THE EVANS FAMILY: Ember

EMBER TURNS 13!!

We've got a TEENAGER!! What?!? This milestone feels big. Ember is moving farther away from childhood and closer and closer to adulthood at an alarmingly fast rate. We love watching her grow and mature spiritually, physically, intellectually and emotionally. God is working in her life and it is a beautiful thing to see.

At age 13, Ember is a little over 58 inches tall and weighs almost 80 pounds. She continues to have her own room and bathroom and she keeps both very tidy without any prompting. Ember goes to sleep at 8:30 on school nights and gets to stay up in her room till 9:00 on weekend nights. She usually is woken up on school mornings but will sleep till 7:30-8:00 when she doesn't need to wake up for school or church. We still sing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" to her each night and she still calls her Daddy in to "touch her fingers" each night before actually going to sleep.

Ember is organized, disciplined, a hard worker, smart and silly. As stated earlier, her room is pretty much always clean, she does her chores and homework without needing to be asked and in all that she does - she aims to do it well. Her mind continues to be sharp and bright and new concepts come to her quickly and fairly easily. Ember definitely has a silly side as well when she is comfortable with those around her. She can be very goofy and loves to laugh!

As Ember gets older, some of her favorite things have changed but some things have stayed constant as well. She still has a great love for reading and loves when we find a good new book or series of books for her to read. She loves being around other people and doing things with her friends. She continues to love being active and playing sports. She plays volleyball and soccer with her school. She still enjoys riding her bike an scooter around, rollerblading, or practicing her volleyball skills with her brothers or parents. She will go read in the new hammock in the yard by the pond. One of her most favorite things continues to be trips. Mexico remains one of her favorite places to go. She loves playing in the ocean with boogie boards in the warm months and searching for shells and sand dollars in the cooler months. Ember loved going to Costa Rica and exploring a new place as well as doing some fun adventures like ziplining through the jungle. She is always up for trying new challenges. For this reason, she really enjoys Lake Powell as well and getting to cliff jump, tube and try other water sports. Ember continues to love camping and hunting. She is yet to get her first hunting tag filled but she is enjoying learning and going on stalks on animals in the process. She also loves swimming at the pools and going down waterslides, jumping and doing flips at Levitate and ice skating at our local ice rink. Ember still loves being around younger kids and helping me in the nursery on Sunday mornings. The City of Flagstaff held a Daddy Daughter Ball again this year that Ember attended with her Dad and they both enjoyed it very much. Ember loves to bake cakes and muffins independently and loves to cook dinner or help with it when there is an opportunity to do so. Some of her current favorite foods are: egg burritos, muffins/breads, chicken nuggets, grilled cheese with tomatoes in it, fruit, salt and vinegar chips, pizza, brisket, ribs, soup and salad, bread and veggies.

Ember rarely plays with toys anymore but she occupies herself and keeps busy with a few things besides reading. A year later and she is still very into doing nails. She has even started a nail business where she charges her friends $5 to paint them acrylic nails with their choice of design that they can glue on. She has tried many different techniques and is getting really good. Ember and I got a Cricut last Christmas and she loves when we are able to make something for a school project or a birthday party on that. Ember loves listening to music and singing along with it. She will occasionally pull out Legos to build with. Ember doesn't wear make-up yet but she does "get ready" in the morning by brushing her hair, curling her eyelashes and putting on some lip gloss and smelly lotion. She is getting more and more interested in clothes and fashion as well. She enjoys playing Euchre with the adults when we need an extra player or with some of the other older kids while camping or hanging out. She also likes Solitaire.

God created us all with strengths and weaknesses. Ember is gifted and talented in many things but also has her challenges. Because so many things come easy to her, she often struggles with pride and thinking that she knows more than she actually does in certain situations. She doesn't like to be wrong or make mistakes. She can get a little too competitive at times. She is doing much better overall, but still struggles with getting worked up over small things. If she isn't in a playful, silly mood, she can get overwhelmed by her brothers noise level. She still doesn't enjoy being rushed and usually gets stressed out when she is.

Ember had a big year of growth this last year in many ways! Academics and school work are a strength of hers and she continues to be ahead of grade level in reading and math and she scores above average on standardized tests. Ember joined student council this year which creates many leadership opportunities for her. She got to start youth group at our church this year and is enjoying the singing, teaching time and games there. She requested a journaling Bible so that she can take notes in the margins at school, church and youth group. She easily mastered the mini Rubik cube and can also do the full size Rubik cube as well. At Lake Powell over the summer, she was able to get up and stay up while both wakeboarding and wake surfing. She got to do the adult Flagstaff Extreme ropes course for the first time this year and completed the whole thing. Ember played soccer again for the school and her team won the tournament among local middle schools. She made the Tier 1 team for junior high volleyball this year and learned to get her overhand serve over consistently just after the season ended. She had her first deer hunt this year and although she didn't get a deer, she had a great learning experience and is consistently showing up and trying despite no success yet. We see Ember growing in many areas as she gets older. She desires to become more and more like Christ and choose actions and thoughts that will honor Him. It isn't easy, but Ember is making baby steps of progress all the time.

Anyone who knows Ember knows that she is special. She is the perfect mixture of being responsible and disciplined and wanting to have fun and be silly. We are excited to see how God will continually grow and mature her during her teenage years. She made us parents 13 years ago and we couldn't be more thankful for our sweet little spark!

BIRTHDAY ACTIVITIES:

Ember kept with the tradition and chose chia pudding for her birthday breakfast

Ember opened a few presents. She got some more accessories to do her nails with, a hanging toiletry bag, an Echo dot for her room and some cards and cash.

We picked up Chick Fil-A and ate it at home for lunch. She wanted spaghetti, salad and bread for dinner and then coffee ice cream for dessert.

Then, the kids got into costumes and we went Trick or Treating in Ponderosa Trails with friends

The weekend after Ember's birthday, we had a party for her with her friends. She planned what she wanted to do and helped out every step of the way.

Ember had 9 friends over for games, food, and crafts. They made a pumpkin pie lip sugar scrub and a lip gloss keychain. They played the saran wrap ball game with various prizes hidden in the saran ball and they also played "Wink Murder." We had a charcuterie board for a snack, pizza for dinner and a chocolate poke cake for dessert.