Felicity turns 9!

Yesterday was Felicity's 9th birthday. We can't believe that she was baptized a year ago, time has flown by! She's growing so much, though. When you compare her pictures from six months ago, a year ago, and two years ago, it's amazing how she has changed. She's growing more mature and has been such a help to me as I get more waddle-y ;). She loves to make up games and projects for the boys, her room often is filled with three or four "stations" with different activities that the boys can rotate through. Our little cruise director! The boys (usually) love it, and Seth loves his "Yissy" and gives her big kisses. It's sweet to see their relationship.

The books she has been reading are getting more mature, too. She recently finished all the Narnia books (and wants to name the baby Lucy now--which isn't a bad idea, better than when she wanted to name Seth Strawberry Shortcake!) In school last year her teacher was reading "Summer of the Monkeys" (love that book) and was so excited about it she came home and we hunted up our copy so she could read ahead of her class. I remember doing that for "Incident at Hawks Hill" in 5th grade. I can't wait until we are exchanging books back and forth like my mom and sis/sis in laws.

She's so excited about the baby and she has to kiss her every night before bed (although by the second or third kiss I think she's just trying to push bedtime back a little). She always asks me how I'm feeling and if the baby is moving and even tries to help me out of chairs. That makes me laugh, she's like a little nurse. If she just knew how to take my temperature and time my heartbeat she'd be doing that, too.

She still loves horses and dancing and riding her bike. We're doing her second year of swimming lessons and even though she still doesn't like getting her face wet she thinks it would be wonderful to be a lifeguard. I don't think she's ever seen one have to dive off that tower into the water! She's a social butterfly and the best way to get her to clean her room is to tell her she can't visit with friends until it's clean. In school reading is her favorite, of course, and math was high on her list until they started into the multiplication tables! She'll be starting forth grade in a couple weeks, it doesn't seem possible that she's already old enough for that. Pretty soon she'll be learning math that I can't do and science that I don't remember and I'll have to work on memorizing State Capitols again so she won't be smarter than me!

We love our little Lissy and we're so proud of how she's growing and the choices she is making. She's a wonderful, strong person already and I can't wait to watch as she grows and learns more, even though I'm a little sad when I think of her as a baby I was packing around the USU campus or two years old and chasing our Rez dogs or four years old and "reading" books to Caleb and how many other memories I have from when she was really little. Happy birthday sweet girl and I can't wait for many more!