Millie turns 9!

 How in the world?? Wasn’t she just a cute little toddler? (Also had to double check that was not a picture of Hazel below! Beside the hair color they look a lot a like to me!)

But no, Millie is 9 years old. Love this beautiful girl.

Her birthday was not the most exciting day - we were still quarantining after our brush with COVID and it was a school day. But luckily she is easy to please and we can have more birthday fun another day.

I was all ready to run out for some donuts for breakfast but she asked for cinnamon rolls instead. Why are canned cinnamon rolls the best?? It is one of our family’s favorite treats.

Millie asked if this year she could shop for her own birthday gift with us, and she got to go out with Tyler and pick out a fun LEGO bracelet kit. Pretty much Millie in a box! But that meant she didn’t even have anything to open (at least from us) that day. Thankfully she had visits from both sets of grandparents and some cousins too and was showered with love. She wanted McDonald’s for lunch and her favorite meal for dinner - fiesta ranch chicken and rice. It rained in the afternoon which she was super excited about and we topped it off with a movie night!

Some things about Millie at 9 years old:

- She is a total bookworm. She earned her own Kindle by reading 50 chapter books this summer, and then read 50 more to earn a LEGO set. I’m very thankful she has her own Kindle so we can keep up with her reading easier! She loves The Babysitters Club right now.

- Millie also loves LEGOs, as evidenced above. She builds a set and then takes it apart and builds it again, her own way.

- She enjoyed taking tennis lessons this fall and is rocking swim team still! She works so hard at swimming and is getting really good. 

- Millie also loves running and comes home from school with reports of who beat her and who she beat that day. 

- Her favorite subjects in school are science and reading/writing. She is good at math but doesn’t like it very much.

- Millie loves music and is constantly asking to listen to something. She loves that I have to buy music for High Fitness so now we have a library of songs she loves that we can access anytime. I love to hear her sing!

We just love Millie Mae and are so grateful she is ours!

School stuff

We tried being car riders to school instead of riding the bus. Max wasn’t wanting to go to school but we found it was actually the bus that was the problem, so that was a good solution. Millie did it for about 2 days and then decided she’d rather ride the bus.

My favorite part is watching that cute boy walk in to school looking so grown up. He typically looks back and waves with a big smile on his face several times as he makes his way in.

Also had a little lunch date one day. The boys were in serious need of haircuts!

Millie’s bun made her hood stand on the back of her head and it tickled us!

Nana and Botz invited us to a high school basketball game on Valentine’s Day. This is becoming a tradition I think! Gigi and Poppy joined us too and we all had fun.

Max got to bring his class “pet” home for the weekend, so we made sure to show “Wolfie” a good time. We took pictures of Max and Wolfie together throughout the weekend and then Max wrote a little journal entry about what Wolfie had done with him.

Millie got to do a version of Seussical the Musical with the 2nd grade. They practiced the songs in music for several months and she loved learning them! She did a great job in her little line (“Help! Help!” As the speck that Horton hears). It’s hard to find her in this pic but she got to be by a friend from church and had a fun time.

Harvey thought it was great too!

Beginning of February

Millie and Max spent several weekends creating and playing with paper robots. They made so many and came up with each robot’s powers and abilities. Bonus: they got along so well too!

Millie got to have a play date with Vanessa and Gabby, while Max went to Oliver’s house. Pretty fun to just trade kids with one family!

We went to a park and ran/rode bikes around the lake there. We’d never seen these crazy tire swing trees before, but they were fun!

Poppy and Gigi put a beautiful fire pit in their backyard. We got to go over for a s’mores night and it was awesome! 

The kids were so funny. Harvey declared he didn’t want a marshmallow, just the chocolate and graham cracker. Of course, he said this after roasting a marshmallow! And then Max wanted no chocolate, just marshmallow and graham cracker. 

Hazel got impatient sitting in her high chair and somehow learned to wiggle out of the buckled straps.

Can’t even be mad at her!

Max’s spelling is my favorite. 

A little lunchtime batting practice.

We had some beautiful weather.

One of my things to do this year was to clean off the porch... there was bird poop all over from the birds who try to build a nest on our porch each year. I’m determined to keep them away this year!

Reading on the trampoline because he didn’t want to come inside to do his homework. Also notice how wet his little sweaty head is here!

Millie was showing Max how to find 1 Nephi in the scriptures. It was really sweet.

Thanks to Gigi for the huge box - it was a perfect setting for our family night lesson on Nephi building a ship! And coloring and forts and other stuff too.

Max wanted Poke balls incorporated in his 100th day of school shirt... this is what I found on the internet that I could replicate! The buttons didn’t last but it was sure cute for that day.

We hadn’t played with the Marble Works set in a long time and Harvey thought it was pretty great.

We started doing “special time” with the kids. Everyone gets one night a week where they get to stay up 15-20 minutes later than the other kids and have that time with just Mom (and Dad if he was home). Max chooses to play chess every time. And pretty much wins every time too!

Millie’s baptism

Millie was baptized at the end of January. It was such a special day with lots of family and friends. Millie is one loved and supported little girl! Garrett, McKenna, and Morgan came from Dallas and we having them there.

I had a very special moment with Millie, helping her get dried off and in dry clothes after being baptized. It hit me in that moment - while I did not directly participate in the ordinance, it has been my privilege to care for Millie in 2 of her purest moments on earth. The first when she was born and placed in my arms, fresh from heaven. The second, when she was fresh from the waters of baptism. Being a mother is such an honor.

Tyler did a great job with the baptism and confirmation. He loves Millie very much!

Thanks to the Webbs for coming from San Antonio and for being on Hazel duty for the whole baptism. 

Millie loves Brother and Sister Adame, her Primary teachers from last year. Sister Adame gave the opening prayer and they were so sweet to be there for Millie.

We had our families over for an early dinner after the baptism. We just felt so blessed to have so much love and support from family and friends. I did a terrible job making sure I talked to all the sweet friends that were there, but we were so grateful to everyone who came!