Happy 7th Amber!

Happy Birthday Amber

The day finally arrived - we've been talking about it since October last year. And what a celebration you crafted!  The menu, the decorations, the kid party, everything had your imprint on it.  It was fun.

She made great strides in Kindergarten this past year.  At first, it wasn't so fun.  But then she made friends and learned her way around this school.  Amber and Taryn would swap stories about friends over dinner (trying to outdo the other in who has the silliest friend).  Some of my favorite stories came from Amber over dinner.  If you hear someone in our family say 'el stinko', it came from Amber.

We knew that Amber would make friends easily.  Before school let out for the summer, she invited all the girls in her class to her party.  Summer parties are hard, but (thanks to Sandi) there were 10 kids around the picnic table working on crafts.  Sandi organized a crab craft, a jellyfish craft and tie-dye t-shirts all in the space of 3 hours.  Amber had a great time and the kids all like Amber.

Amber, you are a budding artist and are a sponge when it comes to learning.  It's fun to see your creativity come alive. I can't wait to hear the stories you tell from school this year!

We love you!

Happy Birthday Taryn

Our little girl is four!

"Oh, I laughed." I've said this to Sandi many times when talking about Taryn.  (A close second is, "...and she floated away.")  Even at her young age, she mastered the fine art of dead-pan.  I'll never understand why it's so funny to me to have her walk right past me with a serious expression on her face, but I remember laughing when we passed each other on the stairs and she gave me naught a glance.  

Her songs are hysterical.  She can belt out any tune at the top of her lungs and at the top of the scale.  One time, she started out low and in the wrong key.  She cleared her throat, chose a couple octaves higher, and sang with all her might.  I fell down laughing.

We still don't know if she can read or not.  She takes books, opens them and tells the story.  Her stories are so captivating, I forget we haven't taught her the ABC's yet.

 

Taryn has an incredibly sweet and empathic spirit.  But, she is also one of the more aloof people I know.  Sandi and I were upstairs in the one day and Taryn came in to tell us her prince was downstairs.  We asked her what she did with the prince.  "I walked away."  Oh, I laughed.  ...and she floated away.

 I could tell stories about her fierce indecisiveness, her ability to dink around, or her love of pushing buttons.  But the last vignette brings it all home for me.  The four of us were talking one day and Taryn says something really off the wall.  We asked her what it meant, and she responds with 'means nusthing' and floats away.  Oh, I laughed. 

 

Happy birthday, Taryn.  We love you.  You have a God-given joy that I hope other people find as contagious as we do.