Happy Birthday!

Would you look at that. January has already come and gone. Crazy! The first week of January is kind of a big deal around these parts. Why you ask? Because someone has a birthday!

This little lass turned 12. Twelve! Not great. Well, it is great and exciting and sad at the same time. I remember when she was a baby and was screaming her head off, because that's all she did. I would look at her and think, I can't wait to be a grandparent. Then I get to send the screaming baby away. Thankfully, her screaming stopped and my days for longing for grandparent status have decreased significantly. Now M, is in YW. She really likes it and comes home from church and the weekly activities talking about how funny the girls are. She lived through her first bishop's interview. She is truly terrified of..... humans mostly. Fact- she won't knock on anyone's door unless someone is standing next to her. She blinks back tears if someone wants to talk to her on the phone rather than just texting. Even when her friends wants to facetime her, she'll answer but put the phone on the counter so all her friend sees is the ceiling. So the thought of talking to the bishop was enough to make the color drain out of her face and the tears to almost spill out. But, She was so brave and came out conqueror! They forgot to call her up in sacrament meeting to say she graduated from primary. When they did it for the girl that turned 12 a few weeks after her she looked at me with huge eyes and said,"They better not do that to me!" I don't know why she is so shy but she's better than she used to be and hopefully can accept the fact that humans probably aren't going anywhere for a while and talk to them from time to time. 

Oh how we love our M! She is working so hard on mastering her backhand spring. She can do it on the trampoline but doing it on the ground is really scary. She loves all things smelly and has bottles and bottles of lotions and body sprays and perfume and hand sanitizer. She wanted those smelly plug in things for her birthday so that her room can smell amazing without her having to spray half a bottle of body spray. Her favorite color is hot pink and she is quite the fashionista. She told me two days before her birthday that she wanted a CC beanie. I asked her what that was and she very patiently explained to me that it is, in fact, a beanie. What makes is so cool is the small piece of leather on the side that has two c's on it. I still don't really get why that's cool but she was so happy that she got one. She loves sparkly things and curling her hair. She is amazing with little A and loves to take care of her. She is very mild mannered and it takes a lot to ruffle her feathers. She's a smarty farty pants and although she says she doesn't like school, she does amazing and has shy little smiles as her teachers sing her praises. Sometimes I miss when she was little and would sing with me, loved buses and called a motorcycle a motaseeka. Sometimes I cry when I think of how fast time goes and how soon she's going to be done with high school and moving on. It makes me want to make good on my threat of putting heavy books on her head so she'll stop growing and just skip her birthday every year so she doesn't get any older. But then I look at how amazing she is and get so excited to see what she does with her life. Then my heart almost bursts with happiness and pride that she's ours forever. Now, for your viewing pleasure, her birthday pictures.

We love her and feel so thankful that she's our smelly fashionista forever!