Level 13 Unlocked! Caden is officially a Teenager

Level 13 unlocked! Caden is an official teenager!! 

I can't believe my little buddy is an official teenager. It seems like just yesterday I was holding my chunky monkey in my arms for the first time. 

Caden has brought us so much joy in the last 13 years. Here's a quick look down memory lane: 

Caden is the best son we could ever ask for. He's so responsible, kind, hard working, athletic, and smart. I'm finding that I ask Caden to help me figure out a lot of things, like on my phone or how to fix something because he knows how to do so many things. Even the other day we were trying to set up the tramp, and none of us girls knew what to do, but Caden figured it out and we were all so thankful to him. 

We started off celebrating our official teenager with his friend party. We took the boys to All Star bowling for a day of fun. They went bowling, did laser tag, miniature golf and arcade games. Caden has the best group of friends. They are all pretty competitive, so you can imagine how all the games went. 

And what a weird world we live in. We ordered pizza for lunch and a robot brought it to our table. 

Caden went on a birthday shop with Grandma and Grandpa and he picked Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner. This kid loves pasta!

Then on Caden's birthday he wanted cinnamon rolls for breakfast before he headed off to school. 

I got him swig for a little mid day pick me up. 

Then he got to open his presents from the family. He got a head set for his x box and a game pass.

Caden chose our dinner for the night, which was steak, rolls, artichoke, and shrimp... and if you're wondering, Caden ate the whole thing!

We ended his birthday night by going to see Captain America at the movie theater. 

A few weeks later we ended Caden's month long celebration with his family party. We had pizza for dinner then we played the basketball game. 

Colton won 1st, Caden won 2nd, Ryan won 3rd and Carson won 4th. 

Caden opened his presents from family and blew out the candles on his donut. 

Happy Birthday Caden! I can't believe you are an official teenager now. You bring so much joy into our family. You are so witty and can constantly make us laugh with your perfectly timed one liners. You are such a good student. We are so impressed that you are taking honors classes and have had a perfect 4.0 this year. You have a great group of friends and we admire how you are always looking out for others. You are such a good brother to your sisters and support them and help them whenever you can. We love how much you love basketball and how you always challenge yourself to do better each game. Thanks for always being the peace maker in our home and always knowing when I need a hug. And there's nothing better than when you get laughing at a funny video... your laugh always makes us laugh. We love you so much and can't wait to see what amazing things are in store for you. 

Bye Winter, Hello Spring

Spring is just right around the corner. The sun is out past 7:00, the weather is warmer, and we are over here celebrating that Winter is behind us!!

We took Bella on our hike. Like the princess she is, she needed to be carried part of the way. We called it a puppy carry, rather than a puppy walk. 

Church ball is almost done. Tyler ended up having to coach this game, and I'm sure he was giving them a great pep talk. Caden is clearly the smallest for this game, but he scored a lot of points against the bigger kids. 

Church ball can get pretty intense and one game there was a little bit of drama where one of the kids and parents made a fuss because they thought one of the kids on the other team was older than he was saying. The kid was crying and the parent threatened to leave the game. And if you know who I am talking about, you would know that this reaction was totally out of character for this family that is in our ward. I was watching and I thought, "seriously, this is church ball! It's just a game!" Anyway, our neighbor Randy Wright is in charge of it all and when he finally got the kid and the parent calmed down, he had to talk to all of the kids about good sportsmanship and at one point he said, "Everything in life points back to Christ... even church ball" and I literally thought I was going to laugh out loud! Anyway, it was the highlight of my  night... and we learned a lot about some people in our neighborhood!

Caden has been working on his coding Legos and built this cool robot. Bella was a little bit afraid of it and couldn't figure out how it was moving. 

One day a week I take my mom with me to run errands so that my dad can have a break. My mom is having a more difficult time following directions, so this particular day I told her to get in the passenger side and when I got in the car she was sitting in the back. She said, "Is this where I'm supposed to sit" and I just didn't have the energy to get out of the car to move her to the front seat, so I said, "ya, that's great" and drove to our next stop. I got a good picture and a good laugh out of it. Sometimes laughter is the only thing that keeps me going because the sadness of it all is just too much to bear someday. 

The kids were watching a show and we thought Caden looked exactly like the actor. Caden even has the side eye and smolder down!

Spring Choir concert time. We went to the kids' middle school choir concert. Caden did great in boys choir. Makayla is in choir this semester, so we got to stay for both choir concerts.

Brynn is in choir at the elementary school. She goes to school early twice a week to practice. The choir was so cute and Brynn and her friends did a great job. The theme was showtunes, and my favorite song was "We go together" from the movie Greece. 

These cute girls conspired together to convince all their moms to go to dinner after the concert. Smart girls because it worked. 

My parents bought a new car! 

Colton turned 16 years old this month. He's showing off his "new to him" car which is totally going to be a chick magnet, because who doesn't love an old man car? (It was Tyler's Grandpa's car, if that gives you a clue as to why it is so funny). 

We celebrated Colton at his birthday party and Brynnie ended up winning the family basketball game. She even beat out reigning champion Ryan! Maybe Brynn should look into a career in basketball instead of dance? 

We gave Colton this blanket that had pictures of Brad Pitt because we know how much he loves Brad! Gag gifts are the best. 

Look how cute my spring nails are!! I am so ready for spring. 

To kick off spring break, Tyler and the kids hosted "Family Olympics". Each kid had to come up with an activity and we were scored points. We had a great "Is it play doh" competition, created by Brynn, an epic hide and seek event, hosted by Caden, and a "Create a funny power point" competition created by Makayla. We also played air hockey, x box games, and foosball. The winner of Family Olympics was Caden and Makayla who both scored an impressive 44 points.