Happy 11th Birthday Alexandra!!

We had a wonderful birthday with the Potts Birthday Cake Wake-up. Allee openned her first gift from us - the Mille doll that goes with the book series that she is reading. She headed off to school, which also happenned to be Latin Day. Since she is a big 5th grader this year - the 4th grades played the role of slaves and the 5th graders were the masters. So she was literally waited on hand and foot for her birthday :) It was pretty funny to watch. Then we had dinner at the restaraunt of her choice - Mamacitas. She loved having them come sing to her and wear the hat. Last, we went to Katya's first dance recital! Yes it was busy a day! The recital was beautiful and we all enjoyed watching Katya. Finally we headed home and had a nice long bedtime talk. It was a great day to celebrate Allee!!!

What a joy it is to watch our sweet daughter growing up and becoming a beautiful young lady! This has been an exceptional year as I have had the privilege to watch Allee grow in beauty and love and wisdom. When I thought that her heart was about as big as it could get, it stretched even bigger to embrace two new sisters. There have been times where it has not all been easy and there have been many sacrifices along the way. But during the trying times she had a chance to live out what she has been learning all her life - she turned to the Lord for strength and His love was evident as she loved her new sisters even when it meant giving up her own desires and even when they maybe didn't act too loveable. She has grown in faith, love, and maturity through this year and in the end she has found a far greater treasure than she ever gave up - the joy of having two sisters whom have also become her sweetest friends. Just last Friday they were all singing together and dancing around and then they locked arms as they walked around saying, "We are sisters and we are best friends!" She has discovered the blessing of sisters!

Allee has done fantastic in school this year and has worked harder than ever before with a heavier load of work. But she rose to the challenge and plugged away at the work with very little complaint. She made honor roll for the entire year, which is quite a feat this year.

Allee continues to ride horses regularly. She is able to ride so much more now that we live next to the horses and she is improving very quickly. It is a lot of fun to hang out at the barn with her as my sister gives her lessons. I am relearning a thing or two myself! Or at least I didn't fall off when her horse took off with me :) She has also enjoyed having Nastya and Katya joining her this year.

Allee, more than I can express, you are a joy and delight us - more and more the older you get. Your love and your generally happy disposition just make people love to be around you. It is such a privilege to be your mommy! Happy Birthday to my sweet girl!