Nine

Lexi,

On November 16th, you turned nine!
9?!?! It feels like you're practically a teenager.
Where does the time go?
When you were a newborn,
there were days I thought we'd never
make it to bedtime,
and now you're growing up so fast on us.
It's exciting and sad, all mixed together.

This year, we celebrated with a pottery
painting party followed by dinner at
Taverna Rossa and a frozen yogurt dessert.
The night ended with one of your friends
coming back for a sleepover.
It was the perfect way to celebrate
our not so little girl.

At 9, you remain confident,
independent, determined, silly,
a lover of the outdoors, always

up for a new challenge or adventure,
smart and sporty.
You have a voracious appetite for books.
You've flown thrown the entire Harry
Potter series, and you are whipping through
my old collection of The Babysitters Club
from when I was your age.
You love the Who Was and the I Survived Series.
There is almost always a book in your hands,
and one of your very favorite spots is the reading
chair in your bedroom.

Your surprise birthday present

You've also become a math whiz this year.
You are further along then all of your classmates
in the timed division tests.
You love it all - multiplication, fractions,
measurement, perimeter, counting money,
word and logic problems.
Math is a current passion of yours.
That said, you just continue to love school in general.
Your grades have been nearly perfect
the entire school year - I don't believe
you've gotten anything lower than a 95.
You are eager to learn, understand the third grade
concepts easily, and are highly self motivated.
You think the world of your main teacher,
Mrs. Boehmer, and you have loved every minute
of being in her classroom.
You remain in the Quest Gifted and Talented program,
and are thriving under Miss Moore.
The projects you've worked on -
creating a new toy, marketing it and videotaping
a commercial, as well as coding a robot
and conducting a chariot's race against your peers
excite you to no end.
We couldn't be more proud of you!

Outside of school, your interests are many.
Your current favorite sports are softball,
volleyball and basketball.
Just like your daddy,
you wear the #3 jersey.
Your favorite position to play is second base.
You love playing basketball with the boys next door.
You are always asking us to take you over
to Bicentennial Park.
You remain so creative and enjoy
illustrating in your free time.
You are a wonder on rollerblades,
you have become such a dog lover
since Bailey joined our family.
You love watching the nightly news
and are interested in volcanoes and The Titanic.
This marks the second year of your book club
with several classmates and friends,
and you look forward to the meetings each month.
You are counting down until our summer
vacations where you'll get to boogie board
and surf again.
You have a wide circle of friends
and rotate through them based on the activities
at recess, the sports season and who you've
played with most recently.
Wherever the fun is,
that's where you want to be.

You absolutely love all the holidays
and the preparation that goes into them.
You can always be counted on to
come up with a good theme and to make
any celebration more festive and special
by adding your own personal touch.
For Mother's Day, you decided to recreate
mommy and daddy's honeymoon in Hawaii.
You printed out photos of palm trees and
coconuts, spread out your shell collection,
and created a quiz of Hawaiian facts
for us to play.

When we look at you,
we see the preteen girl you
are becoming, in so many ways.
You are a force to be reckoned with,
my dear, and we are enjoying
the front seat view.
As your dad tells you every night
at bedtime, we love you all the way
to the moon and as far as the ocean.
Happiest Birthday Lexi Bear!!!!
(Written on 5.16.18)