Braelynn Fiona | 11 1/2 Year Old Update

Braelynn's Half Birthday Summer Portraits

Every year, for the kids’ “half-birthdays”, I take them out & do some fun (typically “themed”) portraits of them. With Braelynn being born in January and Leander born in December, I knew that we would never be able to do “fun”, warm and glowy, outdoor “birthday” portraits – so I have simply compromised with “half-birthday” portraits every year. And it’s so much fun!

I’ve obviously taken A LOT of photos of my kids, but for some reason – this jump between 10-to-11 (coming up on 12) has been a HUGE one. I’m not sure I’ve ever taken photos and seen such a massive difference between years.

We obviously see our kids every single day and the growing and changing happens to slowly that our eyeballs don’t even register it – but then when you compare one year against the previous year – WOW. What in the world happened?

And that’s what I feel like this year.

So, without further ado, here is a little summer, half-birthday update on our sweet Braelynn Fiona:

Braelynn’s middle name has been “artist” for many years, but this year, I really feel like she’s found her stride with one particular medium: crocheting. Don’t get me wrong, she still loves to draw and sketch and create (she’s found some really cool YouTube channels that walk you through sketching in detail with shadows and depth that she’ll watch for hours on end), but anymore she doesn’t leave the house without a pile of yarn and a few hooks. She can follow a pattern (and has a whole long list of patterns saved on Etsy that she wants to buy), but my favorite things she makes are the projects she creates out of her own imagination. She truly can crochet ANYTHING and it’s incredible. She’d love to open a small business selling the things she makes, but then she gets distracted and starts into new projects instead. Plus, she loves to give her creations away as gifts, depleting her stock of anything she makes “in bulk”. She’s tried writing down some of the patterns she’s created, but again, she’s easily distracted by actually creating new things. It’s an amazing skill she’s acquired and continues to hone in and I can’t wait to see how it continues to blossom in the years to come.
This fall brings us to 6th grade (why does that seem so old?!). Braelynn now doing about half of her school work independently (and the other half she and I do together and a few things we do with Leander). She loves the independence – she comes right down in the morning and gets straight to work (most mornings, she’s done with everything she can do by herself before Leander even wakes up!) 6th grade has definitely brought it’s challenges – most of which have to do with time. She was just moaning to me this morning: “School takes half my day now! I spend HALF MY DAY doing school! I have so many other things I’d rather be doing!” (#HomeschoolProblems – just wait until we hit highschool!)
Continuing down the list of: “I can’t believe this is real life” – Braelynn has grown VERY tall over the summer – she’s just about as tall as I am. Bonkers. We pretty much now wear the same size shoes and clothes (which has it’s perks and it’s downsides – suddenly I can’t count on my shoes or shirts being where I left them because they may have migrated magically to Braelynn’s closet.) She plans to grow as tall as her Dad – but I really hope this major growth spurt ends before we reach that point.
She is now officially in the church youth group – but it’s been a tough transition. Half of her group of friends moved up into the youth group with her, but the other half has been left behind for one more year in the kids’ class. Seeing the close-knit group split like that is tough and has been hard on the group of friends, but it’s just one more year until they’re all together again. Braelynn is very blessed to have a wonderful group of girls that are her age at church and they all get along so well.
Braelynn’s obsession with How To Train Your Dragon remains (and if you ask her what she loves to crochet the most, she’ll tell you: “Dragons!”) Toothless and the Light Fury remain her absolute favorite characters.
But she also really loves Star Wars and it’s characters (especially Rey – which is who she is dressing up as for Halloween this year – she looks surprisingly convincing in her costume and when we pull her hair back like Rey!)
But her current newest obsession is Harry Potter. We went to California mid-August and planned to spend two days at Universal Studios Hollywood – knowing that Derrick and I would want to spend time in the Harry Potter land, but knowing our kids knew nothing about Harry Potter, I decided to read them “Sorcerer’s Stone” before our trip. My plan had been to simply give them an introduction to the world and characters, so they would understand what we were looking at while we were in that section of the park. Of course, I had a sneaking suspicion that they wouldn’t just settle for “an introduction” and instead fell head-over-heels in love with the characters, story, and world. Of course, that made visiting Universal all that much better and more fun! They each got wands (of course) and owls and wanted to spend ALL of our time in Hogsmeade and around Hogwarts. We had so much fun drinking Butter Beer and eating chocolate frogs and feasting in The Three Broomsticks – it was quite a fun experience. We just finished reading “Chamber of Secrets” – in other words, I expect this obsession to be one that lasts for quite a long long time.
Thankfully, we’ve slowed down in the “buying new stuffed animals” department (mostly because Derrick put a firm foot down and said: “Enough’s enough!” Although, somehow, every once in a while, a new fluffy will make it’s way through our door and up into Braelynn’s room. Fluff and Sprinkles remain her two most prized possessions and a third “favorite” seems to constantly rotate. (For the photos we took, it was Harley, but that third wheel rotates between her, the owl she got from Universal, and her Light Fury from Epic Universe.)
Like her brother, Braelynn also loves Legos and building. She’s built these grand, intricate houses for her mini figures (sometimes with multiple levels that are movable – it’s crazy!) Then, she’ll get another idea, crush the whole thing, and start over from scratch. She’s built houses both horizontally and vertically and she adds a TON of detail and thought into them (complete with rooms, moving doors and windows, furniture, plants, you name it!) She and Leander will play for hours with their Legos, and I have to admit: it’s kind of my favorite.
She asks just about every single day when we can get a new dog. She has started collecting shirts with dogs on them and looks to pet every single dog we come across. We’ve even dog-sat a few times this summer for both friends and family members – and those days are Braelynn’s favorites.
As to the answer to that question – I’m not really sure. Last year around Christmas, I really thought we might get another dog, but nothing ever panned out and we decided it wasn’t the right time. The longer we go without having a dog, the harder it seems to commit to the idea of inviting another one into our lives. We miss Abby dreadfully, but also love the freedom we have to just up and do whatever we want without having to think about the dog. So, while I definitely do see us getting another dog sometime in the future, it’s sometime in the far-off future (unless somehow a sweet pup just lands on our doorstep).