16-years-old

 

I can't believe we have a 16-year-old?!?!  Sometimes the days and weeks seem to drag on, but the years fly by.  I remember wanting this sweet girl so bad. The year it took to get pregnant with her felt like a lifetime and now she is sixteen, it's crazy. 

Caitlyn has been so patient with us while we have tried to figure this parenting thing out.  She is a wonderful first child!  She is wise, forgiving and so helpful.  She is always willing to help out.

Caitlyn loves to laugh.  She finds everything funny and loves to tell funny stories, but she usually can't get through them without laughing too hard. 

Everyone loves to be around Caitlyn because she is so much fun and she makes everything fun.  She loves to make fun of herself to make other people laugh.

Caitlyn is so sweet, but she can be sassy, especially if she is tired. 

Caitlyn gives the best compliments.  She is always looking for the good in others so it doesn't take her long to spot something that she wants to compliment someone on.  She goes out of her way to make other people feel special. 

Caitlyn is very responsible.  She is always on top of all of her school work.  She keeps her room clean and is always willing to help with the cooking and cleaning.  She is very sensitive to how other people are feeling and always jumps in to help when she can tell that I'm stressed.

Caitlyn is always very grateful and appreciative.  She is always good about going out of her way to thank people.

Caitlyn is very determined.  She sets high standards for herself (sometimes too high) and she isn't afraid of hard work.  I admire how she takes time to feel disappointed or sad and then she moves on and looks for the positive.

Caitlyn is so excited about turning 16 and being able to drive and enjoy some freedom.  She has definitely earned the freedom and I'm excited to see her enter this new phase of life.

Caitlyn always gets told that she looks like me. She must have gotten all the best parts of me because she is beautiful.  The way she treats other people and the positive attitude she has accentuates her beauty.

We were planning on taking Caitlyn's pictures yesterday and it was so windy.  We almost didn't do it, but we decided to try anyway and the wind cooperated!  It's so much easier when they are older and we can be in and out in fifteen minutes.

Caitlyn has an appointment at 1 PM tomorrow (on her birthday) to get her license. She wants to drive somewhere without me after that.  We have been doing a lot of celebrating this month, so that should be the icing on the cake of a great birthday!

Happy Birthday Caitlyn.  The world is better because of you.  We love you.

I'll be in my office

Hallee loves to play pretend. The other day she set up and office in the front room and had fun taking calls and doing other projects.  I love listening to her pretend.

Hallee loves to go to dance every Thursday.  She was excited to enter the coloring contest at dance last week.

Wyatt sure makes a cute ninja.

We had a busy Saturday.  We started the morning off with a tennis match for Caitlyn.  She played great!

Jonah had a basketball game that afternoon.

While I took Jonah to his game Keith took Hallee and Wyatt to a Science Fair at the Rec Center.  

They had a great time.

After that we went to Wyatt's soccer game.  It's so fun to have Kyle as his coach and Rockwell as his team mate.

Tiff got this picture of Wyatt playing at his game last week.

Yesterday we celebrated Easter at my parents house.  The tables have turned, Hallee and Wyatt cleaned up and Caitlyn and Jonah only got four eggs.

The older kids were so sweet to let the little kids have so many.  We had a yummy dinner and enjoyed visiting.

Life Lately

Wyatt and Caitlyn have started doing this thing, where Wyatt jumps into Caitlyn's arms and she spins him around.  I love seeing my kids laugh together.

Jonah and I have been playing basketball at the church a lot lately.  One afternoon all of the kids joined us. 

Wyatt and Jonah both signed up for track so they have been going on runs together.  I didn't want them to go alone at 6 AM, so Jackson and I joined them.  I'm proud of the boys for working hard!

Jackson has started hanging out in Wyatt's room.  He scared me one day when I went in there to put away laundry.

Wyatt loves to cook.  Saturday morning he brought Keith and I breakfast in bed.  He is so sweet and he makes great eggs!

Wyatt had his first soccer game last night.  It was freezing, there was a cold wind and it was miserable! The boys didn't even warm up even though they were running up and down the field.  The team played great and they started off their season with a win!  

My eyebrows may be thick, but not as thick as my calves

Jonah told me that they all wrote a quote on the board in choir. He showed me a picture of what he wrote.  He makes me laugh!

Jonah had a choir concert last week.  He looked so handsome and so grown up!  

I was a little skeptical about the concert because they had to wear masks while they sang and only one parent could attend.  I'm so glad they did it though, they sounded fantastic! It's been so long since I have been to a school concert that I forgot how much I love them.  They really sounded amazing.  Jonah and his friends all took choir so they could have a class together.  I'm so glad they did, it has been a great experience for Jonah. 

Max's mom took this picture of the boys before the concert.  I love that they are holding Jonah. He said they knocked that thing off the wall, so they just had him wear it as a hat. 

We rushed out of the choir concert to get to Jonah's basketball game. 

He played great.  

It looks like Jonah may have passed me up in height.  I had to take a picture with my tall teenagers!

I took these pictures from the Middle School's Facebook account.  Mr. Dayley (who looks like one of the students) has two basketball hoops in his room and Jonah and his friends go play basketball with him every morning.

I'm so grateful for good teachers who help make school such a good experience. One of his basketball hoops broke so Jonah asked if he could give Mr. Dayley ours. I’m glad they are putting it to good use. 

Jonah has been debating what to do with his hair.  He said he wanted a mullet and I made the mistake of cutting the back (out of habit and maybe because I really didn't want him to have one). Anyway, he ended up liking it and we just cut the top and trimmed around the sides. 

Birthday Celebrations

We celebrated the March birthdays at my parents.  Caitlyn was excited to kick off her birthday celebrations.

I love giving her gifts because she gets so excited about everything.

She told me she wanted to open one of her presents from us so I let her open this blow-dryer brush combo that I knew she wanted. 

I'm so glad Caitlyn and Amarie are so close in age!

We also celebrated dad's birthday.  He was excited with his new electric socks! 

I wish EJ was there to celebrate with them!  We had fun celebrating these two.

Caitlyn went to an escape room for mutual and loved it.  She decided that she wanted to do one for her birthday party. I found a groupon for one in Salt Lake.  Everyone she was inviting lived out there so I booked that.  

I had fun trying to help the girls.  They did great.  They solved all of the clues except for the last two.  I think they all enjoyed it.

After that we stopped and got Chick-Fil-A. Caitlyn was sweet and was worried about how much we were spending, but I told her that we were doing extra because turning 16 is a big deal!  

Katie was so sweet and offered up her house for the after party.  

Caitlyn loved her presents, they were very thoughtful.

Caitlyn was in her happy place with all of her favorite people.

Katie made her lemon bars and had cute candles and decorations.  I appreciated her doing that for us so much.

After dessert we dropped the girls off to shop for a while.  They came home with a fish and there was a lot of laughing and screaming about that!  They had fun hanging out, watching a show and playing some games.  I had fun visiting with Katie.

Caitlyn was so excited for this night and it didn't disappoint, she loved every minute of it.  She kept thanking me over and over.  I'm so glad it was so much fun for her.