Dearest Eva,
Happy birthday to our delightful eight-year-old! We are so thrilled to celebrate you today!
You are full of expression and feeling, sensitivity and empathy. Your heart loves deeply and desires greatly. We are honored to call you our daughter.
In this eighth year of life, you completed your first year of elementary school, the strange pandemic year it was. Summer was such a wonderful break from required homework and pressure to progress. You enjoyed the freedom and even worked hard to improve your German reading ability, just at your own pace. Second grade has been one of amazing growth in math and German, even a bit of English reading too. You are an incredibly hard worker. You write beautifully in cursive, can add and subtract and multiply and divide in your head, and you can slowly work your way through any German reading put in front of you. We discovered the presence of dyslexia this year and have found you a great teacher in Christine to help work through some of the extra challenges that has brought. We're grateful for her and for your awesome teacher, Caro, in how they understand you and work so well with you! They both comment frequently that it is a pleasure to teach you!
Second grade friendships have been challenging with the various styles of pandemic schooling, in person or virtual or only at home or strange combinations. You are well liked by your classmates, being such a kind, friendly, playful, pleasant child with a contagious smile and sparkling blue eyes. Your closer friendships from school have continued to strengthen, despite so little consistently at school this year. You've had Adele and Clara over to play a lot and visited them frequently as well. We've really missed this year without time with church friends, especially Charlotte, but we're also thankful for some neighborhood girls as playmates. It was sad that little Johanna moved away, but Anika and Isabella are often around.
Last summer, you and Nathanael continued building on your forest forts, played in the stream, ran through the sprinkler, splashed in the splash pool, rode bikes daily (often as a family), scootered, and played at the neighborhood playgrounds. We enjoyed lots of family grilling, and Dad even mowed a Labyrinth into the lawn one week! The summer highlights though were definitely your belated birthday party, our trip to Resi's farm, our virtual AC week in the mountains, and getting Tiger Lily! At Resi's, you made friends, swam, played with the colt, took horseback riding lessons, and made countless family memories at the castle, hiking and the Alpine slide, visiting Kärnten, and the chocolate museum. During GEM's virtual Annual Conference, you loved wading in the mountain lake with Nathanael, family hikes, delicious food, and simply being in Turracher Höhe again as a family. Coming home to become kitten owners was such a delight! You and Tiger Lily have a special bond, both loving your cuddles, waiting for each other, her coming when you call. It is special to see you love on our cat. It is so special to have a cat!
In the fall, your dance teacher moved you up two classes to join an older ballet class. It has been challenging with the majority of classes being virtual this year, but you have loved dancing and continue dancing all over the house and garden, even when we are at pools! You love wearing dresses to spin and twirl. A few weeks ago we surprised you with the gift of getting your ears pierced! You were so excited (and nervous) and have loved having sparkles in your ears! Additional loves include all things cats and horses. You are still a bit unsure about dogs. Crafts and creating, including sewing with your sewing machine, definitely top your list of favorite activities! You love schnitzel and fries, Palatschinken with Nutella, fried eggs, Mom's homemade granola, and your favorite veggie is currently carrots (which taste even better when you steal them from Mom or Dad)!
We love you deeply, our dearest Evangeline Elif. Happy Birthday!
Your mommy and daddy
