11 years old

Well Elizabeth turned 11! Crazy! One more year until she's old enough for Young Women's and she'll be starting middle school. Cu-ray-zee! She has been wanting a sleepover forever, as do all the kids, but we've decided not to do them. I go back and forth on this decision, along with many others, because I remember having sleepovers and how much fun they were. However, I'm more aware now of the evils around and even less aware of things that happen at other people's homes. It's been a interesting challenge with many of the friends since their families don't go to our church. Even though it's not a fail safe, at least you have a little insight to their families through church and a basic same beliefs. Anyway, that's a totally different discussion. So.... with this back and forth, we decided they could have a birthday party sleepover when they were in 5th grade. That way they get that experience, they are old enough to take care of and entertain themselves but not too old that they're into a lot of trouble. We'll see how it goes. So, Elizabeth had a sleepover here and of course had a great time. She was wonderful to let her siblings feel included for a large part of it. What a good big sister. They basically just hung out and watched Percy Jackson. I think all in all it was a success.

For her family party, Elizabeth wanted to go to Jump City, so we did. The kids had a blast. Brian and I didn't think we'd be up for 3 hours of jumping, so we just paid for the kids, but we had a good time watching them play and have so much fun. For dinner we went to Boston Market, which no one really liked and I found out in the end, Elizabeth said we could go there because she thought it would be easier on us because there wasn't any wait. She's such a sweet and thoughtful girl!