Sweet 16!

It doesn't get much sweeter than this girl!

It's hard to believe that our "Absent-Minded Professor" is 16 already! Syd is one of the smartest people I know. She also has moments where I'm completely terrified for her. We have story after story of times when Sydney just made us shake our heads in wonderment. Both good, and bad. Ha!

One of the things that has always struck me about Sydney is that she is seemingly fearless. When she was really little, she would jump into any pool she saw. Whether she was wearing clothes or not...and even though she couldn't swim. It was extremely difficult parenting her through the toddler years. Childproofing was just a challenge that she was always willing to tackle. We never did find anything that would work to thwart her. Thankfully she was (and is) adorable!

As she's grown and matured, she has transferred that fearlessness into other areas. Including this:

Mark took the girls to the Basque picnic a couple weeks ago. Syd decided she wanted to try the weight competition. Maybe it's the fact that I'm pretty timid when it comes to things that could end up making me look foolish, but I'm always surprised when she volunteers for something like this. She never, ever worries about looking silly! Amazing. Oh, and I guess she actually did quite well, especially for never having seen this competition before!

She is also fearless when it comes to performing in public. 

 Even if she's wearing a swim suit!


I've never met someone who is more comfortable in their own skin. To be honest, I'm a little jealous! Whether she's cutting her hair super short, being into totally "geeky" things, or wearing whatever she wants, she definitely stays true to herself.

One of her other amazing qualities is her willingness to work hard. She's definitely willing to do the work and try to improve. I really love watching her determination in the pool!

I do think she's a little nervous about her sister heading to college. Not only will they really, really miss each other, I imagine she's terrified that she'll be our sole focus. I think Peyton's big personality has always let Syd fly under the radar. A role which she plays quite well. Hopefully we can temper our helicoptering a little. 

I am pretty thankful that she still likes to hang out with us. She really is about as sweet as they come!

Happy birthday, Tommy Waffles! We love you and are so humbled to be your parents. I'm still not sure how we got so lucky!  XOXO

Adult-ish

To borrow a phrase from one of my friends, we have a "newly minted adult" at our house. Yep, Peyton turned 18.

What is even happening right now? The joke has always been that our goal was to keep her alive until she turned 18. Nailed it! But it wasn't always easy...

 In honor of her birthday, I decided to catalog a couple of the big events in her life. 

Starting with:

Probably the first time we were a disappointment as parents...still in the hospital

And then there was this:

Her baptism...this was right after we had to fish her pacifier out of the baptismal font...

Or this:

The first, but not last, time we broke her...

Her arm was actually broken in this photo...

And her first haircut, as if we hadn't traumatized her enough already.

Or this:

30 photos later, and this was the best...

I will say, this was probably one of the biggest life changes for all of us!

There are so many other momentous events that have taken place. This post could go on forever and ever!

But, I'll just post one more event:

Happy 18th, Dude! (Peyton on the right...)

The above tattoos are in memory of this lady. She loved us like no other and we still miss her every day.

Next up is graduation and college. It really has flown by in the blink of an eye. We are super proud of you, Peyt!

And I promise I won't tell anyone about you getting pulled over on your birthday last night. ;-)

There is something about 
a red-headed girl.
She'll make you crazy, 
and shake up your world.

Well, she was just 17, you know what I mean...

And the way she looked was way beyond compare. You know that Beatles song, right? Please tell me I'm not horribly old!

I mean I do feel horribly old as my first baby turns 17 today! Last year on her birthday, I wrote this post and it's all still true.

My new favorite thing going in to her 17th year is that we are 99% sure she will be gainfully employed this summer! No more free-loader! Just kidding, she will totally still mooch off of us for a long while. Sigh.

This is part of her gift:

And yes, those might be lottery tickets. Shhh...

Her other gift is getting her car detailed. I mean, what teenager doesn't dream of car detailing as a gift? Actually, she's pretty excited. Her third gift didn't ship in time. I'm awesome like that. She is celebrating with friends tonight by having a bonfire in our back yard. Unless it's super windy...then I will shove a bunch of money at them and send them to a movie or something. Not that I'm praying for wind or anything. ;-)  Just kidding, these friends of hers are amazing.

So, here is what 17 looks like at our house...

Pretty exciting, huh? I'm sure that melted wax in the sausage patty was delicious!

17...get it? This definitely earned me an eye roll.

Happy 17, Peyton Grace!

Sigh...

Happy birthday Nanna and Boppy!

For her birthday, Mark's mom requested we take her to see "The Young Messiah." So,Saturday morning, we loaded up and headed to Buhl for the day. Chris, Julie and Tilson were not far behind us, but apparently Starbucks was much slower than Dutch Bros?

We met in Twin at Sizzler for lunch. His mom LOVES Sizzler and their bread pudding. Here are a couple pics of our motley crew...

Ladies table

As always, my selfie skills are amazing, aren't they?

Mens table

The girls had their own table which suited them just fine.

After lunch, it was off to the movie:

Aunt Bill and Syd checking things out while waiting for the group to show up!

Nanna!

Mark even bought me candy to go with my popcorn. He said I earned it being on restroom duty.

The plan was to go birthday shopping with his dad after the movie. He wanted a new recliner so the boys decided we would all chip in. I'm sure the employees at the furniture store could hardly wait until we left. Hooligans!

Cousins! Big feet or small heads? Probably both...

We did end up finding a chair. We also almost lost the chair out the back of the pick-up because we are idiots. :-) After Church and dinner all us Boise peeps headed home. I'm sure Nanna and Boppy both slept well that night! I know WE were exhausted for sure!

Surprise! Surprise that we finally got something done, that is...

So Syd had a birthday...7 months ago. One of her gifts was a re-do of her room. Mark and I finally got around to the paint update this weekend. The girls were gone the whole weekend so we definitely walked on the wild side. Ha to the ha ha.

Here is the before picture:

As you can probably tell, Syd got to pick her room color when we moved to the new house. It really is as obnoxious as it looks. In fact, more than once, I've walked by thinking she left the light on when in fact, it's just the loud paint.

Sydney has had trouble sleeping for the last few years. It finally dawned on me that maybe her wall color had something to do with it? So, we researched the best wall color to help sleep. And we came up with blue.

Unfortunately, we had a little bit too much "BSU" coloring around the house for a couple hours. Thankfully, we survived the embarrassment...

Here are a few "action" shots:

Impressive, huh?

Macie was really curious what we were doing too.

Mark and I are not the cleanest painters...

This doesn't even show when I bumped the wall with my entire arm. Oops.

Here is a "final" picture. We are still trying to decide what she wants on the sign I'm going to make for above her bed.

It's difficult to tell the color from my awesome photography. But here is the swatch:

She was pretty surprised when she got home. I imagine that is mainly due to the fact that her parents are totally unreliable dolts. I also think that if she wasn't so completely exhausted, she would have been really excited. She did thank us several times. So, there is that. Parenting win? Probably...if we weren't closer to her next birthday than the last.

Happy, happy birthday G'pa B!!

Today is the birthday of one of my favorite people!

This guy:

The one of the left...in case you were wondering. Yep, it's the Notorious G'pa B!

The one who does fun stuff with the girls like this:

And projects with his favorite daughter, like this:

Oh, I guess you can't actually see the project, huh? Well, let me just say, it was EPIC. ;-)

He also spends a lot of time with this cool chick:

So, if you see him  around today, make sure you wish him a happy birthday! I'm sure he won't be embarrassed. AT. ALL.

Happy birthday to this girl!!

How is it that my baby is 14?

 Funny, I remember thinking the same thing when she was little...how is my baby already 14 months?

Sydney is amazing. But in some of the most hard to describe ways. She is the first one to offer to help. And she never refuses a request for help. That is a servants heart. She is who I strive to be.

Not only is she smart, like really, really smart (remind me to tell you how fun it is to be the dumbest person in your house...spoiler alert, it sucks), she is musically talented. She can SING, and she plays the piano beautifully.  Did I mention I want to be like her?

She also is a bit of a worrier. Wonder where she gets that awesome trait? And a bit of an introvert. Again me, sorry kiddo.

She's wickedly funny. She can throw out some sarcasm that none of us ever saw coming. It generally takes us a minute to even catch what she said.

This blanket? It went everywhere with her for her first 4 years. Then, it was with her at bedtime for another 4. Around age 8, she decided she was no longer in need of it. Of course, we still have it...

Syd loves to sit with us. Like, riiiigggghhhht next to us. I'll be sad if that ever changes.

She definitely has her own style. She couldn't care less if someone agrees with her choice of clothing or hairstyle. She likes what she likes. And I love that about her!

I'm super excited to see how she navigates high school. At this point, we are just along for the ride. I'm pretty sure she is going to be just fine.  

Happy birthday Tommy Waffles. We love you! XOXO