Allie!

I feel compelled to shine a spot light on my "little" angel.  I would even call her my hero.  She's 11 1/2 years old, but the heart and soul of someone twice my age.  She has her moments of frustration and hurt feelings, but she has a way of reading people and knowing exactly what to say/do in situations that adults will screw up.  Out of all of us, this move was harder on Allie.  She left all of her friends and knew that she would be spending 6th grade in Elementary School while they got to experience the middle school she was excited to go to.  But as Allie does, she's BLOWN ME AWAY!

This is a poem that she wrote for language class.  I knew she loved to write, but she is critical of her handwriting and will take a long time to get her thoughts on paper.  She got this assignment done the day it was assigned and had the whole weekend to have fun.

Art has ALWAYS been her outlet.  She will work with just about ANY medium.  Here she had to make a self portrait of the 2 different sides of her.  I love how she even coordinated the background color to reflect the emotion the face was showing.

And then there is the school musical.  She had brought home the permission slip to stay after school for it and mentioned maybe wanting to help build the set.  That sounded EXACTLY like Allie, so I gave her permission and even signed up as a parent helper to build the set.  The following week I pick her up from rehearsal and she tells me she tried out for a speaking part.  That's AWESOME!  The next rehearsal she lets me know they had singing tryouts and she was the first person to do it.  I asked if it was because her name started with "A" or she wanted to go first.  She said she wanted to go first so she wouldn't be nervous for so long.  The next week, she found out she was given the part of Narrator 7 and understudy to the LEAD ROLE!!!!  She has a lot of lines to memorize and several songs to practice, but she is very excited at the possibility of this role.

I have to think, that if we had stayed in Wichita, my daughter would have discovered her talents and passion of the arts.  But I can't believe how quickly she's dived into this being completely new to the environment.  I hope to be like her someday!