Dear Joseph,

Happy Birthday! We officially have a teenager in the family now that you are 13. I asked Dad if he wanted to write the letter, but he all but said he was going to get AI to do it. I'm sure you wouldn't mind, but I'm going to stick with tradition. Onto the letter!

In addition to officially being a teenager, you are officially taller than me. Hard to tell, but if we line up, you have a smidge on me. My prediction was correct on that. I buy clothes from the men's section now and I don't think you mind as you prefer more plain, grown-up versions of things. Something new? You have glasses! And will be getting braces very shortly as well. You have a decent appetite and still love the same things (Fanta, sushi, pickles, etc) but recently I've been buying coconut greek yogurt and you love that stuff. You love anything lemon as well and recently had the idea to open up a lemonade stand. We'll have to try that soon.

 After reading your last letter, I am so happy to report that you now have friends! Your best friend is Troy, but you have also made friends with boys named Andrew and Aiden. Perhaps you will be open to even more friendships. You are kind of at the stage where you are being influenced by your friends. You went through the 6 7 craze like most middle schoolers, and you are signed up for orchestra. That is something I never thought would happen, but your friend Andrew plays the viola, and you figured orchestra is popular now and are willing to try it. I'm not going to hold my breath, but it makes me happy to see you interact more with kids your age.

School has been a roller coaster in 7th grade! You are capable, but we have to be on you like flies on honey to make sure everything is turned in. You managed to make the honor roll for the second nine weeks, but here we are at the end of the school year, just limping along to get to the finish line. You took Spanish this year, which counts as a high school credit! Hopefully, it transfers all right when we finally make it to New Mexico. You don't want to take Spanish II, hence taking orchestra instead. Overall, you seem to enjoy your school, especially now that you have friends. You take the bus most days, which extends your school day quite a bit, but you have a 3DS to occupy the time, so you wouldn't mind too much. 

Let's see, what interests do you have? You love to learn about any type of cryptids and your favorite is el chupacabra. We visited Roswell, and you've taken a liking to aliens as well. You liked to make your own cyphers for a while and attempted to make a cypher club, but the word didn't get out much, and it fizzled before it could take start. You love Pokemon XY and ZA, so anything to do with the Kalos region. Your favorite pokemon still appears to be Sylveon, but you love Zygarde as well. Sadly, you did not stick Scouts out. You realized you didn't like tent camping that much, and I don't blame you with this hot Texas weather. But instead we invested in the Hack Packs from Crunch Labs by Mark Rober. Maybe you'll learn a lot from doing that instead.

We've been attempting to get you into after-school behavior therapy for autism for months now. I felt you needed extra support to cope with things and to know how to behave in certain situations. Maybe we should have done it a while ago, but now I know why I avoided it. If it's not the doctor's office, it's the insurance. If it's not the insurance, it's the therapy place. Hopefully, I'll be able to report all the good things by the next letter. You struggle with conversations with others. You also struggle with coping with things that annoy you. You bite your hand really hard and cannot stand when your siblings bother you, intentionally or not. You immediately resort to yelling or even getting physical. Needless to say, we need the help! 

 

I'm interested to see what this year has in store for you! I sure hope it's a good year and you continue to make friends and keep up in school. I also hope you continue to participate in Young Men's and gain a testimony of Jesus Christ. I love you and your truly unique personality. Thank you for being our little guinea pig for our parenting! Keep being the amazing boy you are.

Love,

Mom

Dear Noah,

Happy belated 5^th Birthday! I procrastinated long enough getting this letter out. The month of your birthday was a little crazy between guests, travel, and Dad being out of town for three weeks. I was reading your last letter only to find that not a lot has changed. Nevertheless, let’s move onto the letter!

 

Another year, still very tall for your age! You are also still quite the picky eater, but something added to your list of favorite foods is ranch. You eat ranch with your chicken, corndogs, and even your quesadillas. You’ve become even more independent with food items, including attempting to make your own Ramen in the microwave! You can be a little demanding when making requests, and I often have to remind you to say please and thank you. We’ll get there!

 

This past year, a new interest popped up, dinosaurs! Your older brother got into Jurassic Park at some point, and you were hooked. Your absolute favorite dinosaur is a swimming dinosaur (you’re not too picky about which ones). You used to watch Dino Ranch, but now you are hooked on Dinosaur Train. We’ve already accrued so many dino things in the past year between toys, clothes, underwear, and even Band-aids. You can probably guess what the theme of your birthday was!

Something new since the last letter is starting school! I was worried about how long the days would be, but you adjusted really well. Your teacher says you are super smart (you are even starting to read short words) just struggle paying attention! Your best friend is Analisa, and you’ve made some other friends as well. Sadly only one of your classmates was able to make it to your birthday party but you didn’t seem to mind! I can’t believe you are starting Kindergarten in a few short months!

 

As far as your personality, you are a very silly boy! It’s easy to get you to laugh, and you love to have fun. Like I said earlier, you are Mr. Independent. I often find you in the front yard and recently you took your little bike on a bike ride by yourself! I had to chase you down halfway down the street. You are the ultimate mess maker as well. If there is a mess in the house, 90% of the time it can be traced back to you. You aren’t picky about where, as long as there is space where a mess can be made. We need to work on that.

You and your siblings are frienemies. Eli and Eden are often good to you, and Eden loves playing with you, but if there is a disagreement, you are not afraid to show your dismay. You will yell and hit or kick right away, and we are learning to use our words. You and Joseph do not get along and have a hard time with each other since Joseph hates having his things touched and likes to tease. This explosive behavior bled into school, so we are working on how to solve conflicts calmly, but it has been hard on your parents. Despite all this, you fit in our family nicely. You are so darn cute!

 

I know you are going to have a good year, Noah! We love having our silly, mischievous boy around to keep us on our toes. I hope you continue to learn patience and solve your problems in a healthy, constructive way. You are one special Child of God, and I look forward to seeing you grow and learn every day. We love you!

Love,

Mama

Dear Elijah,

Happy double-digit day! What a decade it has been, and it’s crazy to think of life before you. The last ten years have been a delight, even the times you drove me crazy! You’ve been a light in our family and a breath of fresh air. Sadly, this birthday was like your last birthday in that you were pretty sick. Our plans to go to Explora and play with cousins kind of went out the window. I guess that’s the reality of a winter birthday. Hopefully the next birthday will be better!

This year you’ve seen some changes. For one, you now have glasses! When I took you to the doctor for an annual checkup you were flagged at the visual screening. You also mentioned having a hard time seeing the board. After seeing an optometrist (and deciding against glasses), your dad took you months later and ended up buying you glasses. You love them! In addition to glasses you are getting braces really soon. Hopefully by the next birthday letter they will be close to coming off.

There are some things that haven’t changed all that much. For one, I mentioned I’ve been buying shoes for you constantly, but recently I noticed I haven’t bought shoes for you since your last school year, and you still fit in them well. Checking your height, there hasn’t been a lot of change there. I’m sure you will be seeing a lot of growth soon, especially when you get to your brother’s current age (he really shot up). Your favorite foods are still very much the same (cereal, chocolate, crepes), but you’ve gotten more adventurous with food, which is really nice!

 

You are currently in 4^th grade and seem to really enjoy it! Your teacher likes to challenge you, and you have GT on top of that. You’ve been very responsible in doing your homework, which has been a blessing. I haven’t worried about you in this regard, and I appreciate how responsible you are. Outside of school, you are still taking piano and recently played in the Primary Program at church. You are currently a child brown belt in kung fu, and we still go a couple times a week to practice. 

Although you have a lot of the same interests as before (Legos, video games, reading), you’ve become even more obsessed with one thing: frilled lizards! You were a frilled lizard for Halloween (again), had another frilled lizard cake, draw them all the time, read and write books about them, and overall just obsess over them. It’s really cute, but it’s hard to find frilled lizard items so at times we have to get creative. I wonder if the obsession will be just as strong or stronger next year!

You still like to read all the time, but your choice of reading has led more to just Dog Man. You have written a few stories as well, including your Norbert Story, and continue to channel your creativity that way. You are very patient with your siblings and their interests and give them your time and attention. Sometimes they will do the same, but I know you can get frustrated with them when they don’t show the same interest in something you worked hard to create (like a game or scavenger hunt). You are a good brother (except for some teasing here and there) and I appreciate your patience and honesty. It’s been so helpful to have such a responsible and trustworthy boy.

I am going to call it good, though there is so much more to say, but I want to let you know how proud I am of you and the person you have become. I hope you continue to work hard in school, be a peacemaker, and be the wonderful boy you are. Best of luck with the coming year, between braces, the last year in primary and elementary school, and being a part of our crazy family. We love you so much!

Love,

Mom

Dear Eden,

Happy 7th Birthday! These years just keep flying by, but you are still the same Eden. Reading the past letter, I don't think you changed all that much. I'm still going to write you a letter detailing your seventh year of life. Let's get into it.

 

In terms of size, you are perfectly normal. Something I have noticed is how slow your feet grow compared to your brothers. I feel I am constantly have to buy a pair of shoes for one of them but you still fit perfectly in the shoes I got you over a year ago. Maybe you will have small feet like your mom! You finished another year of ballet and after discussing it, you decided to try something else. You were sure you would grow up to be a ballerina until I showed you what grown ballerinas do (and saw their feet). Now you decided you want to be an artist when you grow up.

 

Not just any artist, you specifically want to draw dragons. I don't think you have to wait to do that, you are doing that every day. You are still obsessed with dragons. Your birthday theme for your party was water dragon, you have so many stuffed dragons, your favorite book series is Dragon Masters, and you are reading Wings of Fire. You pretend to be a dragon and want to be a dragon for Halloween (again). This is your dragon era and I love it. If it's not dragons, it's Pokemon. You have so many favorites I can't even begin to write them all. You like dinosaurs too. We went to Build-a-Bear and picked this Raptor complete with claws and teeth. Then you picked out a sparkly outfit for it. The people at Build-a-Bear never seen that before, but I think it encapsulates you perfectly.

You are going to start second grade and I'm excited for you. Last school year you became really good friends with a girl named Dustin. In fact, her birthday party theme was also dragons and her mom said she was influenced by you. It was so cute. You are right where you need to be for school, and you are an excellent reader. I attribute that to reading the Book of Mormon almost every night as a family. I hope you will be in the same class as your friends. I will also look into putting you into after school art classes and hopefully piano!

 

When I was reading your last letter, I had to laugh because your diet didn't change at all! HEB stopped stocking your favorite mac and cheese, so I guess that's off the list, but you do enjoy eating pasta in general. I stopped trying to pack your lunch for school because there was hardly anything I could pack! I hoped you would find something you like in school lunches. That's something we've struggled with. Another struggle is getting you to express yourself through words. You are a talker, but will shut down when you are upset. Instead of using your words you make nasty faces, scream, and hiss and growl at anybody. And it happens pretty much every day. I'm hoping this phase passes by your next birthday!

Three years later you are still a hardcore mama's girl. You ask for cuddles all the time and always want to sit by me wherever we go. Dad and I teach your Primary class and you are glued to me! When you talk, you like to be uniterrupted and will talk for a while. You have big ideas and want anything to be executed exactly how you imagine it. You are upset if I change anything, too! You're just a little stubborn, I guess! You are also a very silly girl. You pick up on the silly antics of your brothers and join in. You don't have the smoothest relationship with your brothers, but you hate being alone and will sleep in the same room with one of them almost every night. I'm very glad you are a part of our family.

I hope I captured seven-year-old Eden well! I hope you continue letting your light shine. I hope you will be kind to others and choose to do the right thing. You will be 8 by your next birthday, so this is the year to prepare and understand what it means to follow Jesus. And I hope you do! We love you so very much, Eden. I'm so happy to have my daughter!

Love,

Mom

Dear Joseph,

Happy 12th birthday! Your dad said it is also the anniversary of our becoming parents. Thanks for making us feel old! But I feel 12 is a big number. There are so many things that have changed in the last year for you, so why don't I go on and write about that?

You are growing so fast! I'm constantly having to buy new pants and shoes for you. I still do! I noticed your church pants were short just last Sunday, and I pulled those out not too long ago. You are telling me your shoes are too small and I bought three different sizes just this past year. You are definitely having a growth spurt. I bet you will be taller than me by your next birthday. You still love Fanta, sushi, and melon! Nothing really changed there. You also love bean burritos and orange chicken. I think you are a pretty good eater, but you dislike chocolate and will make that well-known. We made you a mint ice cream cake for your birthday and I had to make it myself since chocolate chips tend to be the default. You have fun tastes, that's for sure!

 

You started middle school this year. I was honestly so worried about you. It can be a tough place and kids can be cruel at times. But you love it! You love your magnet school where there is a focus on STEM and you enjoy those classes. You still prefer not having friends, but I hope that might change one day. Your favorite subjects that I hear you talk about are social studies and science. You also love to do block coding on your computer and have a couple things on Scratch that have had a couple hundred views. You were very excited about that. You do pretty well on tests, but I get e-mails about assignments not getting turned in or not completed. With it being so close to the end of the year I just hope your grades don't drop and we can move on. You are pretty smart, just working on responsibility!

In addition to starting middle school, you are now in the Young Men's program at church. When our ward was split we were put into a ward with many boys your age. Previously you were going to be the only deacon, but now we have at least 7-10! I thought that would be awesome for you, but sometimes I wonder how the transition has been for you. Patience for each other isn't the highest, but I hope you can still be friends with them someday. You've been to a couple campouts and I am so grateful for the leaders that looked out for you. You've been to the temple and I'm so proud of you for doing baptisms! Also, you have been passing the sacrament almost every week. I try so hard not to step in and just watch you do it, but I'm sure you will be a pro soon.

 

Your interests haven't changed too much from last year, but you love Pokemon right now. Especially the 6th generation as it has some of your favorites. Your favorite pokemon is Sylveon, who is cute, pink, and fox-like. I still haven't figured out why but sometimes we like what we like! You also have been into a lot of creatures. You still have your hognose snake, owned a tarantula for a tiny bit (he was a tiny guy), and talk about giant wetas all the time. They live in New Zealand, so you get excited about anything New Zealand as well. Another place you really like is Costa Rica. In fact, you signed up for Spanish next year in hopes that you can learn and go someday. Maybe even your mission! I love watching you get excited about so many specific things and we learn all we can about those things. The most recent as of yesterday? The longest word in the English dictionary: Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. You made a dictionary yesterday with just that word it. You are so fun, Joseph!

Something that is new? You joined Boy Scouts! You expressed interest and your dad jumped at the opportunity to sign you up. You haven't shown any interest in any extracurricular activities before and this has been good for you! You have done a few campouts and attend weekly meetings. The boys have been fantastic and good examples. I feel it's different from Church in that these boys actively choose to be a part of scouts and genuinely love it. They take the younger scouts under their wings and want to make the community a better place. After one council-wide campout I asked if you made any friends and you said "I think so". That's a big deal for you! I hope you stick it out even when you have to do physical activity (which you loathe). You did a 5-mile hike last campout and I was shocked to hear you did it. Keep it up!

 

What a year it has been for you! I worry about you sometimes, but that is just the job of a parent. Your dad and I will always be here for you cheering you on when you do hard things. I hope this next year you will continue to grow as a person and conquer all your challenges. Thank you for being patient with me, I wasn't a mother before I had you! I can't wait to see who you become and what you do. I love you, Joseph!

Love,

Mom