Happy 8th Birthday, Braelynn! Irwin, PA Photographer

Braelynn Fiona 8 Year Old Birthday Portraits in Irwin PA

Look at my big girl! Today is the eve of her EIGHTH birthday – and I’m not sure what it is about 8, but this one feels BIG to me. I’ve been struggling to wrap my brain around the fact that my sweet little baby is turning 8, but I just can’t do it. Eight seems so grown up – on the verge of so many “big” things.

And, I feel like Braelynn’s age “number” is simply magnified by how I’ve seen her grow and mature over this last year. She’s more thoughtful, more sensitive, more kind, more helpful. She thinks about things and processes them differently than she did last year. She has changed and blossomed and I absolutely treasure being a witness to this process of her growing up. (Of course, it means I’m also more and more aware of the responsibility on my shoulders to train and teach her to do and think right – a responsibility I so often fail at.)

Words cannot describe how much I (we all) love Braelynn. She is our shining light, our princess, our treasured jewel – and our lives are so much better because she’s a part of our family.

As a little update:

Braelynn’s middle name is “artist”. Her bedroom, the living room, the dining room table – they’re all constantly littered with her drawings and sketches. If she’s not drawing something, she’s probably coloring something, and if she’s not coloring, she’s probably painting. She tells us on a weekly basis that she wants to be an artist when she grows up. And I’ve loved watching her art progress over the years – when she buckles down and takes her time, she can create really beautiful pieces. A week doesn’t go by that I’m not shocked by something she creates.
Her “creating” extends beyond just drawing too – she loves to craft, create things out of modeling clay, fold and cut paper, make things out of pipe-cleaners and popsicle sticks – anything and everything artsy and creative – she’s all in.
She is the BEST big sister. Leander simply adores “Bun-nyn”. They seem to constantly be off playing on some sort of an adventure – whether they’re re-creating characters from their favorite TV shows (Lion Guard, Bob the Builder, and Paw Patrol are at the top of their current favorites) or building forts, tents, or castles out of our couch cushions – they are each other’s best friend. Leander will follow Braelynn to the ends of the earth and wants to do absolutely everything she is doing.
Braelynn is currently in 2nd grade and doing GREAT. It literally never fails to impress me when I think back to her skill levels at the beginning of this year vs. where we are now! It’s absolutely incredible what she has learned, how she has progressed, and where she is now! Math and science continue to be her favorite subjects, but her reading skills (reading has always been her least favorite thing to do) have improved by leaps and bounds this year. She still continues to lack some confidence in that area, but she’s really so greatly improved – I’m so proud of all of her hard work! We hit 101 days of school before we went into our Christmas break, so we’re absolutely smashing this school year and I feel like it will be over before we know it!
She continues to be a collector of stuffed animals – finding a particular love for Squishmallows this year. She carries a “stuffie” around with her everywhere she goes (and don’t worry – they rotate depending on the day!) She currently has all of her “favorite” stuffed animals carefully stacked up on her bed so that she can sleep with them all – it’s quite the obsession.
Braelynn has become a really big help to me around this house this year! She has certain daily and weekly chores that she is responsible for – and if she completes them all, she gets a small allowance. This has acted as a fabulous tool to teach her about money – about saving money vs. spending it, about tithing – it’s an on-going conversation around our house, talking about how much things cost, about the merits of saving up money, and trying to figure out how she can earn more money. She is very entrepreneurial in her aspirations of trying to figure out how she can create things to sell, work for other people, or put up a lemonade stand. I’m just thrilled to finally have someone who can help me clean the bathroom every week!
We attend Calvary Chapel in Greensburg (we have gone there since we moved here – before Braelynn was born!) but over the last year, we’ve become very involved in the kids’ ministries there. Braelynn LOVES going to their Wednesday night kid’s class (and I’m now on the teaching rotation on Wednesday nights). She goes to Sunday School on Sunday mornings too and has several sweet little friends that she’s made. She’s such a social butterfly – she tends to sit somewhere different every week and has no problem being a buddy to anyone in class!
I think one of my favorite new things that Braelynn’s been doing is singing to herself – I’ll catch her singing completely random, made-up songs while she’s coloring or playing – it’s super sweet!
She also really loves to listen to things while she’s crafting/coloring/creating – she listens to audio books on our library app and she loves to listen to me read to her. We’ve read quite a few series of books together (including all of the Little House on the Prairie books, the Ralph S. Mouse books, and some of the Boxcar Children series). But this year we are working through The Chronicles of Narnia – I’ve read the “popular” Narnia books before, but never the entire series the whole way through, so that’s been a lot of fun. We have one book left and we’ll be able to add that entire series to our booklist!
Cameron continues to be Braelynn’s BEST friend and they Facetime on a very regular basis.
She loves to travel and we did A LOT of traveling this past year! We went to Walt Disney World and Silver Dollar City out in Missouri – Braelynn rode her first launching roller coasters this year! She hit 50″ and that opened up a whole new category of roller coasters for her to ride. She’s dying to get to 52″ so that she can ride even more coasters with us (and, if she hasn’t hit it already, she’s super close – she’s definitely hit a growth spurt over the last few weeks – as evidenced by most of her dresses all of a sudden being super short!)
Our early bird has suddenly started “sleeping in” more and more! And by “sleeping in”, I mean that she’s not routinely waking up by 6am anymore, but instead getting up closer to 7am. She still has her early mornings, but at least 50% of the week now, Leander actually wakes up before Braelynn does! (How did that happen?!) I get up at 6am every day Monday-Friday regardless, but that means that on the weekend, we can all “sleep in” until 7am?! After so many years of such early wake-up calls, it feels like a dream!
Braelynn’s favorite food is SHRIMP! We took her to Red Lobster last night for “endless shrimp” and she literally ate at least 20+ pieces of shrimp (plus biscuits!) She loves to make herself breakfast – usually either pancakes or eggs. She loves steak, mashed potatoes, Alfredo, fish, bread, chicken nuggets, and bacon. She continues to be a stupendous eater (and has been eating more and more – especially with this growth spurt she’s been experiencing!)