A Wonderful Life: Happy 12th Birthday Kaitlyn!

Can it be that Kaitlyn is almost a teenager? She is so grown up now. Babysitting all on her own! On a day to day basis, we don’t really notice how grown up she is, but when we look back at pictures and videos of her cute little self, we realize that Kaitlyn is rapidly entering adolescence!

What happened? :)

Birthday Breakfast in bed...a tradition.

Kaitlyn is the queen of crafting (and anything that requires the use of a glue gun! Haha) and has the amazing ability to take any resource (cardboard, scraps of material, bottle caps, old socks, old t-shirts) and create new and cool things for herself, barbies, decor, others. Seriously, the creativity on this kid is off the charts. Especially living in Chad where there is no dollar store to resupply craft materials, she manages to find what she needs to make her newest idea. We are constantly in awe of her inventions.

Kaitlyn still loves to be tucked in (complete with tickles and talk time) and has really enjoyed having her own room (she keeps it surprisingly neat for a 12 year old!)…her own space to be by herself, and also to decorate in a way that reflects her style and tastes. She does well despite the fact that we also use that room as storage and our deep freezer happens to be in there too. (Poor girl….but our house isn’t that big, we gotta put it somewhere!)

A while back, Phil took Kaitlyn out on a special date to a fancy restaurant and Kaitlyn just thought that was the best. She got all dressed up and Phil gave her a little gift of a Swiss army knife. She will never forget that night.

We do ‘room dates’ together as well where I bring a candle and a special drink or snack into my room and we play a game or colour or chat. An inexpensive way to have a date! Kaitlyn is much more into talking these days, entering those teenage years where late night chats are a daily occurrence. I don’t mind, I appreciate that she wants to talk to me! :)

Kaitlyn loves little kids and is desperate to babysit other people’s kids (she already babysits Evie) and she plans on taking a Babysitting course when we are back in Canada next summer.

Enjoying her tea

One of the constant challenges for Kaitlyn is finding a good friend her age. She spent the last school year in a classroom of all boys. She held her own and most days was ok with that…but every once in a while she would share her heart and how she was lonely for a best girl friend. Lily has been a constant friend for Kaitlyn and they are super close, but Kaitlyn desires a friends outside of the family too and so we continue to pray for a girl her age to come to N’Djamena to fill that void. Kaitlyn is really good at keeping in touch with her friends back in Canada and a good friend who now lives in Australia. Two hour FaceTime calls are a monthly occurrence here with her friends and cousins back in Canada. We are so thankful for things like WhatsApp and FaceTime which help us stay in touch better.

One of the highlights this past summer was being a part of a youth group here in N’Djamena. It only ran a couple of weeks while some short term single girls were here and willing to organize some meet ups at the local Patisserie for some ice cream and at the Hilton for a swim. Despite being outnumbered by boys, Kaitlyn was really excited to do some social things on her own. We are hoping to start something like that up again in the fall.

Kaitlyn did well in Grade 6 last school year. She didn't’ give up in the face of having to read an hour a day plus homework on top of that (for not being a lover of books…an hour of reading a day was KILLER!) and we were proud to see her rise to new challenges in Jr. High.

Kaitlyn is up and coming in the kitchen, baking her first cake without any assistance and she is also into making meringues. I’m excited to teach her some more things so I can take a night off from cooking dinner and leave that in her capable hands! We just need to work on the cleaning up side of things! :)

Kaitlyn is a loving, fun, happy, friendly, creative and fun to be around girl and we are so proud of who she is becoming. We are so thankful that God blessed us with her…she’s grown and learned so much in her 12 years and we are excited to see what else God has in store for her life. Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!!