Lydia Elise - 7 years

Oh, my Lydia girl. You are so smart, kind, and good. (and stubborn). You've grown so much over the past year, I hardly recognize you. Your dad and I love you so much and we are so grateful that you are our daughter. You are an amazing big sister, a kind friend, and the most pet-loving girl I know. 

Stats: Has lost two teeth! 

Interview:
What is your favorite nickname: Lyddie-bug

Favorite Animal: Cats, all cats, but mostly BIG cats.  

Favorite Color: Orange and Black (orange is my very favorite though)

Favorite Food: Nacho Soup

What do you like to do? Bark like a dog.
What do you like most about Birthdays? Being with Mom.
What is your favorite thing to play with? To play with Caleb.
Who is your best friend? Lilly (Wardell)
What do you like to do with her? Try to stop Neal when he plays bad guys.
What is your favorite thing to wear? My red shirt that has a heart with leopard print on it.
Where is a place you want to go? I want to go to a museum that has lots of big cat stuff in it.
What is your favorite place to be? At home with my family?
What is something special you can do? I can bark like a dog.
What do you want to learn now that you are seven? Football! (I want to learn how to play it and I already know how to play basketball.)

Other things to remember about this stage of life (plus pictures from the last six months): 

--She loves to read. This year she's totally taken off in the reading department. She has a book in her hand, or close by, basically all day, every day. She reads in the car, reads at home, tries to read at the dinner table. Walks around the house holding her book up reading after being asked to do something. Reads until much past bedtime using whatever light she can find. I love this about her. It's hard to be frustrated when she's reading instead of doing whatever else she's supposed to be doing because she totally gets it from her dad and I. We were both just like that as kids (and even still now). David describes her as a "voracious reader" and I think that the definition of "wanting or devouring great quantities" is absolutely accurate. 

- We decided to homeschool Lydia this year and it has been such a wonderful thing for us - for her and for our family. She has grown in so many wonderful ways, and I have enjoyed spending all of our days together. The thought of sending her off to school for seven hours of the day makes me want to cry and I'm so grateful that we have the opportunity to learn and grow together- and especially that it's been an enviornment where she is thriving. She has memorized many poems & scriptures, studied things that matter to her, gotten more and more confident in math, played outside, gone on field trips, spent time with her siblings, and developed a deeper relationship with me. One of the things that I've loved watching most is seeing her confidence in herself grow. Where once she might have just followed whatever her friends were doing - now she has a much stronger sense of self and she is confident in the things that she likes and the things that she does. I don't know that we will homeschool forever, but this year has been such a beautiful little pocket of time that I will always treasure. 

--I love spending time with my Lydia 

--  She's pretty self-aware. She often identifies things that she's good at and acknowledges things that she's less good at without being overly upset about them. The other day she was talking with David and she said "I don't have a best friend." He commented to me later that she wasn't sad about it, she just was self-aware enough to recognize that she has lots of friends but not necessarily one best friend. We have plenty of meltdown "I can't do this, I'm so bad at it!" moments - but it's amazing to watch her grow and develop and learn to persevere and gain that feeling of accomplishment and confidence. 

--I had to come back and update this post by saying - Age 7 is full of big emotions. We have super high-highs and incredibly intense lows. We are trying to teach her how to deal with her emotions rather than tell her that it's not okay to have emotions. I have some pretty big feelings about forcing kids into compliance vs. teaching them how to handle their emotions in a positive way. But sometimes it is SO hard. She gets upset and pushes boundaries and it can be frustrating. I hope that the effort that we are putting in now will help her for her whole life, even if we are far from perfect.

--She's creative and funny. She gets an idea into her head and she works at it until it comes together. She wanted to make her own Christmas tree, and with some paper, a box, and a little direction she made it happen. Sometimes her ideas are bigger than I'm willing to allow, and she unhappily tries to accomplish her goal on a smaller scale. You would be amazed at how many times I have to put my foot down at drilling a hole in the wall to help her accomplish her task.

--As Lydia is growing she's turning into such a smart, kind, funny girl. I love spending my days with her. I love going on adventures with her. I love listening to the things that she thinks about. Our relationship is changing, especially now that she's getting SO much more independent. But it's not an exaggeration to say that she's one of my best friends. I'd rather spend time with her than almost anyone else.

-Winter was good to this girl. She loved sledding in the back yard and going on the few winter adventures we went on. 

-Lydia started piano lessons this year and has done a really great job. Getting her to practice isn't always easy but I'm impressed at how much she's learned in just a few short months! She had her first recital this Christmas and she played a duet with Ezri Lewis. She practiced really hard (and I loved being able to practice the duet part with her) and was confident and happy the day of the recital! They played the piece together, with just a few little nerves, but her smile after the song was done was so full of joy and confidence! I think playing the piano is such a valuable skill and I hope that she continues to practice and grow in skill and confidence! 

-Over the past year or so we've been doing a chore system called our "Family Economy". Lydia has a set number of things that she needs to do each day and if she does them she gets paid a certain amount at the end of the week. She splits her money into Tithing, Long Term Savings, and Spending (or a Short Term Savings). The idea is to help her learn financial independence and responsibility, and also to give natural consequences for doing (or not doing) chores. Sometimes it's hard to let her spend her money on junk, but it's been amazing to watch her start to understand and get better at spending her money on things that she really wants - even being willing to not buy something she really wants right now so she can save for something that she wants in the future. I hope that these skills serve her well in life! (Also, I have a camera feed full of pictures of her with things that she wants to buy at the store.) 

-This Christmas we helped with our Ward Christmas Party and organized a donation of Teddy Bears to Primary Children's hospital. It was a neat experience to go and drop off the bears!  

-Christmas was pretty great for this girl this year. 

-She asked for a skateboard. We almost got her a scooter instead, but in the end we decided to just give her what she asked for even if she wouldn't be able to do it very well. We shouldn't have been so surprised when she totally picked it up right away. My little brother Jacob taught her in the church gym across the street from my parents house (she still talks about how her Uncle Jacob taught her) and she's really good at it! She practiced inside all winter long and as soon as we got out this spring, she took off on the roads! I dont have a picture, but there are a couple other little girls in the neighborhood that have skateboards and it's so fun to watch them cruise around. 

-Such a good sister.  Not only does she do a good job of taking care of her little brothers, she's just really good friends with them. Austin idolizes her, Caleb loves her, and she loves them both, too. 

-Loves playing games with the grownups.

--I love her.

-She's been taking a gymnastics class this year and has really enjoyed it. It's not something that comes super naturally to her - but she has been working HARD at it. She couldn't do a backbend, but she practiced and practiced and practiced - for WEEKS- and finally she was able to do it! When she passed her backbend off in class she was thrilled and I was so proud of her! She tried to teach her brothers, and I loved watching her excitement and happiness. 

-Lydia's Piano Song. She sat at the piano one day working on a song that she was making up. After a while, she asked if we could write it down and was SO excited when I said that I would help her write it out like real piano music. So simple, but so genuine and it makes me so grateful I get to spend my days with her. "Lydia is the best girl in the world, her mom loves her (so much), when her cousin's come to sleep - it's - fun." 

-Homeschool has been the best thing for us this year. For the most part, she does her work without much complaint - and she's really thriving. I love being able to help coach her through her big emotions, sit with her while she learns, celebrate her successes and give her support through her struggles. We've gone on awesome field trips, done great science projects, worked on interesting unit studies, and done spelling, math, reading, and everything else in between. I can't imagine sending her away from me for seven hours every day, and I treasure each and every one of those hours that I have gotten to spend with her. 

-Building and making "inventions" is one of her favorite things to do. She is enrolled in a tech-class through the homeschool program that we used and most of my reporting sounded like this: "Lydia explored her construction and engineering skills by playing with and constructing a myriad of inventions using string, pots and pans, and tape. Her creativity was engaged, allowing her to use her brain to construct different assortments of inventions, and her problem-solving skills were being utilized and expanded. " She's always making something, usually large and complex with many different types of building materials. 

-We enrolled Lydia in indoor soccer this spring and she loved it! She wasn't afraid to stay right in the middle of things and she was so happy and excited to be playing that frequently she'd throw a little skip into her step while running. We were proud of her for working hard at something that she'd not had very much experience with, even though there were much more experienced players on the floor. 

-Pizza Dates with Dad are one of her favorite things. She loves David and also she loves pepperoni pizza. Win-win! 

-I love her. 

--She's energetic and always moving. Her preferred mode of walking involves several cartwheels per minute. (Often times when we are doing math or spelling, I'll give her a problem, let her answer, then have her do a cartwheel away and a cartwheel back before giving her the next problem.) She loves being outside and being active. Riding bikes (or her skateboard or her rollerskates) is her favorite now that it's starting to warm up again! 

-She says that she loves Big Cats (that's her new interest) - but she LOOOVEEEES dogs. She wants her own dog so badly, that it makes me feel pretty guilty for holding fast to our "no dogs - ever" stance. A common response when asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is "A pet owner." She talks about all the dogs she's going to own when she's old enough. We went to the Puppy Barn to pet lots of different types of dogs and that was fun - but her life was made when we got to take Riley (of the Perkins Family) for a walk on our own. She loves Riley. As soon as she's old enough I'm going to encourage her to start a dog-walking business.

-Climbing. 

-Building. 

--Swimming. 

--She loves her cousins and her Grandma.

-Pizza dates with Dad might be her favorite - but dates with mom are MY favorite. Because of homeschool we get to do a lot of fun things. These pictures are from when we went to the play "Alice in Wonderland" at the University of Utah.  

--She liked watching March Madness with David this year.

-She saved up her family economy money to buy a "big cat stuffed animal" - and after going to approximately 10 stores she finally settled on buying this snow-tiger named Tundra. She has loved this little stuffy, and one morning she asked if she could make a photo album of Tundra. She took 30+ pictures of Tundra doing different things, printed out the pictures, cut them out, and labeled each page - making a photo book. It was cute and clever (and a lot of work.)  

--Easter. 

--She's got quite the personality. Active, creative, kind, and a little "older-sister bossyness" thrown in for good measure. 

--Spring! We are going on a hike each week this spring which has been SO fun. And we did a little "seed/plant/growing" unit and planted seeds. Lydia bought a little strawberry plant with her own money and I hope that we can keep it alive long enough for it to grow a strawberry fo her! 

-Lydia's cow at Grandpa Great's Ranch.

My dad Marco Polo-ed us one morning to tell Lydia about a baby calf who was struggling to drink milk from his mama and told her how Grandpa Great was having to feed it in the barn. Then Grandpa-Great chimed in and said that Lydia could have the calf if we came up and got it! We could take it home and let it live in our backyard. Lydia was over-the-moon. I convinced her that the cow had to stay in Wyoming, but every time Lydia talks to my dad she asks about her calf. When we went up there in April she was so excited to be able to feed her calf on her own for the first time! 

-She also got to ride a horse again. She loved it! I wish that we had the resources to give her riding lessons. She'd be an amazing rodeo queen. She's so confident and happy up atop a horse. 

--Lydia's BIRTHDAY week. Lydia's favorite thing lately are BIG CATS - meaning leopards, cheetahs, ocelots, tigers, lions, pumas, panthers, etc... She's been learning all about the different kinds of cats. So when I asked what she wanted for her birthday party she chose to have a Big Cat party and it was perfect. She helped me design the birthday invitation, loved popping a balloon each day of the week with a special little activity in each one, and helped design and make her birthday cake. Can I believe that she's turning seven years old??? NO! And also yes. She's growing so much that seven seems just the perfect age for her. 

(She looks so big in this picture.)

Oh Lydia-girl. You are strong, smart, kind, funny and good. I'm amazed at how much you have learned over the past year and I'm so glad that I get to be by your side through the next year (and forever). You are such an important part of our family. Your little brothers are so lucky to have you, and your daddy and I don't know what we would do without you. We love you, our dog-loving, big-cat-fact-knowing, wall-climbing girl!