My babies... Drea

Alexandrea Carmella

Drea just turned 8 in January and she amazes me on a regular basis.

She is beautiful...truly beautiful. When she smiles or laughs, it is infectious. She lights up a room!

She is so smart! She reads on a level usually two grades above her current grade. One of my hopes for her was that she would love to read so much that she could lay in her bed at night and read until she fell asleep. It filled my heart with joy when that start happening this year.

You can tell she is an 8 year old right now. She has a constant annoyance with her little sister and she thinks she knows everything... and she absolutely knows whats cool and whats not. I have always struggled with treating her the actual age she is because she usually acts older and has alway been way smarter than her age so I have to remind myself of her actual age...or she helps me remember when she starts whining. :) I especially have to remind myself of this when I have unrealistic expectations of an 8 year old.

She is an extreme thinker. There isn't anything that she doesn't put a lot of thought into. Whether it's what she is going to wear to school, what toothbrush she's going to use or how she can spend her Toys R Us gift card, she could take days to decide. Ironically, sometimes it's because she knows what she wants but she can't have it or it's not available.

Drea's love language is quality time. (...in my opinion.) She thrives on one-on-one time and truly can't get enough.

Some other awesome things about Drea:

• She loves art! Any type of art, craft, etc. You've never seen her so focused as when she is doing anything artistic, even just coloring.
• Drea is very athletic. In the summer she loves to be outside...riding her bike, playing basketball, jumping rope, swimming. She has even really gotten into sled riding with her Dad this winter...and she used to hate getting cold outside. And if she isn't getting plenty of exercise outside, you can usually find her dancing...anywhere and everywhere. She could play outside at the playground all day and night during the summer. She would prefer to be outside all the time in the summer....she even loves camping with her Dad. Recently, she has enjoyed going to CrossFit with me and doing her own workouts. She is built very athletic too. People are always commenting on her muscles. She has abs like she does a couple hundred crunches a day! She looks like she has spent years doing gymnastics.
• She already has a clothes and shoe fetish. She is a regular little fashionista! Loves shopping and trying clothes on. Justice is her favorite store. And luckily Papaw and Grandma's neighbor passign her lots of hand-me-downs from Justice since it's not the cheapest store ever.
• Both of my girls love yard sale-ing and visiting the Goodwill. I hope they will always like this since it makes for finding cool things way cheaper. And good finds for the start of awesome DIY projects!
• Drea is a huge creature of habit! Once she does something once when she's with you or at your house, she will want to do that every time. For instance, we played a guessing game at my Mom and Bob's during dinner one night. Now she requests to play that game every time we eat dinner at their house.
• That probably helps my next note: she has a brilliant memory! And a very visual memory. If she doesn't know one of her spelling words for the week she can write it down once and she will absolutely get it correct on the test.
• She loves playing board games, crafting (she loves making doll furniture and clothes out of recylced materials), drawing, painting, reading, playing dolls with her sister, coloring,
• At the age of eight, she...likes taking showers (finally)....hasn't lost any teeth yet (she has strong, healthy ones!)...has won the spelling bee in her class the past couple years...loves helping me plan birthday parties....absolutely adores her cousins and spending as much time with them as she can...thinks she's old enough to start babysitting Theo...  AND has stolen every bit of my heart!!

I love this little girl so much. I only pray that I can help her know and feel that all that time because she is one awesome kid and beautiful little lady!!

~God, please help me to show her my unconditional love and always teach her that your love goes way beyond mine and will never disappoint her even when we humans fail her. Thank you God for being my strength when I am weak. Thank you for always being there for us! Amen.

   Drea, 7yr old, Summer '13