Marissa Grace
So last week I wrote about Paris and now it is Marissa’s turn, I am excited to share about all of her talents and so this is the second post in a series of posts leading up to the twins 14th Birthday!
To describe Marissa Grace I would have to start by saying she is very sweet, affectionate and loving. She always seems to be happy; always smiling (she has the best smile), she will still curl up and cuddle with me on the couch. She is the most accepting person I know as well, it does not matter who you are, what you look like, where you have been, Marissa will accept you and treat you just the same as everyone else. I admire that about her so much!! Marissa does not worry too much about anything, if she is nervous about something you can hardly tell. She is shy but she loves people, she might come across as quiet but once you get to know her she is just as crazy as the rest of us. She definitely helps bring down Paris’ anxiety; I am so thankful they balance each other out and have each other. Marissa is amazingly talented and creative in many different ways.
At a very young age I knew Marissa was going to be very intelligent, she would pick up a book when she was very little and unable to talk and she would sit for the longest time and turn each page making noises as though she was reading. She could not wait to read and once she started, she has not stopped. Her excitement for books is awesome; she goes crazy when we go to a book store or library she just wants to read everything! As soon as she was able to read she would skip the easy readers and head straight for the big thick books, she was not afraid to dive in. She once told me that every book she reads she imagines herself within the story as if she was a character in the book. She loves fantasy and fairytales and if you ask her about one of her favorite books, she will talk to you for hours going over every last detail. Her teachers took notice of this very early on as her test scores were extremely high, some reading scores were off the charts, she has a strong vocabulary and can understand a lot because of all the time spent reading. She sometimes gets lost in her thoughts and makes us wonder if she is stuck on a far off adventure instead of paying attention to what is going on around her. Very much the opposite as her sister’s observant personality. Her imagination and creativity are driven by her love of reading and books, which I think is a true gift.
Another love Marissa has always had was music, she has an amazing voice and this year she was chosen to sing a solo during her schools choir concert. She nailed it! She also expressed to me an interest in playing the piano so I signed her up for lessons and we soon discovered that she was very good at reading music and caught on pretty quick. As a 5th grader she was able to enter an ISSMA (Indiana State School Music Association) competition, she had to do a piano solo in front of several judges and parents/students who were watching. She did amazing and came home with a gold medal, we were so proud of her! She also played a piano solo in front of her entire school at the 5th grade talent show and presented a slide show with her artwork as well. She took several more years of piano lessons before she decided she wanted to get more into art, drama/acting and singing at school. So now, she does it for fun, she still sits down and plays and pushes herself to read music and learn the notes. She truly has a gift! She also just found out she got a part in the school musical so I can’t wait to see her perform.
The first time we took a family vacation to Disney World Marissa was just 6 years old from that point on she was obsessed with anything Disney. She fell in love with the happiest place on Earth!! Of course, she wanted all the books she could get her hands on. She began collecting Disney things, wanting to watch every movie. She is a walking trivia machine; she can tell you or answer just about any question related to Walt Disney or any Disney movie/character, etc. Since that first trip our whole family has fell in love with the Disney way, we have visited Disney world several more times and also had the opportunity to visit Disneyland in California.
From a very young age she has always loved to dress up and that along with her love of Disney Marissa discovered something called Cosplay. When she first mentioned this to me, I was like “Cos? What?” I had no idea what this even was. She explained it to me and showed me examples online; it is the art of dressing up as a character from a movie, book or video game. Well since, she was so into Disney and our family, LOVES Halloween she wanted to start dressing up and collecting costumes some of them we have bought and some of them we have just put together with things we have at home or inexpensive items we get at Goodwill, she loves to get all the details of the character. One of the first ones she did for fun was Judy Hopps from Zootopia, it was so cute and she and her Photography loving sister grabbed a camera and took a bunch of pictures in our backyard, it was so fun to see them laughing and having a good time. The costume was so good she wore it for Halloween that year and you would not believe all the kids that were so excited to see Judy Hopps and pointing her out to their parents. She loved it!!!
The next opportunity that came her way was a friend of ours wanted to hire a princess to come to her daughter’s birthday party but found that the local companies were so expensive so she asked if Marissa would be willing to do it, she even offered to purchase the costume as payment! So Marissa dressed up as Belle and did such an amazing job, she read a book to the kids and gave the little girl a special gift from Belle, it was really awesome!
From that point on that is all she has wanted for Birthdays and Christmas’ are costumes and accessories for her next character. She loves it and it is a really fun and creative way for her to express her talents and bring to life those characters she reads about in all the books she loves. She also decided her dream job would be to work for Disney, which I fully support and know that she will do one day!
One of the more recent Cosplay projects she worked on was from a popular book series called The School for Good and Evil it is a children’s fantasy book by Soman Chainani and it is a New York Times Bestseller. No one had really brought these characters to life so Marissa used her imagination and came up with what she believed the two main characters looks like and she started putting together the costumes. She wrote down in her notebook all the important scenes of the book that she wanted to recreate and she recruited her sister to be the other character. The pictures turned out so good and with my husband’s Photoshop skills they came to life. Marissa posted several of them to her Instagram and she had likes and comments from the actual author of the book Soman Chainani……she was ecstatic!!! What a thrill to have your cosplay art get recognized by the author, that was probably the highlight of the year for her!
Another amazing talent Marissa has is Art, she loves to draw and paint, she is so good! She will sit down in our basement and paint canvases or sketch Disney characters all day. She has been recognized for her talents at school winning several art awards and being chosen to paint a mural that she designed in the newly renovated drama room at her school. You will almost always find a piece of her art displayed anytime you walk through the hallways at her school.
Her most recent project is one of the most exciting, she was asked by a children’s book author to illustrate a book. Yes you read that correctly, my almost 14 year old is going to be a published illustrator in a children’s book……CRAZY!! I do not know if she understands how huge this is just yet and how much this could shape her future, but to say I am proud is an understatement. She is working on it and we know it is going to be a long process but her characters are adorable and her ideas are wonderful and I cannot wait to see this project get finished! Like Paris I could say so many cool things about Marissa, she is just a cool person who I love to be around, her smile is infectious, she doesn’t care what other people think she has always been proud of who she is and doesn’t feel the need to follow or copy what other people are doing. She is unique and different and I love that about her!! I love you Marissa Grace you are the light in my life and I will always be here cheering you on and supporting your dreams every step of the way, you can do anything you want to do, as Walt Disney said “If you can Dream it, you can do it!”
Go check out her Instagram to see more of her Art @marissas_magic