Ruth,

I have now failed two years in a row to get your birthday letter written, so think of this as a very late apology.  You are now nearly 10.5 years old, and growing in so many ways.

Your favorite subject remains art, and you have enjoyed more than anything learning different technics this year.  You enjoy reading for fun now, and have really excelled at math this year.  Though I don’t think you particularly like it, when you quit freaking out over a new math lesson, you typically have it mastered in a matter of minutes.  You have dreams of working with both art and animals in the future, often discussing being a vet, creating art of pets for others, running a grooming and dog walking business of your own.  You are drive to learn things that might help you in those aims.  Though I don't always require you kids to write up your results and answer questions following the scientific method for our experiments, just knowing that being a vet is a science, you willingly choose to practice that each time we preform an experiment.  And that is leading you to a great care for your writing skills that you didn't have before.

You have a logical mind, with a deep sense of what is right and wrong.  What is fair and not.  You like things orderly and explainable.  We joke that you are your Aunt Manna's child, but in the desire for order and logic in life you are very much like me.  I am sorry to share that while these qualities do exist in a subject we both dislike, math, they frequently don't seem to apply to social interactions and life.  I hope that you continue to let those things drive you in your care and concern for others, but allow others greater leeway in their actions, and grace for their shortcomings, or you will often find yourself unhappy because others cannot live up to your expectations.

I hope you continue to hold yourself to high standards and fight for those who are marginalized or who are downcast.  It is one of your greatest attributes.  As much as I want to raise all of you children to use the brains God gave you, and teach you everything I can so that you can later pursue any future path you may desire.  As much as I want that, I want above all for you to be the kind of person who honors God, and one way you do that is by sacrificing self for others.  Your compassion can be the way you do that.  Your Daddy is incredibly self sacrificing for others, and yet when he is personally wronged you will most often see him put aside himself and not retaliate.  That takes more strength than you yet realize.

Each day it seems that we see a little less of the little girl and a little more of the woman you are growing into.  It is an amazing transformation.  To watch you mother Katherine one minute, to play an imaginary game with Britt with laser tag guns in the backyard the next, to hear you say something so grown up and reasonable, and then to laugh with Rebecca over her doll's antics.  I cannot wait to see how you will do with your two little brothers next week, when we go home with them.  We pray that while difficult this time of transformation may also prove to be lovely.  You will find that in much of life the things that are hard prove to be the things that are the most worth while.

We love you very much,

Momma and Daddy