High School Freshman

 Height: 5' 1.1" (22nd percentile)

Weight: 102lbs 11.8oz (38th percentile)

Can't believe you're a high school freshman!  But you're also an amazing gymnast, loyal friend, moody teenager, intelligent young lady, and so much more!

You went to your first "real" travel meet for gymnastics and we flew to San Diego for a weekend where you tied for 1st on bars and beam and took home overall 3rd place.  You got to spend time with your teammates and friends doing things you normally wouldn't want to do at home, like going to the zoo!

You still love to sleep and you still find comfort in listening to the sound of rubbing your "bobee" in between your thumb and index finger.

You got braces this year and stopped smiling with your mouth open - I hope you realize how beautiful you still are even with braces!  Then you went to your first homecoming dance and I realized you and all your friends that have braces smile the same way.  For your birthday this year, you requested Jimmy John's after church, to go along with your free Starbucks drink!  You are growing up too fast but I continue to pray that God will always watch over you and that you'll turn to Him to guide you in whatever stage of life you find yourself.  Happy birthday!  We love so much!

Officially a Teenager!

Height: 4' 11.3" (18th percentile)

Weight: 88lb 13oz (25th percentile)

We officially have a teenage girl in our household!  It's an emotional rollercoaster with this girl as she has her good hours and bad hours.  She's extremely sensitive to anything we say to her when she's hangry or tired.  She's super cheery when she gets more than enough sleep, when she's hanging out with her friends (she has a wonderful group of girls from gymnastics that she spends most of her time with) or basking in the glory of her many gymnastics accomplishments! (State AND Regionals All Around champion for her age group in Level 6 gymnastics!!)

For her birthday this year, she invited a handful of friends to play (intense) laser tag and have a sleepover at our house.  In this past year, she's picked up crocheting, gave up playing viola (and piano because her teacher left the studio to go back to school) so that she could take art and foods classes at school and also discovered that some of her new favorite places to eat are Panera, Jimmy John's, Playa Bowls and Pokeworks.  We also learned that she's speed racer on the go kart tracks and won't hesitate to give you a bump to speed past you.  This girl still loves her sleep and has picked up binge watching shows such as Young Sheldon, Dance Moms, Outer Banks and currently,13 Reasons.

Looking forward to all the great things this girl will see and do as she finishes up her middle school years and enters high school in the fall!!  

Tweenager!

 

Height: 4' 8.5" (15th percentile)

Weight: 75lb 13.4oz (15th percentile)

Happy birthday to our tweenager!  She is ecstatic to be 12 because she finally got her own phone number - the picture of her with her with new cell phone is the biggest, most genuine smile I've seen!!   Getting the iPhone 14 vs my hand-me-down iPhone 11 was a nice surprise for her (and us!) She had an early birthday celebration with family followed by an outing with a few of her BFFs the next day at Painting with a Twist (was suppose to be Tree Runner but rain was forecasted for the entire day) and then Chipotle for dinner afterwards.  On the day of her actual birthday, she requested to go to K-pot for hotpot.

7th grade has been good although she's not liking her classes very much.  In her words, the teachers either talk too much or are too boring but she is still doing a great job with having 100% in 5 of her 6 classes.

She's still dedicated to her gymnastics journey and will be repeating level 6 again this season due to a hairline fracture on her big toe growth plate which prevented her from competing after only competing in 1.5 meets last season.  She was extremely disappointed but was able to recover enough to compete in the last meet of the season.  She is ok with competing level 6 again this season because she said she would have a better chance of placing 1st! 

Something also new this year was contacts!  She has astigmatism and some other condition that I can't remember the name of but requires some treatment to prevent/slow down the progression of it.  They happen to have contacts that help manage this condition, which worked out great because she's been asking for contacts.  It only took her a couple of tries to get the contacts in and within a week of using them, she was extremely comfortable with using contacts.  The only downside (other than insurance not covering this cost) is that she can't nap with contacts in.....and she still loves her sleep!....and of course her blankie!

I still can't believe she's 12 now and then next year we move into full teenager territory!!  Looking forward to seeing her continue to grow!  We are proud of the young lady you are becoming and love you so much!

11 Years Old!

 Happy 11th Birthday!
Height: 4ft 6in
Weight: 63lbs

 

Sophia had an early joint birthday celebration with Ethan before they headed out for vacation and on her actual birthday, she wanted to head over to Kura Sushi for dinner - with specific instruction that she gets to sit next to the conveyor belt and grab the food!  This year, she invited a few friends over to paint by number, enjoy a taco bar for dinner and just hung out and did whatever 11 year old girls do (there was a lot of chit chat, screeching and running around with other people's phones)

Double Digits!!

Look who's 10!!  

 Height: 4' 4.6" (25th percentile)
Weights: 64lbs 6oz (26th percentile)

We threw her a party at Rising Phoenix Archery where her brother also had his 10th birthday party.  Originally she wanted to go to a ropes course at Troy gymnastics but it wasn't available during the days/times we could have a party (she thinks I'm just saying that because it was more expensive than archery!) but the archery birthday party turned out to be a lot of fun for her and her friends because many of them have never tried archery before.  [I  was secretly glad she chose archery because when I suggested an archery party, she made the comment that all the friends she's inviting are girls - I told her that girls can definitely do archery and a lot of other things that she thinks only boys can do.  I hope she realizes that there's so much out there she will be able to accomplish as long as she doesn't shut her own doors and limit her potential just because she's a girl!]  We weren't sure how the party would turn out because she wanted to invite both school friends and gymnastics friends but she did a great job making sure she introduced both sets of friends to each other and she made an effort to talk to each one of her friends that night.  Looks like turning 10 is making her a little more responsible and considerate of others!  I asked her what the best part of the night was and in the true spirit of childhood, she said "All the presents!!"  

 

  

She is in her final year of elementary school and is really enjoying her time as a 5th grader, doing things like being a safety and very much looking forward to going to 5th grade camp (hopefully!) in the spring.  She was very disappointed a week before school when she found out that she wasn't going to be in the same class as her friends from last year and dwelled over that the entire week before school started but I kept reminding her that she will make new friends.  Fast forward to when she was handing out her birthday invitations where she invited a couple girls from her current class and when I asked her why she invited them, she gave me a smirk and reluctantly said "because I made some new friends" [I wanted to say "I told you so!" but I didn't].  

Over the summer she kept in touch with her friends via Messenger Kids calls/texts/video chats, a few playdates and actually took a cooking class with her BFF Emma.  I thought that would inspire her to cook more but I think her interest lies more with eating the food, at least for now.

For the most part, she's been spending much of her time with gymnastics - 4 days a week, almost 2.5 hours each time she's at the gym.  She's part of the juniors B team right now which doesn't require going to competition yet.  She had the option to move to a level 4 team but she told her coach that she'd rather stick with juniors B so that she can learn more variety of skills rather than just stick to level 4 routines.  I feel like that was a very mature decision of her to make and I'm happy that she knows what she wants to do and can make those decisions on her own.  Hopefully that (good) decision making will continue on throughout her adolescent years and beyond.  But this girl...what she can do in the gym amazes me!  Looking forward to watching her continue to grow as a gymnast!...and as a daughter, sister, friend, student and whatever she choses to pursue!  Love you, Mui! 

  

 

(as a final note, she still loves her sleep and still loves 

her precious "bobee"...which is about to fall apart soon!)

And now some gymnastics videos for fun!