Dear Elijah,

Happy belated 8th birthday, dude! It didn't seem like a year had passed, but things certainly happened for the family and you. I'm ready to jump in and talk about the amazing boy you are.

 

This year we made the move back to Texas and you started second grade. You have been slower in making friends, but you seem happy enough. You excel in areas like reading and math. In reading you have finished the Chronicles of Narnia and are flying through the Percy Jackson books. Your only homework in second grade is reading and you gladly finish your homework with no complaints. Your favorite subject is math. This summer your dad bought you a pre-algebra book and you have completed some pages there. You can calculate square roots and just have the brain for memorizing math facts. For Show and Tell you brought the math book, but I think it was to show off to the class. You are very proud of the fact that you are smart! You will be tested for the gifted program in February and I will be surprised if you don't qualify.

 

As far as extracurriculars, you finished Cub Scouts in California and took a break with kung fu when we moved to Texas. We found a new dojo and although the teaching styles are very different between the two sifus, you still really enjoy kung fu. We put you in a Junior Engineering class with Joseph, and not too long ago we started piano lessons. You have such discipline and I hardly ever have to fight you to do anything. You practice on your own, do your chores and homework, and overall like to do new and hard things. Sometimes you get frustrated when you are not good at something from the start but who isn't really?

 

You have always been tall for your age and this year hasn't that. Some people guess you to be older than you are, and sometimes face kids older than you in kung fu because you are their height and build. You finally lost some teeth! You lost three so far with a fourth loose one. Coincidently all of these teeth are on the bottom and you don't have any loose top teeth. Not the typical order, but you are not the typical boy I guess! As for eating, you like cereal, ramen, Hawaiian pizza, burgers, and crackers. You are disciplined with dessert stating that it is unhealthy a lot of the time. You have more self-control than your parents. You are still on the pickier side but are willing to at least try new things.

  

Besides school and activities, you love to read books, play video games, and build Legos. So not much has changed since last year in that regard, but your collection of all three has grown. You were originally going to share a room with Noah in Texas, but Noah ended up bunking with Eden so you have your own room. We put a long table in there for you to do Legos and there's already so many Legos that you started building them on the ground again. I'm not sure what your favorite game is, but you do play Super Smash Bros and love to watch Dad play Tears of the Kingdom. Seeing as you learned to read by playing video games, I don't mind you playing so much. As long as you do your chores and whatnot beforehand and you almost always do.

We started reading the Book of Mormon at the beginning of 2023 and finished before your eighth birthday. I loved hearing you read and gaining quite the vocabulary. You chose to be baptized in Albuquerque over New Year's weekend. It was a beautiful baptism and made me so happy to be called your mom. A lot of family showed up for the occasion and it was a really fun time to be with family. Now to keep your covenant by being nicer to your siblings! (You are actually a really good brother, just a big tease).

I've enjoyed being your mother so much and seeing you learn and grow so much. There are times I wish I could be more like you Elijah, you teach me so much as well. I'm so proud of you and the person you are becoming. You are so smart, funny, energetic, disciplined, and thoughtful. I hope you have the best year and I can't wait to see what you do next. 

Love,

Mama

Dear Eden,

Okay, this is two months late (so sorry!), but happy fifth birthday! You are my sweet little mini-me. A girl full of imagination and personality. A letter cannot truly portray everything you are, but I’m going to try!  

We’ve had a busy birthday month with family vacations and moving, but we managed to celebrate it quite a few times with family, trips, and lots of presents. I think I did a lot of presents this year due to guilt of how crazy the time around your birthday was! Almost all of your presents were stuffed animals and we got to go to Build-a-Bear on your actual birthday. You love your stuffed animals!

 

You are an average-sized little girl, but it surprises me with how picky you are! Your favorite foods this past year were mac and cheese, corn dogs, chicken nuggets, strawberries, protein shakes, and watermelon. You hate everything else. It is so hard to feed you! And some of these things you don’t really like anymore. Hopefully, you get past your food aversions later like your older brothers! Another area you might need to get past is pronouncing your f’s and v’s as th’s (like “I want thood!” or “three, thour, thithe…”) It is pretty cute, though!

 

You are a very talented and imaginative little girl! Your drawings are some of the cutest I’ve ever seen! You draw a lot of your made-up creatures and even act them out in pretend play sometimes. I can’t keep up with your imagination it runs so free. You still absolutely love dragons and draw those the most. I love how creative you are. Other than drawing, you enjoy playing Pokemon on Nintendo Switch or watching the show Spidey and His Amazing Friends. Although you don’t watch movies, you really love Stitch from Lilo and Stitch and Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon.

 

 

Last year you started preschool and really seemed to enjoy it. Your best friends were Olivia and Ritwika (or RiRi). It was sad to leave your friends behind and you still ask about playing with Olivia. Interestingly after starting preschool, you became super lovey-dovey to me. Constantly saying “I love you mommy!” or singing songs about me or being attached to me all the time. You became a total mama’s girl. Now you are in Kindergarten and really seem to be keeping up with the class work despite being one of the youngest in your grade. I’m really proud of you!

 

 

Something that has been either fun or interesting is how particular you are. With food, yes, but also with a lot of other things. You love the colors pink and purple, along with light blue and “green dragon” green. You hate being alone and have to have someone with you all the time. Whether being upstairs, downstairs, outside, or even in your room you can’t be alone. We ended up boarding Noah with you in the meantime. You hate having dirty hands and face and you still love your little bear blanket and use it as a comfort item. I used to be able to dress you and pick your clothes but in the past few months you have been calling all the shots and I just have to sit back and let you wear a tutu and five hair bows to school. You are expressing your individuality and that’s a good thing!

 

I need to wrap up this letter but I want to let you know how much I love you, Eden! There are so many things you do and say that reminds me of myself when I was young. Like I said, you are a little mini-me! Continue expressing yourself and being the sweet little girl, you are. I hope you have a great year being five! 

 

Love,

 

Mama

Sea World San Diego

And we're back! We had quite the summer so I'll just breeze through this post. We visited Sea World San Diego in May and I admit it had some bumps. But all's well that ends well.

We started off at the touch pool where we got to meet our fishy friends that eat dead skin. It's kinda fun. A band was playing as it was Memorial Day Weekend. It got everyone in a good mood before Sea World officially opened.

Eli being brave and letting the fish nibble on him.

Looking for sharks.

'Merica.

These two were really feeling it!

Even Joseph sorta danced...

And here's this sweetie.

Let's roll in!

Sam was super nice to take everyone who didn't want to do rides while Eli and I rode Atlantis. Then we went to the dolphin show. They didn't get to see it last time.

I'm SO happy to have one child who loves rides.

 

Waiting for the dolphins! Sam got the kids cotton candy...

 

...And totally regretted it!

Enjoy the photos!

It was Sam's turn to take some kids for a ride, so I took Joseph and Noah around. We saw the sea turtles!

This guy was hanging out on the bottom.

 

This is what Noah does when I try to take a picture of someone that's not him.

A cute camera hog.

Then we saw the flamingos!

Eli ended up going alone on this ride.

Eden really wanted to ride but she started to feel sick, poor thing.

This is where our day became a little hectic. Sam had a hard time finding where we were sitting in the orca stadium, Joseph refused to come in so he sat with the stroller, and Eden started throwing up. Good times.

Honoring military members and veterans. Made Sam stand up.

We did get some photos though!

After taking Eden out and letting her get better we hung out in the play area and all strong feelings dissipated. 

Joseph showing Sam he's not so little anymore.

Eden finally feeling better!

We then went to see the sharks. Photos by Sam.

The kids weren't really into Sea World. They just wanted souvenirs and to go home almost the entire time. Before we did that I really wanted to see my favorite exhibit, the arctic. 

 

The pictures really do not show how HUGE walruses are.

 

Here's our pretty girl!

And here are my absolute favorite animals!

 

Only they can pass off as being so majestic looking like a giant marshmallow.

EEEEEEEEE!

Posing with me.

How we all felt in the end.

We ended the day with Red Robin. Yummmm.

Aaand, that's it. Thanks for being here.