Happy Birthday, Carter!

What do you do when your sixteen year old doesn't like cake, pie, cookies or anyother dessert for his birthday party? You bake giant breadsticks in the shape of 16.

Carter celebrated his sixteenth birthday yesterday. Watch out ladies, he can officially date now. Just one thing may be putting that on hold, and that is the lack of a drivers license. Due to his basketball schedule, he has been unable to take drivers ed, which is offered in the evenings and conflicts with practice and games. Bummer.
Ok, so Carter's brothers look a little dopey in this picture, and no Larry isn't Carter's secret service agent with an earpiece. It just so happened that Carter's birthday coincided with the BYU game and Larry needed to keep himself and Carter updated. Thanks Jimmer, for scoring all of those points for Cart's big day.
Being Carter's mom has been an amazing experience. He has always been a very responsible, rule abiding kid. He develops a keen interest in many things and when he does, he becomes an expert in it. He has always been an avid reader and would plow through books like Harry Potter as early as 1st grade. As he's gotten into sports the last couple of years, that constant desire to read has been focused on books about sports figures and the history of basketball and football. This has created a desire in him to become a sports broadcaster some day. He's intense, focused, and extremely bright. I love to talk to him and am always amazed at his perceptions, insight, and wisdom at such a young age. It's been exciting watching him grow from a little boy into a wonderful young man. Happy 16th Birthday, Carter.

Trophies

Trophy Speller:
Corbin shows off the trophy he won as the second place speller in his school spelling bee. He will never forget that petticoat is not spelled pedicoat.

Trophy Hunter:
Larry shows off his trophy coyote. He couldn't resist the call of the wild the other night and went out with his brother for a 3 hour coyote hunt. I awoke the next morning to see this picture that he texted me. Does anybody have a good coyote recipe? Joking.

Happy Birthday, Chase!

Almost a week has passed since Chase turned 14. Fourteen?!!
On Chase's birthday, we woke up to the news that school had been postponed and then found out they were going to cancel it. The roads were too icy and cars were sliding off right and left. We actually had a driveway full of people waiting to get back on the road. That said, it's not a bad way to start your birthday to find out school has been cancelled. Chase spent the morning designing his own custom shoes on the Nike website. He is very artistic and frequently draws pictures of shoes with custom logos, so this was the perfect birthday present for him. We are anxious for the shoes to arrive. After the road conditions improved, we headed into town where Chase looked for something to buy with his birthday money from grandparents' Christensen and Hawkes. He settled on the NCAA 2011 videogame. Then we headed over to TimeOut Pizza, a local pizzeria decked out in sports paraphanelia and flat screens broadcasting games. Chase chowed down on Meat Lovers pizza, checked out the LeBron shoes--those are some big feet, and then headed home to play basketball at the school with the old guys from church. When he got home, we ate some delicious Whoppers cake I baked from a recipe in the Baked cookbook. It's a must try recipe, it was so good.
Chase is an AWESOME kid. He is so kind and peaceful and treats our family members with love and respect. He has a great sense of humor and is frequently laughing and finding the humor in situations. He is very creative and artistic and expresses himself with his wonderful drawings and designs. He is an amazing athlete, but is also a good sport. He works hard in school, is intelligent, and gets good grades (sidenote: he & his friend just won 1st place in the school science fair). It has been a blessed fourteen years watching Chase grow and develop into such an incredible young man.