James Turns 8

James is 8 and I'm okay with it. You'd think I'd be sad that my baby has hit such a major milestone but I haven't really been sad at all. James has been off and running, ready to go and grow up the moment he was born so I'm used to things coming fast and real with this kid.

We started his celebration off the night before his birthday at a local restaurant that serves Chinese and American food. Winners all around. James, Justin and I got Chinese, the other three kids all got burgers.

Complimentary cheese wontons for the birthday boy and his much loved orange chicken. They even sang to him in Chinese!

 

The next morning was Sunday so we had birthday breakfast without Justin. James requested that Henry make him pancakes. James style is no syrup, no nothing, not even a fork. Just pick it up and eat it. We also had chocolate milk and bacon.

At church he took Cosmic Brownies to share with his primary class. After church I began working on his cake while the kids played. Once it was all frosted I called him in to do the candles.

He requested chocolate cake with chocolate frosting in the shape of an 8. I made my grandma Syme's chocolate cake recipe and made a fudge frosting for the first time. It may be one of my favorite frostings ever.

Who does he look more like?

 

Once Justin got home it was time for presents!

I got all the snacks he asked for plus a few more. He got a watch, dominoes, a book, and a Life card game.

We had homemade macaroni and cheese, carrots, and peach fluffy salad. All things orange for my orange loving kid. Then we sang happy birthday and ate cake. Sarah wasn't feeling well so she missed out on this portion of the evening.

Since his baptism was the next week it was just us and he didn't seem to mind.

I love this kid.

A few things you may not know about James:

He loves school. He is always up and ready to go early.

He loves playing the piano. He never drags his feet about practicing and he will sit down and play just to play.

He was on this kick of creating his own cereals. They were gross and weird and totally funny. This is the back side of "Stinky Pete's Cereal" complete with word search, maze, and nutrition information.

He tells me he is so bored at school and doesn't learn anything. I believe it when it comes to math but I know he's learning stuff in science and social studies.

It is so hard to get him to try new foods or even just eat the regular things we have for dinner. He doesn't like eggs or cheese so I don't know what to do with him most of the time. Making his lunch is a struggle; I can see the stress and despair in his eyes as I suggest things to put in his lunch box. 

He will tackle Henry at any moment.

He loves Harry Potter, cribbage, Star Wars, chess, Legos. All the nerdy things. If he was old enough for Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragos he'd love that too.

He goes through spurts where all he wants to do is play with his friends for hours and hours and then he'll go days with no interest in playing whatsoever.

He does what's right. He's on time for stuff, he does his homework, knows all the answers in his primary class, he prepares his primary talks. He also fights me when it's time to take a bath and we have very different ideas of what a clean room looks like. And when he's wrestling with Henry he stops listening to me.

When I tucked him that night I told him being his mom was my favorite part of being alive and I hope we can keep this good thing going forever. He agreed. We love you James!

His birthday sheet:

Halloween 2024

After a lot of ideas and going back and forth, the littles finally settled on this year's costumes. James was a football player, but only for school, and Erica was Princess Buttercup again.

Cutest little littles that ever was.

I didn't go to the costume parade since I'd be to the school later for work. Erica's friend's mom sent me this photo. Erica looks cold and she confirmed that she was.

After school James changed into his second costume of the day and I got a picture of all of them. Sarah is the chipmunk Simon from Alvin and the Chipmunks and Henry is a banana, obviously.

Henry loves his banana costume so much. Once they hit this age they get minimal help from me procuring a costume. I drove him to Walmart.

First stop was Nana and Papa's house. They always spoil them.

Then we went back home and the biggles left for friend's houses. It worked out so well that their friends lived across the street from each other and Sarah could drive. I took the littles around our block quickly while we waited for my sister and nephew came over as well as my mom so she could see their costumes. 

And then we were off! Justin stayed home to hand out candy. I'd been telling the primary kids for weeks that bishop was handing out full-size candy bars so I hoped we would get more than 4 trick or treaters like last year. There's a large newer subdivision south of us. A small part of it is in our ward so we hit up all those houses then we continued on. There are a lot of kids there so it's pretty hopping and I saw some kids from my class.

This house was decorated pretty spookily.

They hand out tubs of cotton candy.

This house had some great smoke going on. See, this is why I don't decorate for Halloween; I would feel the need to go all out.

We remembered last year a house that handed out fresh doughnuts out of their garage but we couldn't remember quite where the house was. Then we caught a whiff of doughnuts and we knew we were close. I managed to not eat any candy all day but of course had to have a doughnut.

 

With full buckets, tired feet, and itchy costumes we headed home. I was worried we would be cold but the kids layered underneath their costumes and did find. Once everyone was home we sent them all to bed. Henry made a huge haul with his friend while Sarah just hung out. I love trick-or-treating with my kids. Next year Erica will go with friends so I'll just have James.

Sarah Turns 16

How did we get here? We are here, nonetheless.

Saturday night after the funeral Sarah had a few friends over to make cookies and watch a movie. I didn't get any pictures of that but from my room I could tell it was quite giggly.

Sunday morning we had biscuit cinnamon rolls and chocolate milk before church. They turned out so good. I'm glad she loves cinnamon rolls as much as I do.

After church she went to choir practice while the rest of the kids made her menus for her to choose what she wanted for lunch. Then when Justin got home from meetings she opened her presents.

She asked for very few things and I was able to get all of them. New hair dryer, new black boots, a sweater, some vanilla wafers, wafer cookies, a book, a new phone case, new wallet and I surprised her with a keychain and her favorite ice cream, BYU's graham canyon.

She helped me bake her cake on Friday--lemon--then I made raspberry cream cheese frosting that afternoon. Raspberry lemonade cake. 

Do we look old enough to have a 16-year-old?

After our French dip dinner, grandparents came over for cake and presents. She got birthday money from my parents and a belt and some fast food gift cards from Justin's parents.

And then the next day I checked her out of second period to take her to the DMV to get her license. She drove herself there and then back to school. Then when she got home from school I let her drive to my mom's house less than a mile away but I was silently praying the entire time. Will it get easier? Tell me it gets easier to send them off driving on their own.

We sure love this girl. She is an atypical teenager in so many ways. She's happy and friendly and almost always willing to help. She's the go-to babysitter for a couple of families in our ward. She's crushing school--even with an AP history class.

 She loves her ASL and photography classes the most but she likes all of her classes. All of her teachers love her. She's serving in the class presidency at church and on our city's youth council. She doesn't like to play many board games but she's up for watching any movie. She'll read any book I recommend to her. She's easy-going and reasonable and super smart.

I have a sneaking suspicion she's going to blow both her parent's ACT scores next year when she takes the test. 

She has so many friends in so many groups and seems to bounce around and is happy about it. This is so different from my high school years. I had 4 best friends that I did everything with and another couple of groups of girls that we sometimes joined up with for other stuff. Justin was similar. But Sarah will hang out with her friends from elementary school one night, sit with her orchestra friends at lunch, watch a movie the next week with a couple of girls from our neighborhood and then stay late at a girl from our ward's house after a church activity the next day.

We love you Sarah!

*********Update 11/3/2024**********

We couldn't take her out for birthday brunch like we wanted to before her birthday because of the funeral so we went yesterday. We took her to TruReligion Pancake and Steakhouse because I told her all about the amazing cinnamon rolls. I asked the waitress to bring us two that had the most frosting. She brought them out with a small bowl of extra frosting! It was amazing to dip each piece of cinnamon roll into warm cream cheese frosting. 

She ordered a Monte Cristo sandwich, I got the cordon bleu crepes, and Justin ordered the chicken fried steak. 

Everything was delicious and Sarah said it was worth the week wait.