THE EVANS FAMILY: Ember

Ember is *S*E*V*E*N*

Our girl just continues to grow up and it is such a bittersweet joy to watch. At seven, Ember weighs a little over 42 lbs and is 46 inches tall. She goes to bed around 7:30-7:45 at night and gets up at 7:15 - 7:30 am on school days. She will do about an hour to an hour and a half quiet time on the weekends when she is not at school. Ember has lost three teeth this last year.

Ember is a leader at heart and independent by nature. She also has a very sensitive and emotional side to her. She is energized by being around others and confidently loves to try new things. She loves growing older and being able to do things more and more on her own. She loves being silly and laughing with her family and friends. She is constantly making crafts, pictures, and gifts for others and gets great job from giving them as gifts. Ember is extremely smart and picks up on things quickly. She has a hint of perfectionism in her but a whole slice of wanting to be in control of her surroundings. In general, she is quick to obey and does so with a cheerful spirit. She does her chores to help out the family faithfully and with very little complaints. She is still a deep rooted Daddy’s girl and loves her brothers strongly. Ember is usually very helpful and nurturing to Reece and Kade but does struggle with inciting or patronizing Reece at times. Overall, Ember is a joy to be around and continues to grow, challenge, and make us proud as we learn and grow in our parenting of her.

Here are some of Ember's favorite things at the age of SEVEN! Thankfully, Ember loves school and everything about it. She loves learning, she loves all the specials with PE, art, and Spanish as her favorites. She loves getting to school early to play on the playground with friends before school and always has stories of playing with friends during school. She loves the field trips, the assemblies, and the class parties. And thankfully, Ember does well not just academically but socially and emotionally at school. She is the class representative for her class this year and we have had many comments from teachers, other parents, and classroom aides about how Ember is a joy and a kind leader to other students. As stated earlier, Ember loves doing things and being around people. She loves play dates, birthday parties, Lifegroup, and having others over for dinner. Ember loves many physical activities too such as swimming, riding her new bike, hiking, going on walks, jumping on trampolines, and playing soccer. She still loves The Summit and the computers at the library. She has enjoyed doing the rock climbing wall at the Aquaplex and gets better and better each time she does it. Ember loves vacations! She counts down the days for each trip we take and usually is teary eyed as we are leaving. Her current favorites are The Great Wolf Lodge, Mexico, and Disneyland.

At home, Ember spends most of her time reading, doing crafts, and playing with her brothers. Ember’s favorite book series this past year are “Ivy and Bean,” “Miss Piggle Wiggle,” and “The Magic Tree House.” She is reading “The Little House on the Prairie” with us after the Bible at night and is enjoying that as well. Ember enjoys drawing, painting, coloring, gluing, cutting, and using other random craft supplies to make creations. She still enjoys playing board games such as Uno, Candyland, and Zingo. Ember enjoys doing puzzles as well. She can be very good at using her imagination and will play school or house with her stuffed animals. She bought some small Legos with some of her money earlier this year and enjoys creating things with those. Ember loves writing and has kept a journal about her day for a few days to weeks straight at various times throughout the past year. Ember plays with Reece often. Their favorite games and activities are doing crafts together, Perler beads, wrestling, creating a play scene with Reece’s trucks and construction toys, playing “fair” outside and many other things. Ember’s favorite games to play with Kade are driving him around on the Plasma car, pushing him around in a box, building block towers for him to knock down or setting up an entire “daycare” for him filled with blankets, stuffed animals, and his toys. Ember loves family movie nights and her other favorite is when we play family charades. Ember is a very good eater and eats almost anything. Some of her favorite foods are: egg burrito, bagel and cream cheese, yogurt, bacon, hash browns, donuts, cheese crisp, macaroni, chicken nuggets, ants on a log, apple, cuties, watermelon, pizza, smoked salmon, hamburger, French fries, and of course most sweet treats as well.

As stated earlier, Ember has strong emotions – be them happy, sad, or mad. She loves making other people feel special and went so far as to plan an entire camping birthday party for her Daddy this year. She also made a sign and confetti that she surprised me with when I came in the door on my birthday. She is sensitive to looking like a baby or a little kid and doesn’t like when she is looked down on as too little (which seems to happen often because of her height). But at the same time she clings to some things that keep her innocent and young such as still saying “Daddy, come touch my fingers” often right before she goes to sleep, sleeping with Tickle, and sucking her fingers while going to bed. She has a strong sense of fairness and justice and often times doesn’t understand that fair and right aren’t always the same.

Ember has learned many new things this year as well. She is consistently getting better and better at reading and writing. Math skills are starting to click for her as well and she can count by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s to 100. She helps the family by feeding Maci and giving her water each day, putting her laundry away weekly, and keeping her room clean. Ember has also learned how to clean the upstairs bathroom (besides the toilet) and dust the furniture. She can get herself ready for the day and can help Reece if he needs help with a step in the process. Ember also learned how to swim by herself without her puddle jumper and she got to the top of the warped wall at The Summit in the American Ninja Warrior section.

Ember continued NAU ballet till the summer and was able to be a Marzipan sheep in the Nutcracker performance. Ember played AYSO soccer again this past summer and started doing Awanas at a local church this year. She is loving going to the meetings and earning jewels for memorizing Bible verses. Ember also did a coding club after school on Monday’s for a month and will ask to do that on the computer occasionally at home. The biggest thing this past year was Ember getting baptized as a profession of her faith. It was an amazing experience to witness.

It is incredible to witness Ember growing and maturing physically, emotionally, intellectually, and most importantly, spiritually. Ember is old enough to realize that life can be hard and because of sin making the right choice is difficult even when you know in your head the God-honoring thing to do. But she is learning and applying principles to help her make choices that line up with what Christ would want for her and we are thankful she has a heart to serve Him. We pray daily that she continues in this all the days of her life. We love Ember dearly and are so proud and in awe of the seven year old that God has created her to be.

Ember's Birthday Fun:

Chia pudding for breakfast