My baby daughter is now 16 years old! It is amazing to me to think that my baby girl has turned into a wonderful and beautiful young woman. She has such a cheerful disposition and godly countenance, and I think that shows up in the pictures of her. There is much I could write, but I think I am going to speak about her mostly through the pictures.
Here she is next to me on the river bank in front of our house, taken last fall before she even turned 15! I think she makes me look good!
Erica loves animals, especially small ones. This next picture was also taken over a year ago, just before she turned 15. She is holding one of our big mama sows when Sally was just a newly arrived piglet at Pure Water Hollow last November. I think that Erica has grown up quickly, but it is nothing compared to how much Sally has changed!
Less than just 9 months later that little black and white piglet probably weighed almost 400 pounds and gave birth to 8 piglets of her own! The piglets, of course, were happy to pose for pictures with Erica. Here she is with one of them:
Erica also loves her cats. Here she is with one of our favorite cats, Puff:
Here is a picture of some of Erica’s other kitten friends eating up at the barn. They don’t get can food very often. I think this was taken when we were trying to train the cats that the barn would be a good place for them to stay! We have two cats that are staying up there most of the time and we have not had much trouble with mice.
This picture of Erica with our first goat, reminds us how much Little Joe has grown this year! He sure was cute. Now “Little” Joe is the biggest of our 5 goats :
While we are on our animals, I’ll show you some pictures of one of our Great Pyrenees, Mamoo. Erica has a good eye for photography, and I will share some more of her photos later in this post. We love Mamoo very much, as well as our other dogs Chief and Luna. I think Mamoo is the prettiest of our dogs and I was glad to see how well these pictures came out:
Winter saw many enjoyable times at Pure Water Hollow like a hike up to the overlook on a nice snowy day.
While up there, Erica decided to write in the snow on the edge of the cliff. Erica has an adventurous streak in her, which you can see in this picture. Don’t slip!
I’m glad Erica was not too old to enjoy the frozen pond with her brothers and sister.
She also went sledding, snow ball fighting, and made snow angels with them. I don’t have any pictures of those activities, but Simon, Christina and Matthew all love it when Erica plays with them in the snow!
Erica works mostly in the kitchen (and she has become an excellent cook, becoming very proficient in a wide variety of meals) but she can also enjoy other types of work when called on. She can swing a hammer with the best of them.
Erica did her share of work in the garden this year, also:
Erica has enjoyed taking many pictures with her camera this past year. Here are some of them that I thought were very pretty:
I have selected several more pictures that gives a glimpse into a few more adventures Erica had this past year.
Adventures at Camp Nathanael’s Family Bible Conference:
Adventures at the Answers In Genesis Creation Museum in northern Kentucky:
Adventures in homework:
Adventures in delivering piglets:
And many adventures exploring our land:
This beautiful picture is of Erica wearing her bonnet for our Old Fashioned Day at Church.
She was just a couple of days away from her 16th birthday in this picture:
And on her 16th birthday, Erica was happy to go to our new courthouse to take her driver’s permit test. She passed with flying colors, of course, and here she is on the courthouse steps displaying her driver’s permit.
Her brothers and sister accompanied Erica to the courhouse to cheer her on. The visit turned into a neat field trip for Matthew, Christina, and Simon after they met two very friendly officers. The officers showed them their guns and handcuffs and how the metal detectors worked. Here they are outside the courthouse with the new (legal) driver of the family:
And that evening, we celebrated her birthday with our traditional cake and ice cream. Erica’s cake this year was decorated with a driver’s permit in icing. It was delicious!
Lisa always makes the cakes fun. Here is a close-up of Erica’s cake:
One of our traditions is licking the icing off the candle. Doesn’t Erica look happy!
I can’t say enough how proud I am of my baby 16 year old girl! I see many, many 16 year old people every day, and Erica is so, so much more of a quality person than any teen I see in the public school. I thank the Lord every day for the woman He has helped Erica to become.
Happy Birthday, Erica!
We love you!!
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