Anna

 

This sweet daughter of mine has really impressed me lately.  I wanted to record some of the things she’s done around home lately that make me so grateful to have her! 

Abby keeps her room pretty tidy, except her walk-in closet is sort of a disaster zone.  Fortunately, it’s not visible until you open the door, but then it’s ugly and she can never find any of the clothes she’s looking for.  To clean it out is tricky because she doesn’t like to be downstairs by herself, and the only time the others are down there is at bedtime and she hasn’t been dying to stay up to do that.  She’s been begging me to help her tackle it, but I just haven’t had time to help her. 

Saturday morning Anna got up and while Abby was at play practice, Anna totally organized it.  Folded and put away every single article of clothing that had been previously heaped into a giant overwhelming mountain.  How nice is that?

Then, later that day, she had to tackle some math that her teacher let her take home cause she hadn’t finished in class.  There was a lot of it.  She’s good at math, but not fast.  She came home after her soccer game and was tired but had to do her math.  I told her she’d probably have to get half done that day and the rest on Sunday.  We try to avoid homework on Sundays, but I didn’t think she had a way around it.  She got some of it done and then ran down to watch my recital.  Then she came home and babysat for Brennan and me.  When we got home she went downstairs and plowed through her math, determined not to do it on Sunday.  She finished around midnight.

The next day was Mother’s Day and 9 o’clock church.  She got up at 7:00 am and with Abby’s help, put a tablecloth on the table, cut some fresh flowers for a centerpiece and then made waffles from scratch while Abby made orange julius.  That waffle recipe isn’t simple, you have to separate the eggs and beat the egg whites (none of which she’d done before).   Then she still managed to get ready and get to church on time (sort of, we were a little late but got there before the Sacrament). 

What a sweet, sweet girl.  I’m often hard on Anna because she’s the oldest and because she happens to have a hard time getting places on time which happens to be a big issue for me.   We’ll keep working on the things we don’t have down yet, but in the meantime I’m going appreciate the fact that I have an almost 14 year old who is kind, considerate, fun, tries so hard to do the right thing, and still likes us.  We love Anna!