Twelve

Happy Twelfth Birthday Audrey! (Poor girl, she's fighting a cold on her birthday!)

You've had a great year, we love to watch you grow and seeing you figure out who you are! Middle school on the whole has been great. You've been given so much more independence and you have wonderful teachers (when they don't have grand jury duty!). But the downside is that there's also middle school drama....it's all normal, but I know it's not your favorite.

Luckily you've surrounded yourself with a group of great friends. I hope you can keep fostering friendships like these, surrounding yourself with people who you feel comfortable being yourself around. Even though you are only twelve, you already have a strong sense of self and I never want to see you compromise who you are for the sake of popularity or "fitting in". I know it's not aways an easy needle to thread, but so far you're doing it amazingly well! We're so proud of you!

                                        

This year you still played soccer and basketball. And the new middle school activities that you added to your life were Student Council, Literary Magazine and the one you've been looking forward to for year....drama!

You just performed in your first Middle School Musical production, Moana as the show-stealing "Villager #5".  At the beginning, you were annoyed that you only had one line ("Chief, come quick!") but you did WAY more than that, lots of singing and dancing and ocean-making. You did an amazing job

You've definitely been busier in sixth grade than you ever were before, we couldn't even find time for Girl Scouts this year. I'm already looking forward to summer when we can all slow down a bit. And I'm so grateful you get to spend your summers sailing. I love the confidence it gives you that you can handle difficult situations! You sailed in two regattas last summer and had to deal with all kinds of situations...no wind, too much wind, capsizing. Having kids who can do things that I don't know how to do is the coolest part about being a parent!

I love that you willingly let us drag you all over art musuems and to look at crazy architecture. Though are are a bit of a homebody too when we let you. Part of it is that your so creative and you always having about three creative projects going at once. You've gotten SO good at painting with watercolors.

But also, we've reached the stage in your life where you spend a lot of time in your room, door closed, "vibing". I totally get it, you're growing up and need your space. But it's hard on me because you're so fun to hang out with! That's why I won't take any moment for granted and I'm so happy that you still like to snuggle and you still let me read to you, even if "reading" sometimes means scrolling through TikTok together.

Happy 12th Birthday Audrey! Please don't stop being awesome! We love you so much!