She's 8!

This girl. I am getting choked up just thinking about the special blessing she is in our lives. Even from when she was a toddler she surprised and delighted me with how kind, thoughtful, inquisitive, generous, selfless, enthusiastic, and wonderful she is. I think I have said this before, but I really believe that we were sent such a sweet spirit because in spite of being so terrified of becoming a mother, but we obeyed the revelation we received to have a baby. Eliza is such a blessing.

Eliza loves learning and sometimes seems like a literal sponge soaking up everything that she is presented with. She is really thriving this year in the gifted class. I am astounded at how much she is progressing in writing, math, reading, vocabulary, and everything. "Mom, I just wrote a complex, compound sentence." "Mom, did you know that blood has to go through capillaries one cell at a time?" Her teacher really is phenomenal. They do so, so much!

If there is one thing that I wish could be different with her school experience is that she doesn't have a great best friend. She has a lot of fairweather friends, which breaks my heart. There is one neighbor friend that seems genuinely kind whenever she comes to play, which is nice. Other than that, I want to throttle these other second grade girls that dare tell this angelic little girl that they don't want to play with her (sometimes, other times they are all best friends--grrrr!!!) I try to keep reminding myself that as long as she is happy, I am happy. Fortunately she almost always is happy. Probably having to do chores on Saturday upsets her more than the friends situation. Poor thing.

Eliza still reads every chance she can get, including the scriptures. I still love it when she uses words that clearly she has only read before because she doesn't know how to pronounce them. She loves fiction and non-fiction.

She has taken piano lessons from John for the last few months and is progressing a lot faster than John or I anticipated. We really wonder if she has some natural talent in this. In addition to this she loves doing cartwheels and bridges. She also does ballet/tap and soccer with Miriam.

Eliza still gets up at the crack of dawn. She adores her baby sister and is best friends with Miriam (whether or not they realize it). Eliza feels enthusiasm for most everything in life, and can be surprisingly non-whiny sometimes.

Endearingly (or sometimes not) she is still pretty absent minded sometimes. She can easily get distracted. She loves watching movies and shows, but not if they're too scary. The Magic School Bus is favorite right now. Awesome.

A few months ago we were sitting at the kitchen table and Eliza asked me, "Mommy, tell me what it was like when you were growing up." I aged 50 years in one sentence. Funny girl.

Another favorite is when she received a calculator for Christmas. I guess she had never really seen a calculator before. "Mom, it really tells you the answers!!!"

I love her enthusiasm she regularly tells me that whatever I fixed was the best dinner ever. She still doesn't like chocolate, crazy girl, but other than that has very good taste buds. :)

I loved one day before Christmas, John and I were making out in our closet (ahem) and Eliza came in our room "Are you guys working on our presents? I knew it, knew it!"

Another day, "This is probably the most amazing thing you have ever heard...I just wrote more than 240 m's. Really I did."

Eliza's actual birthday was a really fun day with a special lunch at school, birthday shirt, and both of my parents here to celebrate with her.

Her big present this year was a desk for her room. We also got her a soft chair that can spin to go with it, because she loves spinning on the computer chair. We also had to get her a little plant in a cute pot to go with it. Because it is adorable.

 It was a surprise.

 This smile.

Eliza wanted mini-creme puffs for her birthday treat, which was actually kind of labor intensive, but was fun. Probably won't make them again though. She is so pretty.

I love you Eliza! I am so incredibly proud of you. You make me want to be a better person. I love you more than I can say. It is so happy and sad for me that you are eight now. Happy because I love the person you are growing to be, but sad because it is happening so fast. I wish I could just freeze time. Happy birthday sweetheart!