Sweet 16

Im not sure how I feel about this, but I am now officially the Mother of a 16 year old! Its making me feel old, even though I had her young. In my mind she should probably only be like 10. But theres no going back now. We just have to embrace it and cherish these next few of years that she is still living under our roof. Man, now Im going to tear up. I dont like to think about my birdies leaving the nest. Its just too sad and too soon. Then I think...if she got married when I did, she would only have 2 years and 8 months to go. Sorry Dad, I totally get it now. Good thing it all turned out alright so I can celebrate times like this 5 times over.

But enough about me...lets talk about Madi's big day.

The 3 youngest came home from school and created this driveway chalk masterpiece for Madi to come home to. Awww...

I also had 16 flowers and a candy bar waiting for her. 

Since her actual birthday was on a weeknight and we had school and soccer stuff to do, we just opened a few family gifts before bed. 

Katelin got Madi a necklace she had been admiring. 

Im already feeling sentimental, but I hope all these sisters stay close as they grow up. So sweet.  

Brylee gathered some acorns from school for Madi. :) 

Alissa also picked out a necklace for her. 

Madi has been begging for me to make her a running medals board, so I finally got that done for her birthday. She has medaled about a dozen times already so she wanted a place to display them. (The medals hang from the bottom.) 

This last Friday we threw her an outdoor party. We were worried all week about the weather because it had been cold and rainy. Friday morning it stormed pretty good and was pretty cold and cloudy until about 2:00. Thankfully my prayers were heard and it cleared up and the sun came out just in time for her party. I bought her this sash to wear, but Im pretty sure she hated it so I just made her take one picture with it on.

Ryan grilled up some burgers and hot dogs for dinner.  

We also had a variety of lawn games like volleyball, beanbag toss, ladder ball and bocce. Ryan and Zack had to take on the girls. 

Presents came next. Madi has a really artistically talented friend who painted her her favorite Dr. Suess quote on canvas. She loved it! 

Ryans favorite gift of hers was this "Y" in lights (BYU). He might steal it from her in her sleep.  

She also got a few other things like gift cards, another necklace, earrings, nail polish, oreos, etc. 

Speaking of Oreos, Madi loves them like Katelin loves cookie dough, so she decided to try a cookies and creme ice cream cake this year. It was the first ice cream cake Ive made, and everyone said it tasted awesome. Phew... 

After the sun went down, it started getting pretty cold. I was fine leaving the crazy teenagers outside, but Ryan was nice enough to let them all come in for cake and warm up for a bit. In total I think we had about 20 kids show up. Since it was a pretty important party we just told Madi to invite her whole Cross Country team. She has developed a lot of good relationships through running, so it has been good for her on many levels. Plus, she had some non runner friends come as well. 

When it got dark enough, we played an outdoor movie. I have been wanting to try this ever since we moved in and saw the big space on the back of our house. We bought a projector, and hung a large white tarp from the windows and aside from the train coming by a couple times, it was perfect. The kids all had to huddle up in blankets to stay warm, but I think it was worth it. Besides, the cold kept the mosquitoes away. Im thinking some neighborhood summer movie nights might be in our future.  

Overall, I think the party was a big success. A few boys from track showed up late and ended up staying and talking with Madi until 12:30. We hated to break it up even though we were so tired and ready to call it a night. Im sure Madi loved having the attention, and you only turn 16 once. In the future, Im sure Ryan wont be so nice to the boys...now that dating is allowed. DATING!! Im going to go cry into my pillow now. 

Summer

Finally...Summer. I had high hopes of relaxation this summer, but it never really seemed to slow down like Id hoped. In addition to the 2 weeks away with the youth, Katelin had violin lessons, Madi had cross country training every day and Zack and Brylee had swim lessons and a month of summer school. So really summer didnt start until mid-July- August. Zack was so excited for me to sign him up for summer school because rumor had it they were going to build robots. He must have had life size androids in mind, so he was really disappointed when it didnt happen and it made for a long month for him. When it was finally over and summer officially began, we had to hurry to get the things done that were on the kids summer wish lists. 

First stop, the beach. In summers past this is a regular occurrence, but this year I think we only made it there twice. 

Then there were church activities. This was the primary pioneer day picnic and bike parade. Brylee still needed a little help on the narrow sidewalk surrounded by other bikers.  

They also had potato sack, two legged and wheelbarrow races. Go Zack Go! 

Ryan and his friend competing in the mens division.

Brylees turn! 

Zack tried to wheelbarrow Brylee, but it wasnt working so well so... 

they switched. :) 

The older girls also had a couple fun young women activities. This is Madi and friends in the after picture of paint twister.

Then there was panty hose bowling. You put a tennis ball in one of the legs of the panty hose, stick them on your head and swing it to knock over a line of water bottles.  

Katelin

Madi 

Katelin's kept falling off so they kept having to adjust it.  

We decided to take it outside where it was cooler and we could do relay style.

(Madi in the orange) 

Ryan and I had a couple opportunities for date nights with friends. This one was at Milwaukee Burger Company. We all egged him on to do the Big Milwaukee Burger Challenge.  The challenge consisted of a 3 lb burger with layers of beef, bun, toppings and 2 golf ball sized cheese curds on top AND he had to eat it all in 30 minutes or less.  Easy right?

Think he can do it? We did too... 

Alas, if he only had like 10 more minutes it would have been gone. Stupid time limit. Oh well, maybe next time when he can come better prepared! 

Something else the kids had been begging to do was go camping. And not in our backyard either. We managed to carve out a brief trip to Bong which is about 30 minutes west of us. Not only was it convenient, it was the only place close enough that allowed dogs. We got there late and had to leave early the next morning, but we got it checked off the list. Camping in Wisconsin will just never be the same as Utah. You dont get to drive up to secluded mountain sites away from it all. We happened to be sleeping next to the borders of the highway, so we got some traffic noise all night. Luckily, Jovi slept through the night. 

We managed to get a quick "hike" in the morning. Basically on a trail, through a meadow. Again...not Utah. 

This picture cracks me up. Whos walking who? 

Just look at those faces. 

Madi enjoyed capturing some of the scenery along the walk, like this cool S shaped tree. 

What are these? Anyone? Anyone? 

Since we didnt go on a big vacation this year, we got 6 Flags passes again. We spent a good amount of time there. Luckily, our friends got passes too so we had people to hang out with.

Brylee's new favorite ride 

The last thing on our list of summer fun was the ever popular Wisconsin Dells. It ended up being a cool couple of days so we had to spend most of our time at the indoor water park.  

The Hot Tubs were super popular with the temps being so cool. 

When we did go outdoors, we just had to make sure to stay under the water. Notice how the life guards are wearing jackets...yeah.

We shivered a little bit but it was worth it. The outdoor parks were much less crowded. 

Before we left, we had to try out the underwater 3D glow in the dark mini golf. Sounds cool right? 

Turns out, its pretty tricky to play mini golf in the dark with 3D glasses on. They had a few aquariums with live fish in them along the way. We had to remove our glasses to really check them out...and to find where some of the holes were.

Sadly, it was over pretty quickly. We didnt realize it was only 9 holes. Oh well. Time for Home! 

And just like that Summer ended...way too fast.