seeing them grow and learn and find success and this past year was definitely a season of joy and growth for you. 

About a year ago you decided, very last minute, that you wanted to start swimming year round. We were all a bit shocked as you have frequently told us that you don't love swim team and you are "not really a sports kid". But you said you wanted to so we got you signed up and I was pretty sure you'd come home after the first practice or two ready to quit. But you once again surprised us by saying you liked swim. You definitely made year round swim fit what you were looking for in an activity. You chose a light practice schedule and you opted not to do most of the meets and the beauty of year round swim is that this was just fine. You made some new friends and you really liked your coach a lot. You started sleeping better and eating better thanks to the consistent exercise and I think that made such a difference in your year!

This year you started high school. You had some bumps in the road at the beginning and some hard lessons to learn. You then faced the choice of letting it pull you down or using what you'd learned to pull yourself back up and boy did you grow! For years you have made great grades with little effort and in the last two years classes have started to get harder and it definitely made you feel like you were losing a piece of your identity. This year I watched you face challenges in school and finally realize that just because you have to study more or work harder or ask for help it doesn't mean you are any less than the person you were before who never had to study or ask for more help. You became a student who started engaging more with your teachers, who went to extra help (and discovered that there were lots of really smart kids at the extra help sessions!), who put in time studying. You set goals for yourself and then did the work to achieve them. It was so fun to see the excitement on your face when you achieved your goals! I know this year wasn't always easy but I hope you see the value in the lessons you learned and how what you learned this year can help you achieve all your dreams!

You also found a love of medicine and are leaning toward studying nursing in college. You took a sports medicine class this past year and every day you would come home so excited to tell me what you had learned! You have an amazing ability to retain information so its been really neat to watch you apply what you've learned to more real world situations. Whether you choose a career as a nurse or something else in the medical field or something totally different I know you will excel. My hope for whatever you do is that it brings you joy!

Beyond the academic side of high school you have also blossomed. You have lots of the same friends you had in middle school but you have also made new ones. You seem to have really found your people and that makes me so happy for you. You have also put yourself out there in order to get involved in activities at the school. You applied for yearbook and student council for this coming school year and were accepted for both and you are so excited! Yearbook and student council have had things you had to do this summer to prepare for the upcoming year and you have been so enthusiastic about all the things!

This year wasn't all rainbows and unicorns though. This was the year we lost PaPa. You loved him so much and walking through your grief with you was heartbreaking. I hope you always treasure the memories you have of him and your time together. He loved you SO much and the love of a grandparent and the relationship between a grandparent and grandchild is such a sweet thing. You and your siblings are incredibly blessed to have 4 grandparents that love y'all more than you even know. So many people don't have what you have so I hope you always treasure the time you had with PaPa and realize what a special gift it was to have had 14 1/2 years with him.

Through all the ups and downs of this year I have watched you come to a crossroads where you can choose to wallow in the hard and let it defeat you or you can choose to come out of the hard stronger than when you went in. I have watched you become stronger, more self assured, and more prepared for the next challenge over the course of this year.  God has big plans for you Ellie and I love watching how He is using these years to shape you into exactly the person you are meant to be. Its not always easy to go through the challenges but His plan is perfect and there is so much peace to be found in that truth. 

I love you Ellie Belly. You have been such a gift to our family from the moment you were born (although to be honest you seemed less gift-like the first 3 months of your life when you didn't sleep...but we still loved you). Your humor and quick wit bring so much laughter to our house. You have a personality that is uniquely yours and we are so thankful for the amazing human you are! Keep being you Ellie, you are one of a kind and I wouldn't want you to be anyone other than exactly who you are (but if you wanted to clean your room more often I wouldn't object)!

Love, 

Mom

Happy Birthday, Ruthie!

 Dear Ruthie, 

Oh sweet Roo Roo. What to say about this year.  It has been a heck of a roller coaster ride. It would be easy to just talk about the great things. The accomplishments, the fun, the adventures. There was lots of good this year. But I think its important to remember the hard too. One day I hope you look back and this and say "I went through the hard and look at what I overcame. Look how I found help and pushed through and now things are good. I can do hard things and I learned a lot about myself in the process." 

This year you finished 5th grade with flying colors. You did so well academically and you had the best group of friends. You had a fantastic summer. You started middle school and it was the best first day of school I think you've ever had. And the first month or so was really great. You loved your teachers, found a good group of friends, and seemed to have adjusted well to the change. You had a ridiculous amount of homework but you were organized and motivated to work hard. Then the train went off the rails. You started with physical symptoms that from very early on we were almost sure had a psychological component to them. We went back and forth to doctors, got labs and an ultrasound done, and finally landed on a plan to help get you back to functioning. It was really hard couple of months. And you still have hard days. But the workload at school has gotten better (you weren't the only one having issues because of the workload), we have learned how to better help you when you're struggling and you're learning how to better communicate to us what is causing you stress. Bedtime is still hard as that is definitely when the worry monster comes to visit, but it is slowly getting better. I feel like we have our Ruthie back. You are happy again. You are back to wanting to hang out with your friends. You are back to being our strong, stubborn kid who has lots of definite opinions. I know this isn't the end of hard things and that this won't be the only time you struggle with stress and anxiety but I hope the next time you face a challenge that feels overwhelming you can say, "I now have tools to help me cope and I can work through this and it is going to be ok." 

So now that we've talked about the hard this year, lets talk about the fun! Like I said, you rocked 5th grade and despite all the challenges you've had to overcome you are rocking 6th grade. You have the sweetest friends and I am so thankful for their steady presence through the year. You've also made some really great friends since starting middle school. This year you've tried some new things. You took guitar at school and really enjoyed it (other than the kids in your class that didn't behave...it was def a problem). You played in the basketball intramurals at school despite having never played basketball before and decided you really liked it so this winter you're doing church basketball and I have been blown away by how much you've improved and how much you are learning. You even scored 4 points in your first game! You've continued to play soccer, did summer swim, and we did a really fun ski trip to Snowshoe. I love watching you grow and learn in all your activities! This year you became a member of our church which was so special. I love watching you grow in your walk with God and I am so thankful for some sweet friends who are just as excited about growing in Christ! This year you were also asked to do one of the readings for the Lessons and Carols service at church. You were asked if you'd participate right in the middle of going through all the hard things and I was sure you'd say no but you immediately said yes and I think it really gave you something to look forward to and to work towards. You spent a lot of time practicing saying your verses and you did such a great job speaking in front of everyone! It was truly a bright spot in the middle of a lot of hard days.

Through the good and the bad your sweet siblings have been by your side. JP is your permanent bestie. You give him a lot of grief but you love him fiercely and he knows it. Y'all love to be silly together and if one of y'all isn't home the other is a little lost. Ellie is who you chill with. She is happy to play quietly with you, do a calm art project, or just hang out in your room (because you're never allowed in her room and also she likes to sit in your room and look out your window because it faces the street). Emerson is who you look up to. You want to do everything she does ( so you both have 45min skin care routines!) and you talk to her about lots of things...since you're pretty much a 16 year old too. You love fiercely and would never let anyone mess with your people! Ruthie, you fit just perfectly in your spot in our family and I'm so thankful for you. 

As we look forward to 12 I am so optimistic about what the year will bring for you. You will finish up basketball, start a new soccer season, do summer swim, take some fun trips, finish 6th grade and start 7th. You will grow and learn. We will have struggles I'm sure my stubborn, head strong child. But we will also have so much fun because you do love to have fun! 

Happy Birthday Ruth Mitchell! 

Love, 

Mom

Happy Birthday, Emerson!

   

 Dear Emerson, 

Happy Sweet 16! I truly cannot believe that you are sixteen years old today. What a year it has been this year. 

I feel like this year has absolutely flown. Mostly because we so rarely see you during the day. You take yourself to and from school, go to swim practice after school, and then come home and eat dinner, do homework, and go to bed. You are a busy, busy bee! You do tend to thrive with a busy schedule and you've done a great job balancing everything. You are also involved at church, do Young Life small group, go to First Priority, and sometimes babysit for kids in the neighborhood. This summer you coached swim team, taught private swim lessons, babysat and took a summer school class. You also were a CIT at Bonclarken for 1 week and you loved it and are hoping to go for 2 weeks this summer. You have always thrived with lots of activity and you do a great job balancing it all. 

You started driving this year and that was a huge change in our lives! You are doing a great job and it has been very nice to have another driver in the house! Its really crazy to think that you've already been driving for a year. Seeing you drive off to school every day is still really strange to me. I'm pretty sure it was just yesterday that I was dropping you off at preschool. (And we won't even talk about the fact that next year we will be starting to look at colleges!)

This year you really improved a lot as a competitive swimmer. You also achieved some BIG goals this year. You made your first state cut (long course 50 free) and you earned your high school varsity letter. You have had 2 really great coaches this year and watching you thrive under their coaching has been really fun. They weren't always easy on you and sometimes that was really hard for you, but you kept your chin up and listened to their feedback and you saw big improvement!

One of the things that has made me the happiest over this past year is seeing you really settle in with a group of friends. I feel like you bounced around a little in middle school but as freshman year finished and sophomore year started you seem to have found your people. You have such a sweet group of close friends. They are kind, supportive, fun, and love you for who you are. This year I've watched these girls be there to listen when you're stressed, help you study when you're struggling in school, make you laugh or be a shoulder to cry on when you're feeling sad, and celebrate with you when something exciting happens. In this stage of your life your friends will influence your decisions more than anyone else and that can be really scary as a parent! I have prayed so much for you to find friends in Greenville that are as solid friends as the E squad and these girls are truly an answer to prayer. 

You are also a great sister. You and Ellie have gotten really close now that you ride to and from school together. I love your inside jokes and the way you lovingly give each other grief and the way you always have each others backs. Ruthie thinks you hung the moon. She looks up to you so much and is always coming to you for fashion and skin care advice and I'm so glad that you are usually willing to let her just hang out in your room with you. And of course JP still thinks you're his other mother. Oh, and Teddy thinks you give the best belly rubs and have the best tasting slippers he has ever tasted. He also appreciates that you always save him a spot on your bean bag chair.

As I look forward at the next few years its hard to believe that we are down to just a few more years of having you at home. I love seeing you figure out who you are and what direction you want to go with your life. You have a big heart and love people of all ages. You are organized and have a great eye for design. You can talk to anyone but don't want to talk in front of a group, even a small group. You are meticulous and detail oriented but you aren't speedy for sure. There are so many things you could do in life that I know you would love and I can't wait to see how you choose to use all your gifts!

Emerson, as you start off on another year of life I hope you know how much you are loved. I hope you know how much you bring to our family. I can't wait to see the new adventures this year brings!

Love, 

Mom

Happy Birthday, JP!

 Dear JP, 

Happy Birthday sweet boy! I can't believe my last baby is TEN! You are funny, kind, snuggly, full of energy, and ALL boy. I love seeing your personality shine through in everything you do. 

You love sports and video games. Your favorite sports to play are soccer and flag football but you also like golf, swimming, skiing, and basketball. Over Spring Break we went skiing in West Virginia and you most definitely out skied us all. You had NO fear and the more challenging the run the more you liked it. Speaking of no fear...this summer we ended up with a trip to urgent care after you injured yourself going down a path you and some other neighborhood boys had made through some trees, down a big hill. Thankfully you were just bruised, not broken! This soccer season you are having a great season and it has been really fun to watch you grow as a player and see you figure out the ins and outs of game as the season goes on. You are so fun to watch in any sport. You always give 100% and it makes you so happy to be running around! You also love wood carving and when we're at Uncle Clyde's you can mostly be found at the piano. 

You more or less enjoy school...haha! You have some really great friends at school which makes me so happy. I have loved watching these friendships you've had since you were 5 or 6 grow and strengthen over the years.  Your favorite subject is definitely math. You are a whiz and I often have to remind you to write down the steps you did in your head so that if you happen to make a mistake we can see where it happened!  You still struggle some with reading comprehension but you have worked really hard on your reading and I'm so proud of your improvement. You are really into the Percy Jackson books right now and it makes me so happy when you get excited about what has happened in a book. This year you got into Challenge and you were SO excited. You look forward to Thursday (the day you go to Challenge) every week and can't wait to come home and tell me what you did.  You have had some really great teachers over the years and we already love your fourth grade teacher and I know its going to be another wonderful year! 

When you grow up you want to be a blacksmith. I love your interest in it and as you get older I would love for you to be able to get some hands on experience. I don't know where this interest will lead but I love that the artistic side of you is drawn to such a unique trade! I feel like this ties right in with your interest in wood carving. I like seeing this calmer, artistic side of you come through and I think it makes you a really well balanced kid!

You have a great group of buddies in the neighborhood and I am so thankful for these uplifting boys and their families. I love nothing more than to look out in the yard and see a kickball, soccer, football, etc game going on! 

You still love to eat. You are hungry all.the.time. You also think the food at Gran's house is superior to the food at our house so you eat there on a pretty regular basis in between your meals at home!

You love your family. You are such a good brother to allll the sisters and I love seeing the different bond you have with each of them. You and Ruthie are 2 peas in a pod and are either growling at each other about something or attached at the hip, all up in the middle of some kind of mischief! Emerson is the one you tell about your problems and go to if you need help.  Ellie is the one you hang out with if you have a funny thing to say or want to have some quieter time.  And you most definitely love your Teddy Bear! Y'all have such a sweet bond and every day after school you come home and lay in his bed and snuggle with him. Y'all love to get out in the yard and play chase, fetch, or play in the sandbox. 

JP, I love getting to watch you grow up and change. You are such a blessing to our family. You bring a whole different dynamic to our dinner table conversations. You keep us laughing. I can't imagine our lives without you in them. Keep being you my friend and keep bringing joy to all those around you! I love you!

Love, 

Mom

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