In January, Abbie turned 10. Double digits!
She is a great friend to everyone and tries to help others feel included. She always has something nice to say to everyone and she is well liked by other kids and adults alike.
She is adventurous! Abbie loves to hike. She and Garrett went on a hike a few Saturdays ago. There was a small mountain that Garrett's been wanting to check out, so he took Abbie with him and they had a great time. He said it was really difficult but she did great and never complained.
I know I've probably talked about this before, but Abbie LOVES little kids, and they adore her right back!! She is always making up games for them, helping them, playing with them, entertaining them. I have never seen a little kid who didn't love Abbie once they got to know her. She's been dying to babysit. She still has another year or so until that happens, but she's a great mother's helper and is a huge help for me, especially with Henry. She loves to make him smile.
She is entrepreneurial. She is always trying to think of ways to make money. When we got snow about a month ago, she wanted to make flyers advertising her shoveling services. I wasn't super comfortable with her trying to charge money for something I had never seen her do and wasn't sure how well she would do it, so I told her instead to just maybe do it as a service at first. She loved the idea and proceeded to shovel the sidewalks of every house in our row of condos. She came back 25 minutes later with $10 from one neighbor, and a big bag of candy from another, haha. She was thrilled.
She is patient and helpful. She can often tell when I'm getting frustrated with Ellie or Olivia, and she swoops in to help out, either by taking over what I'm doing or just inviting them to come do something with her to give me a break. I'm so grateful for this!
Abbie is very flexible - literally and figuratively. Literally, because she can do the splits, is always doing gymnastics, and trying to perfect her front walkover (or handspring I think?). She's also flexible in the sense that she can "go with the flow" very well and doesn't get ruffled easily. If I have to change plans on her or something doesn't work out, she takes it in stride and moves on quickly.
She is responsible. I can't remember the last time I gave Olivia a bath or helped Ellie in the shower... Abbie has totally taken over this job. She also wakes herself up in the morning (with her alarm), gets all ready for school herself, and wakes Ellie and helps her pick out her clothes for the day. She will even get breakfast (cereal) started and served up if I'm not downstairs yet.
She loves to cook and bake. Sadly, my desire to have total control in the kitchen doesn't mesh with that too well and I don't give her many opportunities to cook/bake, but I'm trying to be better about that.
She is supportive and sweet! I got a rower for Christmas and she wrote this cute note to me in chalk and left it under my rower one morning. Got me through a 6k row!
Here's a picture of Abbie and Olivia from a few weeks ago. Abbie placed first in her classroom spelling bee last Fall, so she got to participate in the school spelling bee in January. She didn't win, but she did great and was such a good sport. I think it helped that I had told her the story of when I was in my school spelling bee in 4th grade... I missed the word "terrible" because I was so nervous! (I forgot the "e" at the end)
She chose to have a cheesecake for her birthday... girl after my own heart!
For her birthday, we gave her an ice cream/sweets truck for her American Girl doll(s). It came with about a million pieces but she's pretty responsible so I don't have to worry about them getting lost all over the house, thankfully. It's actually pretty cool and the girls have been having some fun with it. It's the "Our Generation" brand (from Target) and seems to be really good quality.
Happy Birthday, Abbie! We love you!
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