Fourteen, Felines and Friends

Ben turned 14! It surely wasn't as exciting as going to Vegas for his 13th birthday, but he still had a good day. We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Grampie was still in rehab at the time.

 

Ben is such a good sport. Normally, none of us want to sit on the saddle and have them give a huge hee haw for your birthday, but Ben was game! He's always such a good sport. 

 

David made him cheesecake! It's so good!   

 

He got lots of cards and a few gifts. It was so hard to buy for him. He doesn't want or need much. 

 

One thing he did ask for was to change his room a bit. We are going to paint it this summer. But, he wanted to take down some of the super hero decals. They are all over his room. We need to do a major over haul and put some of his special things in a tote in the attic, like Mr. Potato head.  

 

So, when we asked what he wanted on the walls, he didn't know. He's really into History and Science. But, we aren't putting a framed photo of the Ben Franklin on his wall. I wasn't sure what teen boys put on their walls these days. My brother had posters of girls in bikinis, like Heather Locklear and Christy Brinkley, and I think a black lamborghini.  But, that is definitely not Ben. So, I found a few framed space photos and he liked them. He already makes his room filled more grown up. We'll have to work on the paint later and the fact that he has 4 pieces of furniture in there and none of it matches. :)

 

So, we call Noah the cat whisperer. Cats love him. When we go to Canada he walks around Aunt Paula and Uncle Terry's house and finds all the cats and pets them. I think he gets this from my mother. But, this is one of Grammie's new cats. His name is Oliver. They also got his sister Lucy, but she's a bit more timid. But, the both love Noah. 

 

And Ms. Emily. Her world is her friends. They came over last weekend and wanted waffles. It's nice they are at the age that they can just make them for themselves, which is exactly what they did. 

 

This is her group of winter guard gals. They are doing a lot of fund raising to try to travel somewhere amazing next year.  

 

They have competitions every Saturday for like 2 months down in Phoenix. It's a big commitment. They came in second last weekend. Their routine is awesome.  

 

This is her before they left for the competition. I never get to see her all made up as they usually meet at a girls house before and all do make up together, but this time she did it at home. She looks so grown up with the fake lashes and she does her make up so well.  

 

Oh, and this happened for the first time. Ben was getting the slightest mustache, which he did not like. David gave him a lesson on how to shave it. It was comical. He'll probably only have to shave once a month for now, but I'm glad he got the mustache off. 

That catches you up on what's going on around here!

Around Our House

I sometimes think this working stuff is for the birds. A few weeks ago, the kids and David all had MLK day off. I had to work 8 hours. Shocker.  They went for a hike at our favorite spot and to Chickfila. I was happy that they got out and did something, but I was totally bummed I couldn't be there with them. I remember all the times it would be a glorious day and I'd send David pics of me and the kids at the park while he was stuck in the office. It's the cycle of life I guess. This is just the season we are in right now.

 

Noah told David to take this photo to send to me. He thought I'd like it. He was right. 

Pretty much every weekend I'm working 8 hour shifts and I might have an hour or two in the morning or a few hours at night, but the entire day/night is gone with work. This past weekend, I didn't have to leave until 1:00!  I was so excited that we headed to the park on our bikes to play some basketball. We played Horse and wouldn't you know it, Ben won! Emily was gone at a winter guard competition in Phoenix. She's pretty much gone every Saturday for most the day at competitions.

 

 The boys have become obsessed with a Rubik's cube. Well, Ben solved it and then Noah became obsessed and had to solve it. In case you didn't know, it's really all algorithms and if you figure those out, anyone can solve it, which they both did. Then, Noah did another 20 times just to make sure he got it down. It's pretty impressive. We used to peel off the stickers as kids and try to put them back on, so everyone would think we did it. Now, you know the algorithms or just get the app where you put in what your colors are and it shows you how to do it. Lame.

 

Ben finally won a cinnamon roll at school!  Every Friday, they do a drawing for perfect attendance and 4 kids win these huge cinnamon rolls from a local restaraunt. He finally won, so he was on their Facebook page.  

 

And if you've never heard of this app, it's called Life 360. It's free and private. You have to send a text to someone and they can join your group. So, basically, you can tell where your kids are at all times. It's awesome. This was Emily yesterday after school. So, I texted her and said, you went to Starbucks? Who took you? It was our friends Mom. Then, I went into our Starbucks app and could tell she just ordered a grande caramel frappucino. Man, there are no secrets anymore. It's not like the times when I was a kid and my best friend Liz and I would ride our bikes to Circle K to buy candy (with money we stole from her brothers room) and our parents never found out. Now, when her friend gives her a ride to flag practice after school, I can tell how fast her friend is going and if they made any other stops. Technology is awesome for parents, maybe not so much for teenagers.

 Ben got pick to help with the induction of the new NJHS kids at school. He said he had to be there, but we had no idea he had a speaking roll. The thing I noticed most when he got up is his voice is so deep compared to the other boys.

 He had to recite a few sentences about Character, which was a great subject for Ben to speak about. We were so worried about him lighting the candle at the end, but he got it. Eventually.




Ben also had future freshman night at the high school. David took him because, shocker, I was working. Ben used to say that high school seemed scary because it was so big. I think he's getting used to it now and he said he's not scared anymore. We always tell him he's ready for bigger and better things. It's time for him to move on from Jr. High (well, in 4 months).

One of our new favorite things to do are puzzles! We typically have one going on a table and just kind of work on it here and there throughout a few weeks. It's fun and nice to have something that we can work on together. I put the final piece on this cat one today!

And we woke up to a two hour snow delay today! That means that David has to get to work, and I have to take the kids to school. It's really not a ton of snow, but the problem is the buses have to make it out to rural areas that aren't paved and they don't want them attempting that and kids out in the ice/cold at 7. We always enjoy the lazy morning and the snow is so pretty.

Then, Noah has to walk to the bus stop by himself. I usually walk with him or we drive if it's super cold out. Today, we would've drove. I told him that I saw sasquatch prints leaving our house.

 

  

 That's about it for us!