Another Birthday - My Amazing Daughter

It seems just a few days ago that I hit publish on this post for her last birthday, and now here we are again and the year has flown!

How can it be that my girl is already 17!

She is the best and I could not be more proud of the amazing young woman she has become.  God has so richly blessed our family to have her as our own.

She has an awesome sense of humor and is a loyal fan of Dr. Who.

She shares important events with her brother and is a great friend to him.
They laugh a lot and are always there for each other.

She is really smart, beautiful, caring, quick witted and sometimes sarcastic, kind, loving,
thoughtful, talented in more ways than I can count, works hard, dreams big, and loves Jesus,
her family, and her orange cat (hopefully in that order!).

Every day I am thankful that God gave me this wonderful person and I'm honored to be her mom. 

Happy Birthday Jess!  I love you more than you can know and I continue to be amazed by your gifts and your joy in life.  Follow Jesus and dream of great things because God has big plans for you my girl!

With all my love always,
Mom

Puella, Filia, Femina

I think it was very appropriate that our Latin lesson this week should include the words for "girl, daughter, woman".  Yesterday was J's 12th birthday!  She is moving from a girl to a woman, though she will forever remain a daughter. :-)
She had a marvelous day.  By planning ahead - and showing a level of maturity and work ethic which made her mother proud - she had only a Latin lesson and piano practice to do for school work on Friday. We had our normal home school swim time at the Y and she and B with their friend N & K, had the pool all to themselves for an hour.  It was very nice.
After a quick lunch at our newly opened Burger King - not something we do very often anymore - we did a quick errand and then on to her Keepers at Home class-time with her friends for more Christmas Card creativity.  We brought brownies to share and they all had a grand time.  She has decided she really enjoys this rubber stamping and heat embossing and would like to start acquiring some of her own supplies.  She has made some beautiful cards to share with family and friends for Christmas this year.

For dinner she chose CJ's (formerly Cactus Jack's) in Manchester.  We have not been eating out as much as we have in the past, so it made it a special treat to be able to go out to celebrate her birthday.  She opened gifts before the meal and a woman from the table next to us offered to take a family photo - not terribly flattering - but it's unusual for us ALL to be in a photo together.

Her favorite gift was her most meaningful one.  Steve & I bought her a purity ring to wear.  She helped to choose it after our 'girl's weekend' away -  significant because she had made some important decisions about how she wants to live in obedience to Christ.  It is very lovely and she is so proud and happy to wear it.

It was a marvelous day.  I am a blessed femina with my darling filia who brings me great joy!