Eliza Mae

I love going back and reading these, and the girls love reading them now.  It's a little harder to write about them the older they get for some reason, knowing they will read this when I make the book puts pressure on me! 

Eliza is having a great year in 2nd grade. She just got her report card and seems to be right where she should be academically.  Her favorites at school are her friends, PE, and recess.  They play soccer every recess they can. When it's too muddy it's the first thing I hear when they get off the bus "today was so bad, they didn't let us play soccer at recess!"She gets a lot of little awards and extra privileges for being responsible.  She's still a rule follower, so much that it's hard for her when the others around her aren't following the rules.  It stresses her out, but I think her stress is getting better this year.  She doesn't like to stand out at all, and gets pretty nervous in new situations (she reminds me a lot of what I was like).  She gets to do Yoga Calm once a week and loves it, I think that helps at school. They do some great self esteem boosting activities each session so I'm so thankful their school offers this.

She likes to be good at what she is doing.  And if something is hard or she messes up, it frustrates her more than it should.  I've kind of learned what to say to her when I see her trying something new to prevent the major meltdowns when she can't do it right away.  So, it's hard to see her get upset over little things that I don't think should matter.  On the flip side she works really hard at what is important to her and does it until she's happy with the outcome. 

She takes her soccer seriously, Ryan usually plays with them on Sunday afternoons when it's nice and it's so cute, they get on uniforms and everything. 

She went through a phase of copying birds out of our bird book, I love seeing her art work

The below picture was at their schools family math and science night.  The other girls wanted to visit every station and try everything.  She didn't want to leave the station where they build a boat and get it across the pool with however many golf balls  would float on it.  There was an amazing science teacher there encouraging her and guiding her and it was so fun to watch.  She stayed there for over 45 minutes trying to make her boat better so that she could get the record for holding the most golf balls

She loves reading (currently anything by Jake Maddox, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and the Children's Encyclopedia).  She still loves her American Doll, LEGOS, and getting together with her friends outside of school.