Birthday Love

Still the season of birthdays as we entered February and hit Grant's 18th!  His age now tells us he is an adult.  It will be interesting to see how we move forward with parenting an adult!  We are pretty much clueless as parents in general, so starting a new phase with no idea what to do seems pretty on par.  Dave had to leave in the afternoon on Grant's birthday, so we celebrated a birthday breakfast for him but then invited family over after to sing to him and Shannon.  

He read to everyone Harrison's card that stated Grant is Harrison's second favorite brother (next to Jesus) and asked Grant to grow a mustache or goatee.  He is an adult now, so maybe that facial hair starts thickening up-can't change the faint color though, so even if it is there its sometimes tricky to see.

Katelee and Grant had just been to the Sweethearts dance with their friends/dates.  Hailie and Grant were looking super snazzy....

and Katelee and her close friends Izzy and Rian were pretty much twinning minus their shoes for their dance.  

Black was the go to color, poor girls were probably freezing!  February is a cold month to be getting pictures in these outfits.  

We lucked out and all the girls got picked up at house since they were getting ready here.  So we got to see them all and it was one of their first dances so she was screaming as the car drove into our driveway.  It was so funny.  

Katelee with Seth and then a pic of all the carload 

These people ask so far in advance of the actual dance, so these girls had asked this group of boys when they had been hanging out a bunch, and then they kind of stopped hanging out.  They were worried the actual date would be slightly awkward, but it turned out great and they had a wonderful time!

Boom, right after, we were celebrating Miss Brenna becoming a TEENAGER.  She has really started to look the part and we know she has been acting teenish for ages, so it is only fitting for her to be thirteen.  

She is our sassy, organized, dancing queen and we love her!  She decided to spend the day skiing for her birthday with Dave and then have a movie night with friends.  Katelee helped me decorate the basement and the squeals of teen girls suggested it was a success.  

Katelee is so good at decorating and designing, we petitioned her to help with Harrison's Valentine's Day box, one of my most dreaded school projects every single year.  I am sure I could scroll back into Feb since Grant was in kindergarten and find myself lamenting in the blog how I hate to make these boxes!  Harrison had something in mind and Katelee really pulled through...

Basketball box for the win! Harrison carries a lot of the creativity/artsy gene as well.  I mean, he has been designing logos and jerseys since he could hold a pencil.  He created an Among Us mask from the popular video game and adopted that persona for a few days...

It is a bit unfortunate because the game you are either trying to murder before you are caught or avoid being the victim.  I hope it worked out for him, it didn't work out for his helmet to stay in one piece for very long! 

This winter kicked in with the snow storms pretty darn late, but there have been some doozies!  I hosted book club one night and it had been a snow day, so Dave had to plow the street so the ladies could walk over in the deep, deep snow.  I mean nothing could stop a book club about a seance and romance! hahaha!

So, we spent our month celebrating our people and reflecting on love.  I recently heard someone say we love people because it is the right thing to do not because they are doing the right thing.  It is easy to love when people are always kind, or little babies/children who shower you with affection.  It is a challenging privilege to love our family members and those around us when they are not being easy to love or doing what we would hope they would be.  I guess that really is true love though- being solid in those times that are hard and those times that love comes freely.  It is an honor though- to be surrounded by people to love and who give us that opportunity to consider what it means to have true charity-the greatest love of all.