Year Fifteen - Year End Review

 FIFTEEN. Fif-daggum-teen.

Top 10 Things You Love

1. Art (you still love paper and pencil, but you’ve been focused on digital art this past year)

2. Reading

3. Your family and friends

4. Your school and church

5. The online writing community that you’re a part of (I just ended a sentence about writing with a preposition - maybe I should join this community …)

6. Biology (who knew this would be the year you found a love of science?!)

7. Music, especially the eclectic combination of showtunes, electronica soft pop, and folk

8. Your hair

9. Being cozy/cozy things - fuzzy blankets, soft sweatshirts, leggings, squishy pillows, your bed

10. YouTube, specifically Brandon Shepherd, Studio C, Moriah Elizabeth, and Mark Rober

Top 10 Things You Don’t Love

1. Not being in drama this year (hi, my name’s Mom and I’m the reason for this specific tale of woe)

2. The mood swings that are inevitable with teenagers (you’re convinced you’re the only person in the world who has them)

3. Entertaining younger children

4. Your hair (see #8 above; it’s a love/hate relationship)

5. Tornadoes 

6. Cutting your fingernails (I’ve never met someone who hates this task as much as you do)

7. When I cook fish that’s not salmon (my track record for cooking non-salmon in a way that’s yummy is a solid 0%)

8. Feeling over-peopled and not having an opportunity for introverting

9. That you have you put your iPad away at 8pm

10. When you have to cook/bake something that’s not mac & cheese

Top 10 Things You’re Good At

1. Drawing

2. Singing

3. Landing a zinger (you get funnier each year)

4. Decluttering (you’re bordering on heartless with how quickly you are to throw things away)

5. Spanish pronunciations

6. Driving around a parking lot

7. Speaking in front of people

8. Time management

9. Washing dishes (thankfully, this is also a task that you don’t mind doing)

10. 
    

Top 10 Things You’re Not Good At

1. Completing a math lesson without squawking and carrying on about how you’ll never get any of this right … only to get it right 15 minutes later.

2. Loading the dishwasher in such a way as to maximize the number of cups that can fit in the top rack

3. Wing walking

4. Swallowing pills

5. Feeling comfortable in situations where you don’t know anyone

6. Taking things out of the oven without providing a running commentary of how you’re going to burn the house down

7. Knowing what to do when someone gets hurt

8. Accepting that throwing up can help you feel better (not like as a general rule, of course - but you will avoid throwing up at all costs, even if you’re super nauseous.)

9. Not being a control freak

10. Rewiring a house

Who knew that you’d start out the year with your hair doing one thing and end the year with your hair doing something totally different. Your hair went from thick and wavy-but-very-easy-to-straighten-if-you-wanted-it-straight to thick and WELCOME TO CURLY TOWN, BOIIIIII. WE’VE GOT A MIND OF OUR OWN AND YOU BETTER FIGURE US OUT OR ELSE YOU’RE GONNA LOOK LIKE A LABRADOODLE. 

You and I have taken quite a hair journey this year. We’ve tried a ton of stuff that hasn’t worked great, and we’ve found a few things that work pretty well. I’m realizing that curly hair is a whole thing. A whole lifestyle. A whole vibe, as the kids say. Gone are the days where you can just brush your hair and be good to go. Gone are the days where you can wash your hair in 15 minutes. Gone are the days where you owned just two hair products - shampoo and conditioner. You’re an incredibly low-maintenance teenager, but these gorgeous curls of yours require you to be a bit higher-maintenance than you’d prefer. Depending on your mood, you either love your curls or you’re ready to hack them off with a hatchet.

This is the first year since 5th grade that you haven’t taken drama at school. And it’s been a point of contention ever since the 2023-2024 schedule came out. And listen, I know. I KNOW. I’m one of the ones who made the silly schedule - and even as we were making it, I was all Oooooh Natalie’s gonna be so mad. And I was right. Because when given the chance between taking Drama and taking English, my girl will always pick Drama. But I wanted/needed you to take English. So you did. You’re only slightly salty about it, four months into the school year.

But you got to be in a local production of Newsies over the summer. And that was such a highlight for you. You played your parts to a T (you were tailor-made for the part of the dramatic stage manager) and you had an absolute blast. You’re already thinking about next summer’s show. 

Dad’s taken you driving a handful of times over the past few months. You’ve clocked a lot of laps around the parking lots of various local schools. The thought of you driving gives your ol’ Mom quite a few heart palpitations. Please know - it’s not that I don’t think you’ll be a great driver. I have zero doubt that you’ll be an excellent driver. It’s the other knuckleheads on the road who I’m worried about for you - particularly the ones who are texting their friends, eating a spaghetti dinner, and applying their mascara all while also trying to drive the streets that you’ll be on.

I know the teenage years aren’t your favorite. I remember it not being a favorite for me either. But being the mom of a teenager has been such a blast. Your mood swings are (usually) endearing and (often) humorous. Your flair for the dramatic is center stage as you wail and moan about how you’re the only teenager in the WORLD who struggles with <insert whatever struggle you’d like>. You like to insist that I was never ever a teenage girl and, therefore, can’t POSSIBLY understand your woes. Because, duh, I was born as a 43-year-old woman. And if you relent and agree that I was, at one point, a teenage girl, it doesn’t matter anyway because when I was a teenager, my biggest woe was the wrong stegosaurus picking me up for school at the local cave (I’ll refer you to #3 on the Top 10 Things You’re Good At). 

This birthday has hit me differently than others have; I wasn't really expecting that. Your big gift was your first smartphone - while I was (half-jokingly) lamenting this milestone to a friend a few weeks ago, she stopped me and said, "Nope - this is a good thing! It's just one more step on the road to being independent - which is the goal of parenting!" I love that wisdom. So I shifted my mentality and am welcoming this new season.

Dad and I are immensely proud of you. We’re proud of you for the obvious stuff, sure. Kindness and good grades and good morals are certainly all worthy of celebration. But we’re also proud of how you’re learning the hard stuff. We’re proud of how you keep us on our toes. We’re proud of how you’re learning to not be absolutely amazingly wonderfully perfect at everything you do. We’re proud of how you’re learning to let God shape your character and heart. 

You made us parents 15 years ago. You filled our hearts to overflowing the second you were born, and we find our hearts still overflowing. You’re our girl. Our peach. Our babydoll. You are a treasure, and we’re so glad you’re ours.

Hugs and smooches,

Mom & Dad

PS: Unrelated, but worthy of a mention - Charlie grew at least 1” since September. He’s dangerously close to becoming your bigger little brother. Time to hit that GROW TALL NOW switch.  

Year 12 - Year End Review

Oh, my favorite little bear1. You’ve hit the last year before teenagerdom, and I forever love having this front-row seat. You continue to amuse and amaze me, and I can’t believe these are your last Top 10 lists as a nonteenager.

Top 10 Favorite Things:

1. Lego 

2. Aggravating your dear sister (she’s still got a few inches and 20+ lbs on you, but you still whip up on her)

3. The Lord of the Rings (it took a few times of you trying to read through the Hobbit and the first LOTR book <”Why does Tolkien take 8 paragraphs to describe a tree?”>, but now you’re a huge fan)

4. Youth group - after 6 years of wanting to be old enough, the time has come

5. Your mom. Both the person as well as saying that phrase no fewer than 483 times a day.

6. Fairness

7. Playing Fall Guys and Rocket League on the Switch

8. Doing outdoorsy stuff with Dad

9. Cool trucks

10. Carbs (pizza, pasta, sushi, cake, donuts, biscuits - you’re an equal-opportunity carb appreciator)

Top 10 Least Favorite Things:

1. Beans, tomatoes, most soups (you graciously tolerate my <amazingly delicious> chicken soup), saucy foods, cooked fruit

2. Dogs

3. Bees/wasps/yellow jackets 

4. Talking to people you don’t know well

5. Saving money

6. Reading out loud

7. Meanness

8. Cleaning up all the Legos in your room (you often have your floor covered in Legos; 5 or 6 years ago, I told you you needed to clean your room. You told me that you like your Legos on your floor because it keeps the robbers and demons out of your room. It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic …)

9. Not having a phone

10. Lotion - which is a bummer since you have super dry skin

Top 10 Things You’re Good At:

1. Lego, specifically designing swords and Star Wars-y vehicles

2. Math and science

3. Drawing - it’s been cool to see you develop your own style of drawing

4. Following the rules

5. Mowing the lawn

6. Making people laugh, though we often talk about quality vs. quantity in terms of jokes

7. Asking deep questions; your curiosity is wonderful

8. Burping the alphabet - this happens to take the #1 spot on list of the Top 10 Things Your Mom Doesn’t Like

9. Directions - you’re really observant when we’re in the car

10. Ice skating

Top 10 Things You’re Not Good At:

1. Keeping your Lego creations together. It fascinates my brain how you can spend hours putting together a giant and intricate set … and then, some amount of time later (a few days to a few months), you break it apart so you can build something different and/or better. 

2. Being excited about trying new foods

3. Keeping your plate in front of you when you eat - it’s usually off to the side from where you’re sitting at the table, which means you’re usually twisting your body so that it’s in front of your plate

4. Speaking German

5. Not getting injured; it seems like you’re always covered in bruises and scratches

6. Enjoying playing a game you’re losing in

7. Pole vaulting

8. Tying balloons

9. Doing math without doodling

10. Snapping your fingers

What a year of growth you’ve had. You’ve grown physically for sure - you’re up to 5’2” (the height Natalie was 18 months ago) and you don’t show any signs of slowing down. You’ve grown emotionally, which, for your age, sometimes means that your emotions are all over the place. You’ve grown spiritually as you continue to ask deep and hard questions. You’ve grown smarter, and you’ve become quite a writer this year. You continue to ask deep questions about God, and I pray those never stop.

The preteen emotions have definitely arrived. You’ve seen Natalie over these past few years to know just what a wild effect hormones can have on a person, so they didn’t completely catch you by surprise. But it’s still pretty jarring to feel normal one second, completely devastated the next, and end up completely furious - with nothing specific to trigger those emotions. We’re doing a lot of talking and I’m trying to get you to do a lot of laughing. Ridiculous emotions deserve to be laughed at from time to time. 

You and Dad went on a camping trip recently. You had the best time, and I’m so glad I didn’t hear many of the details before you guys left. Hearing about the trails and the cliffs and other drop-offs definitely raised my blood pressure a bit. But the grin on your face as you told me all about it reassured me that this was just what you and Dad needed. I’m so thankful you two had this time together. 

Here are a few more highlights from these past 12 months:

• You got the DJ to RickRoll our friend’s wedding reception. It was hysterical.

• You went to Ninja camp and Junior Park Ranger camp this summer

• You built no fewer than 693 original Lego creations

• You held a giant snake at school

• You finally got old enough to join our church’s youth group

• You got to drive a Corvette simulator 

Keep doing what you’re doing, sweet boy. Keep seeking the Lord. Keep loving your friends and family well. Keep asking the tough questions. Keep doing what’s right even if you’re doing it on your own. Keep your sensitive heart. Keep your eyes on Him as He leads you. 

(And also, keep aggravating your sister. It’s good for her.)

Hugs and smooches,

Mom & Dad

1 You’ll always be my favorite bear, but your description as ‘little’ likely won’t last for many more years. But let’s be for real - even if you end up at 6’5”, I’ll still call you little. Cuz I can. 

Year Fourteen - Year End Review

Oh my sweet Peach, how can you possibly be 14? It just doesn’t seem possible. I know, I know - I’m like a broken record and say that every year (How can you already be THREE? or Whoa, you’re SEVEN today!) but it’s just hard to believe that this you-existing-thing-and-us-being-parents thing has been going strong for 14 years (well, 14 years plus nine months plus six days plus fifteen hours and 42 minutes … but who’s counting).

Speaking of counting (excellent segue, self), here are your Top 10 Lists …

Top 10 Things You Love

1. YouTube, specifically Moriah Elizabeth and Studio C
2. Hanging out with your friends
3. Your youth group at church
4. Sushi
5. Singing
6. Drawing (pencils and colored pencils are your long-time jam but digital art has become your new jam) 
7. Your family (I love that you still like spending time with us)
8. Ice cream
9. Listening to music
10. Reading (specifically Keeper of the Lost Cities series)

Top 10 Things You Don’t Love

1. Emptying the dishwasher (... the dishwasher that’s full of clean dishes … but you don’t mind washing dirty dishes … I’m gonna need you to explain that one to me)
2. Being corrected
3. Taking naps
4. Seeing people get hurt
5. When you don’t completely and fully master a new topic within 23.7 seconds
6. Clothes shopping (Hey, clothing manufacturers - believe it or not but some of us really want entire shirts. And hey, Target and Old Navy - it’s super annoying that your sizing appears to be arbitrary. Fitting into a size 2 in one style, a size 8 in another one, and a kids’ 14/16 in another style is absurd. Get it together.)
7. Babysitting (you’ve never actually done it - but you’ve never done it because little kids aren’t your jam)
8. Lukewarm showers
9. Cra-Z-Art anything (*cough*art snob*cough*)
10. When people are mean to their siblings

Top 10 Things You’re Good At

1. Performing on stage
2. Trying any food at least once
3. Drawing (your talent is astounding)
4. Making macaroni and cheese
5. Writing (you have quite a knack for stringing together some real purty, good-sounding words on them thar papers you write)
6. Sarcasm and dry wit. They make your texting game s-t-r-o-n-g.
7. Speaking to adults
8. Organizing your schoolwork/homework for the week. It’s not the easiest thing to be in two different tutorials but you manage it beautifully.
9. Making cards for people
10. Ripstiking 

Top 10 Things You’re Not Good At

1. Speaking slowly
2. Not squealing when you’re around your friends
3. Creating the perfect Baked Alaska
4. Remaining calm when you hear that someone has to go to the bathroom but there’s not a bathroom within the immediate vicinity (just to give your blood pressure a workout while we’re running errands, I’ll announce that I have to go to the bathroom. Your brow gets all furrowed, you slouch your shoulders, and you mutter how mean I am. It’s adorable.)
5. Asking for help with math homework (complaining about and squawking about you needing help is apparently more fun than simply asking me to help you)
6. Bowling a perfect 300
7. Piloting a hot air balloon
8. Being tall (my guess is this’ll change in 2023)
9. Speaking fluent Italian
10. Running an IRONMAN

We’re only a year into the teenage season, but so far I give it two resounding thumbs up. It’s a blast. I love you and your falling-apart-teenage-brain so very much. You’re bold in your faith and wildly responsible with your schoolwork. You know when you’ve hit your Socialization Threshold™ and quietly remove yourself to decompress. You’re impossibly funny, incredibly artistic, and tremendously smart. Even in the throes of the Teenage Angst and Emotions and Feelings and Tears™, you’re a delight.  

You’ve had several art commissions this year. You drew a portrait of my friend and her family for her 40th birthday. She loved it and asked you to draw another picture of her and her family. She turned the second picture into both her Christmas card and her return address stickers. You were so honored. And you ended up doing several more commissions after that! 

So your braces. You still have them on (but only for a few more weeks). At your orthodontist appointment late last summer, you got rubber bands. Dr. Shawn said you had to wear them all the time - that you should only take them out when you eat. And that if you wore them like you should, you’ll get your braces off around Halloween. Well, when a doctor tells you to do something, you do it 110%. And when we went to your next appointment, Dr. Shawn was all, “Um, did you wear these 25 hours a day?!” Cuz you wore them so much that you gave yourself an overbite (THAT outcome certainly wasn’t listed in the orthodontic brochure we got two years ago). Which meant that you had to wear your braces for another three months to undo the damage you did by being a model patient. Yeahhh. THAT was a fun car ride home.

Your youth group started doing a Student-Led Wednesday, where instead of the grownups leading the games and music and giving the message, the students do it. And Levi, the youth pastor, asked you to give the message for the first SLW. You handled this assignment with such maturity (with a dash of OH MY GOSH WHAT DID I AGREE TO DO? I CAN’T DO THIS. I’M ONLY 13. I DIDN’T GO TO SEMINARY thrown in for good measure). You spoke on 1 Peter 2:9 and described what it meant to be chosen. You talked about how we can be bold in our faith because the Lord has called us. You practiced it in front of me a few times, and I cried each time. I recorded you that Wednesday and just barely kept it together. I’m floored with your composure, your boldness, the clarity and simplicity with which you can explain a deep topic. I’m in awe of how the Lord is shaping your faith and deepening your walk with Him. I’m humbled that He gave you to us. 

I can’t wait to see what this year brings. My guess is that it’ll include approximately 5,592 sketches sketched, 92,167 songs sung, 306,928 text message zingers sent, and 476 books read. And probably a few doses of OH MY GOSH I CAN’T DO THIS I CAN’T DO ANYTHING I’M GONNA FAIL SCHOOL LIFE IS SO UNFAIR AND MY LIFE IS THE HARDEST EVERRRRRRRRRRRR.

And we can’t wait for all of it cuz we’re the luckiest parents everrrrrrrrrrr.

Hugs and smooches,
Mom & Dad

Year Eleven - Year End Review

My sweet boy,

ELEVEN! You now require three hands to show your age (or two hands and a foot, but let’s keep toes out of this celebration), and your poor mom just needs a minute to come to terms with this. I keep joking with you that because you were so good at being 10, we’re gonna keep you 10 one more year (Pep said the same thing to KK and me every year), but you weren’t a fan of that plan. But even if I could keep you 10 another year, I wouldn’t. I love watching you grow up. And I love documenting your favorite (and not-so-favorite things) …

Top 10 Favorite Things:

1. Legos

2. Reading, especially Keeper of the Lost Cities and Harry Potter

3. Natalie (mainly wrestling with, jumping on, sitting on, and teasing)

4. Your friends

5. Saturday errands with Daddy

6. School (on Mondays; your feelings about Tuesday through Friday school are a little iffy)

7. Trucks

8. Dude Perfect, Veratasium, Smarter Every Day on YouTube

9. Older (ie: good) country music, specifically George Strait, Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt, and Charlie Daniels

10. Carbs and sweets - pizza, sushi, fried rice, pasta, bread, ice cream, pie, cake  

Top 10 Least Favorite Things:

1. Bugs and dogs (7+ years strong)

2. Chaos

3. Unkindness

4. Not knowing a surprise but other people do

5. Your retainer

6. Writing summaries for your English class

7. Anything (tests, games, chores, etc) that’s timed

8. Saucy foods, spicy foods, soup, casseroles, chili, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, blueberries, cauliflower, cooked fruit  

9. Losing teeth

10. Gooey, gross things, especially paper mache

Top 10 Things You’re Good At:

1. Building practically anything out of Lego

2. Math; your brain is very mathy (making fun of my made-up words is also something you’re good at)

3. Ripstiking

4. Ice skating

5. Following the rules

6. Bankrupting your family in Monopoly

7. Praying; you continue to have such heartfelt prayers

8. Being a snazzy dresser

9. Encouragement

10. Making people laugh (but don’t forget that I’m always gonna be funnier)

Top 10 Things You’re Not Good At:

1. Forming sock-balls with your socks in your drawer

2. Having joy in your heart when you lose a game

3. Driving a stick shift

4. Getting something wrong (you want to be good at everything right away)

5. Leaving your Lego creations alone (you tweak and re-tweak a hundred times)

6. Trying new things 

7. Organic chemistry

8. Putting periods at the end of your sentences. Like, it’s a big thing around here. I hear it drives your English teacher crazy.

9. Knowing when to stop teasing Natalie

10. Open heart surgery (This was your addition to the list) 

This was a huge year for you! In January, you discovered your love of reading after Natalie suggested you read the Keeper of the Lost Cities series. Up until then, you’d read for school but you were never excited about it. It was something you tolerated but never loved (or even liked). Enter the KOTLC series. You read the first book and you never looked back. In the past 10 months, you’ve read through the whole KOTLC series - minus the latest one which came out yesterday ( some of those books are as thick as a dictionary) and about 20 other books. 

You also entered a Lego contest at the Nashville library in February. During this process, I realized that while you’re an extremely talented builder, you do not like to have restrictions on your build. I saw you stress out as you were trying to come up with the perfect idea. I saw you come up with ideas that sounded cool (castle; football game; monsters) but they weren’t things that you naturally enjoy building (cars; trucks; speeders; weapons). I saw you approach the contest as a chore instead of something fun. And just when I was about to suggest that you just skip the contest, you scrapped all of your ideas and created the Master Sword from Zelda. It was big and creative and detailed (you hid a dagger in the sword’s hilt - even though the judges would never see it, you added it because it was cool). And lo and behold, you won 2nd Place in the 3rd-4th grade division. And you also won Crowd Favorite. You were so excited - and I loved that you were successful doing something you love to do.

You lost a few ounces this year when you got your braces off. You did not like the process of getting them off but you do love getting to bite into apples again. And you do not like wearing your retainer, but you are glad that you only have to wear them until you lose a few more teeth. And let’s not talk about how you do have to have another set of braces put on in a few years.

One of the sweetest moments from your 10th year was your decision to get baptized. It’s been something you’ve wanted to do for a long time. You were going to get baptized over a year ago when our church had planned a BBQ and Baptism at a local lake. Not long after we arrived, the weather lost its everloving mind and every single one of us at the picnic was baptized by the deluge of sideways rain. The next opportunity came when Daddy was out of town, and there was no way you were going to do this without him. Your turn finally came in May, and it was amazing. Daddy was there when you accepted Christ, so it seemed fitting that he was the one who got to baptize you. Watching him pray over you and speak about your character and heart filled my own heart to overflowing. 

That’s a common theme with you. These past 11 years have filled my heart to overflowing on many occasions. You’re a natural protector and helper; you have a sensitive heart and a rascally gleam in your eye. You’re funny and smart, shy (around strangers) and loud (around your buddies), you’re funny and inquisitive. You’re a deep thinker and cute as a dang button. Watching you grow in stature and grow in your faith is the wildest, most precious ride. The Lord was so kind to give you to us. 

And Natalie would think you’d be so kind if you sat on her a bit less.

Hugs and smooches,

Mommy & Daddy