The Lee Family: Sofia at 11!

Sofia is ELEVEN years old! It seems like time is flying by and sometimes I get this pained feeling thinking of how soon it will be before she is off to college and out of the house! But, until then we do have a lot of fun years ahead of us too! Sofia is growing up fast and is 5 feet tall (60 inches) and 104 lbs! She still loves graphic t-shirts, especially those with space-related images or animals. She almost only wears skorts and the best ones for her are those from Target that cost $6! She has them in every color and pattern offered. She wears Crocs every day and we recently went to the Crocs store at Grapevine Mills where she picked out two new pair, in a womens' size 8! I still try to buy her dresses and know she doesn't like them with a waistline, but I still struggle with the length since she is so tall. Maxi dresses that fit her are actually the best kind for her and she has two favorites that she wears nearly every Sunday to Meeting. I'm trying to get her to try a few other styles, but without luck so far.

As far as her favorite things, they are:

Sofia's favorite breakfast: pancakes, eggs over easy with toast, french toast
Lunch: Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich
Dinner: spaghetti casserole
Vegetable: radishes and bell peppers

Sofia's favorite colors: Purple and Blue
She wants to be: an astronaut (and go to the moon, but not necessarily Mars or be on the Space Shuttle)
Her favorite book: Aragon
Her favorite Movie: How to Train Your Dragon

Sofia has absolutely beautiful hair and always wants to wear it down. Occasionally I can talk her into braiding it or pulling it into a pony tail, and I love messing with it because it is so thick and beautiful to work with and always looks great when it's done well. Like the clothes she wears, she just doesn't really care what her hair looks like and we have to constantly remind her to brush her hair before we head out.

She says she still plans to be an astronaut and still has interest in space and space-related books, but I wonder if she will find a new passion at some point. I still believe she would be an outstanding writer for young adults. I can just imagine her writing about dragons, fairies and unicorns. She has such an amazing imagination and a creative mind and is a master storyteller! The other day, Olivia asked Sofia to tell her a story about the "mouse and the rabbit" and Sofia told us this really great story. After she was done, I asked her where she read the story and she said she'd made it up and had told Olivia before. She then told us two more stories that she'd made up that were equally creative. Not only is she a great storyteller from her content, but the way she delivers her stories are really interesting. Whatever she decides to do, I hope she always holds on to her imagination and creativity!

Sofia continues to read, but ever since she found MineCraft a few weeks ago, she really loves to either play MineCraft or watch YouTube videos of two guys who are playing MineCraft and have dragons in their MineCraft world. I honestly do not understand the MineCraft fascination and continue to believe that she will look up one day and say "this game is dumb" and move back into reading full-time or move on to something else. I just want to be sure she is expanding her mind more than MineCraft allows and don't want her to lose interest in books and reading. As far as books go, she continues to love anything with dragons. Recently we listened to a book on CD called "Dragon Rider" which ended up being a really fun story. She bought the second book with her birthday money I actually want to read it too!

This summer she ran around with her summer "crew" which included Antonio, Natalia, Olivia and occasionally Brandon. The kids spent their afternoons scootering around the neighborhood, swimming at one of the houses, drinking countless Gatorades and juice boxes at my house, playing and occasionally watching a movie when it got to be too hot. They had a great time together and played very well. One night the girls begged to have Natalia spend the night, so we picked a night and they built a fort over Sofia's bed and had their sleepover. However, they also stayed up until 4am!! Poor Natalia had gymnastics for 3 hours the next day, so I know she was beyond tired. I know they had fun, but they also didn't get the idea for another sleepover!

Sofia and Olivia continue to have a great time playing together and they either make up their own stores, usually with ponies or dragons, or sing songs and make up dances to the songs. She still loves being a dragon and I don't think she's been in the pool all summer and not been one species of dragon! She still really loves to pretend and make up stories.

Sofia continues to play soccer and seems to enjoy it more with every season. Thankfully Coach Jeff is overly encouraging of her and the girls on the team are all sweet and fun. It's been such a great experience for her over the years and I love that the majority of the team remains the same years later. With 6th grade starting, I'm trying to convince her to start taking tennis lessons so she can play tennis as a sport in 7th grade. She actually agreed, but only if she and I take lessons together or I take her out by myself and Olivia can collect balls. I told her once we are into the swing of school and it cools off a bit, I'll take her out to hit some balls.

As 6th grade and her first step into middle school looms, she is excited and nervous but probably more nervous than anything. I think she has heard how "hard" middle school is and how "mean" some of the kids can be. I've tried to dispel all of these ideas and keep telling her how lucky she is to be part of the Academy. For all but P.E. and her art class, she will be with her Academy friends. Plus, I keep telling her of all the CES kids who she will get to see regularly now. I really think she'll flourish in middle school and keep trying to talk it up. We've also talked about how we are going to tackle her assignments and her lack of organization. She picked out a nice day planner and I told her I would get onto Skyward to track her assignments with her every day after school, but only for 3 or 4 weeks. After that, she needs to have found her own rhythm. Again, I think she'll be great! She has so much to offer and so much opportunity and literally the world is her's to decide what she wants to do!

Our girl is 11!!!