HAPPY 12th BIRTHDAY STEVEN!!!

So today he is 12 years old. That is amazing to me, I can hardly believe it has been that long. In honor of this big day I made him a special scrapbook about the things I have learned being his mother. He has taught me so much being the oldest, he has been on the losing side of my parental mistakes... but overall, I think it has worked out well for us both. He is a great kid. He earns good grades, is responsible, polite and caring. He puts his whole heart into what he is doing, and works hard at it. Baseball is the sport he loves, playing or watching, doesn't seem to matter much to him. He wants to one day play in the MLB... after college of course. He is wearing his Duke shirt here --for those that don't know, Steven decided he wanted to go to Duke at the end of first grade.. and hasn't changed his mind yet (although some are trying to convince him Stanford is a better choice...LOL). Love you baby, hapy birthday!!!

So I am a traditionalist.. I love starting traditions. Yet I don't often think about down the road how those will work out. So when Steven was in 1st grade I started picking up him & a friend and taking them off campus for lunch on his birthday. We did it every year and Jackson follows the same tradition. Last year when he started middle school that wasn't possible anymore and we were both kind of sad. So today I dropped off 2 pizza's, 6 powerade drinks and a big bag of grapes for him to share with his friends for his birthday. They are playing ping pong and enjoying a nice lunch -they all looked happy which made me feel the same way!

I also started the tradition (in kindergarten) of getting donuts at the donut store on birthday mornings. Now Steven leaves at 7:30 -so to get donuts I would need to be back with them by 6:30 a.m. If you read my blog, chances are you know I am not a mornning person. Jonathan knows this (well after 16 years!) and today he went and got the donuts and had them on the counter when I went down -no early morning trip to the store for me!!! So here is Steven with is donut (his second as he scarfed down his maple bar before I could put candles in it), with candles and Jackson and I sang Happy Birthday to him. It was fun with the sparkler candles -as they don't blow out too easy -took a few tries and he claimed to be feeling light-headed from all the blowing. Then I gave him a few small gifts and Josh &

Justin arrived. Soon it was off to school for them and out to the grocery store for me to pick up the last things I need for his party.