Erik's 14th birthday was 9 days ago, on Stake Conference Sunday, lucky him! It was a bit of a busy day with our missionary here, and with the holidays approaching, some of us attended choir practice as well. I think he had plenty of downtime later in the day. We also enjoyed a movie together and a fun new game.
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| He got a new bike! |
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| Kade had fun wrapping the Switch game in this huge box! |
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| Gift in hand! |
Kade took him to McDonald's for dinner the night before, since Jason and I had other meetings for Stake Conference. Erik really loves McDonald's for his birthday meal. Chicken nuggets and fries! On his birthday, we had breakfast for dinner with waffles, scrambled eggs, bacon, oj, and raspberries. I'm so happy he enjoys those foods. He requested his favorite poppyseed bundt cake for dessert.
Since he has braces, I make a smoothie for him most days that includes spinach, banana, mixed berries, lemon juice, and a bit of yogurt. I usually put in collagen as well. Before we ran out, I was putting creatine in it. He still has a limited fare that he eats, but most of it is decent for you, so with his smoothies, he's able to keep strong for his active lifestyle and keep growing.
Now that it's been a year since he got his phone, I have to say that it's one of the best things for us. We have a family group chat where we share funny, random, cool, or interesting things, including pictures of our cats. They are shared the most by us. Also, Erik is Mr. Social and always arranging meet-ups with his friends to play basketball or football at a park in a neighborhood nearby.
When trying to decide what to do for his party this year or even when to have it, we finally decided to do what we usually do- have his friends meet us at a park to play sports (soccer, football, basketball, and Grounders), and then take them back to our house for food and video games on the Switch.
It was Black Friday, which was a good day for a party, except we got hit with a huge cold front (remember the real feel of 12 on Thanksgiving morning??) It was a real feel of 18 at 1pm that day during the party. They only played at the park for about an hour before we took them back because we were all frozen! Even the heater I brought wouldn't work because the wind kept blowing out the pilot light 😒.
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| Football |
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| Frozen |
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| Basketball |
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| Grounders |
So they warmed up at the house playing Switch games, ate food like 13/14 year old boys do, even Erik enjoyed all his breadsticks (the rest had pizza in addition to breadsticks). And then, they played hide and seek in our now very small home (with 6 just about fully grown people who take up every single space, even our storage room, where kids usually hide). With 13 teen boys playing, including Austin, and most of them are bigger than me, Jason and I reminded them that their hiding would be very simple and limited. It didn't matter to them. They played an indoor/outdoor version (yes, back in the cold) and had such a fun time. I was amused! We barely had time for Erik to open his cards full of money, 1 gift, and have chocolate cake before the party ended. I was happy to see old-fashioned playing going on. Such nice friends!
Erik still loves to read, though he doesn't do it as much, and is still a great student in school, though I can see some teen forgetfulness sometimes. His teachers say he's such a good friend to everyone, and he will help anyone at school. He's doing NJHS again, still playing the trombone in the school band, now playing indoor soccer, and has developed his talents in running. Sometime soon, he will be taller than me!
We love our Erik and are happy to see him thrive!
