December 21, 2024

This cute kid officially became a teenager!!

Happy 13th Birthday, Jason!!!!!!

 Jason is such a sweet, good kid.  Even in these emotion-filled, hormone-fueled beginning years of teenagerisms, Jason comes to the table, (most of the time) with a ready smile and loads of enthusiasm.  He values connection more than anything else, and if you come to him with an embrace, or attention, he is nearly always ready to answer back in the same fashion.  He is full of innocence and empathy, and it spills over to the people around him.

If anyone was ready for a hug, complete with unabashed compassion, this is your kid.  I love watching this boy's mind work and I love watching him grow in character and smarts.  We love you so much, Jason, and can't wait to see this new, grown-up version of you start to emerge.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie!

While we were going through the Christmas crazy of parties, birthdays, trips, school projects, etc, Austin was rocking it in Mesa, Arizona.  We really have missed having him with us, but have also enjoyed watching him stretch himself and grow on his mission.  Here are some of his recent photos:

And I finally got my act together, and got his information for his plaque all ready.  Didn't it turn out great?

Every single year, I start to get super stressed out in December.  There is just way too much going on in the month. Robert, Jason & Emmett's birthdays.  Christmas.  Our anniversary.  I tend to get burned out by December, even before we get started, since we've been going, going, going ever since October with Halloween, and November with Thanksgiving.  It's just not fair to put those three months right after each other!

So, when I think about planning two separate birthday parties two or three weeks before the actual birthdays, I get STRESSED!  The first two years I've done parties at the house.  It was a lot to set up, and even though they were  pretty low-key with, it was still two whole days of cleaning, cake- making, decorating and then directing 10 hyper kids through 2 hours of games.  (not even counting the invites, shopping & planning)  All of this in between school parties, concerts and church parties, decorating for Christmas and trying desperately prepare for the Christmas season.

Just writing that out made me stressed out.

So, while I was shopping on Cyber - Monday, after Thanksgiving, I came across a half-off deal for SkyZone - a trampoline park.  The downside was that the nearest park was 1 hour away, but I felt strongly that this was still going to be my saving grace for the season.  I let both boys invite 3 friends, and we drove them all up to Hagerstown to jump their little hearts out.  We only had three injuries, and each one of those were able to shake it off after about 10 minutes and get back into the park.  The other great thing was that there was hardly anyone there.  It was perfect.

Here is Thomas, Caleb, Jason and Jordan

And here is Alaina, Emmett, Luke and Edsel.

Here they are jumping their little hearts out.

And here they all are, altogether.

When we finished at the jump park, we stopped by Sam's club to buy everyone pizza.  Then we headed home for cake and ice-cream.

I don't know if I will be able to get away with another joint party next year, but to this point in our December birthday dramas, this was, by far, the easiest one to pull off.