Happy 13th Birthday, Evan!!

 

This kiddo is 13 and officially a teenager!  Not sure how that can be already!  Time certainly flies by.  And he's had the attitude of a teenager for a few years so in some ways, it feels like he's been 13 for a long time.  

We celebrated his birthday a day early this year since his birthday was on the first day of school.  We did our annual traditions of pancakes for breakfast, a trip to Three Cedars for opening weekend, and dinner of his choice out somewhere.  Sean drove us to Three Cedars (also crazy...) and we enjoyed an early afternoon visit.  Although, Evan did say he feels too old for many of the things at the cider mill now.  Of course, he still enjoyed filling a paper bag of candy at the "spooky store".  

We ran some errands after Three Cedars, mostly to kill time before grabbing an early dinner.  Evan chose Texas Roadhouse this year and got a steak and french fries, which he ate every bite of.  It was tasty!  We had him open his gifts back and home and waited to sing Happy Birthday until his actual birthday, the following day, with a leftover piece of cake that he made with Grandma.  I'd say his day was a good one!

We celebrated with Grandma and Grandpa earlier that weekend over at their house.  They grilled steak and we watched college football.  Evan and I had baked his cake from scratch earlier that morning and he opted to do a homemade buttercream frosting with Grandma at her house.  He did a great job this year!  

We wrapped up his birthday celebrations this past weekend with Scott's family for an Evan and Mindy combined party.  We hosted and planned a lunch at our house and the Lion's game on TV.  Evan wanted wings so we ordered those from WingSnob and also had chips, salsa, and queso, veggies, and fruit.  Jackie made cauliflower wings for the vegetarians and Nana picked up some pizzas from Jets.  Nana also made her usual ice cream cake.  The Lions won and it was a nice afternoon!

He also had a "friends" birthday party at Sportway of Westland and back at our house with a few close friends.  They came over at 3, we drove them to Sportway where they got wristbands for being able to do each of the activities, and then everyone came back to our house for pizza, cupcakes, and gifts.  Evan swindled three of the friends into spending the night, but thankfully, they were all well behaved and didn't stay up all night!

Whew!  In other news, Evan is in 7th grade this year and is about 110 lbs and about 5'5".  He's grown quite a bit over the past several months!  He's wearing shoes anywhere from size 8-9 depending on the brand and is wearing a mix of youth extra large all the way up to adult medium in clothes.  He's still my picky eater, but he's been on a big breakfast kick of eggs, bacon, toast, and hashbrown patties after football practices.  He still prefers things like steak, chicken pita sandwiches with fries, pasta, or pizza otherwise.  

He's still playing his guitar quite a bit, but has stopped taking lessons because of how busy he is with sports.  He spent his own money recently that he had been saving for quite a while to buy an acoustic guitar!  He's also playing football for the first time this fall with West Catholic and has really stepped into the role of being wide receiver, tight end, and safety.  Obviously, baseball is still his favorite and he's patiently waiting for the new season to start.  He'll be with the same organization and most of the same team again this year!

We are so proud of how hard he works at the things he's passionate about and we hope he has a safe, successful, and fun year ahead of him!

First day of school!

Another summer came and went so fast!  And just like that, Sean is a 9th grader starting high school and Evan is in 7th grade!

Sean had a busy summer with football conditioning, football camps, and drivers training.  He completed segment 1 just in time for the school year to start doing 6 drives with the instructor.  His permit just came in the mail yesterday!  I can't believe he's driving.  He's a freshman at Canton and is playing first string center for freshman football.  He's made a lot of new friends over the summer, which has helped him transition to Canton since a lot of his friends from middle school are going to Plymouth or Salem. He's gone to a Varsity game with some of his teammates. 

He got lucky with all his classes being at Canton and not having to travel between buildings.  He's taking PE and Technology Today as his two elective classes, along with Algebra 1, Physics, English 9, and World History.  School is off to a good start for him!

Evan also had a busy summer with travel baseball going all the way until mid-July and then football starting in early August.  He's playing West Catholic football this fall and knows a few friends on the team.  He's adapted really well to the time commitment and the physicality of playing football.  He's playing the whole time during games on both offense as wide receiver and tight end and on defense as safety.  He's in 7th grade and back with his friends at East.  He's taking PE and Engineering as his elective classes.  We were hoping he'd be in Spanish 1 like Sean was in 7th grade, but he didn't get it on his schedule.  

Scott and I are starting years 21 and 20 of teaching (hurry up, retirement!).  Here's hoping it's a healthy and successful school year for all of us!