Happy Birthday, Jack!

Hard to believe my first born (in the wilderness) is already 11 years old! He celebrated his birthday a few Sundays ago and felt like birthdays on Sundays aren't as fun since he couldn't go to a movie or bowling or play with friends. But he managed to still have a great day. His big present was a digital camera. He spent all day taking pictures of everyone, but especially Mia! He quickly had over 400 pictures (about 50 of them were his webkinz and stuffed animals 'posing' for pictures) and lots of videos on his memory card. A few nights after his birthday, when he was supposed to be in bed sleeping, he came upstairs crying holding his camera. He said he was adjusting some of the settings and now his camera said "no image" when he tried to view his photos. Apparently he chose the format button on his camera menu and reformatted his memory card and lost all of his fun pictures and videos. What a hard way to learn what that option means on his camera! Unfortunately he deleted a lot of cute pictures and a great video of him with Ryan doing our FHE lesson about the First Vision which they taught through a skit. It passed off the two Faith In God requirements that he still needed to do to earn his religious square knot for cub scouts--now that he is no longer a cub scout but a BOY SCOUT (with Gavin as his leader)! Next week we'll have his birthday party, he wants to take his friends boating and water skiing.

So apparently we need to invest in some candles. We didn't think about the candles until the morning of his Birthday and it was Sunday so he was stuck with 9 + 2 = 11! He requested an ice cream cake for his birthday -- sounded great to me!

This is what Jack looked like all day on his birthday. Enjoying the new camera!

In honor of his 11th Birthday, here are eleven things you might not have known about Jack:

1. He LOVES music and his ipod. He memorizes every word to each song which means we have to be really careful about the music he downloads.
2. His favorite color is green.
3. His favorite animal is a frog. His room is covered with frog stuffed animals, frog clocks, frog picture frames, frog bank, frog statues, frog toys, frog pillows, 5 real frogs in cages, clothes with frogs, frog wallets, etc. You get the picture!! We keep waiting each year for the obsession with this collection to be over and for Jack to take all this great stuff to the D.I. But we will still be waiting another year. It doesn't help that I keep buying him more frog stuff--now he wants all the webkinz frogs. This is probably why his favorite color is green!
4. He is a great cleaner and always does a great job on his weekly chores.
5. He makes yummy chocolate chip cookies! His good friend Matt always makes cookies and milkshakes and it has worn off on Jack. My family always requests that Jack bring his signature cookies to Sunday dinner at my parent's house.
6. He is now old enough now to babysit for me (if one of the babies is asleep or with me). And loves making some extra money! $3/hr-- may not be a lot but it is better than the $.75/hr I made when I was his age.
7. He loves to read and has taken advantage of living right by the library and has checked out a lot of books this summer and done lots of reading!
8. He enjoys video games especially guitar hero on the wii.
9. He really wants to quit taking piano lessons. His teacher quit teaching and so we have taken the summer off while we find a new teacher. For some reason Jack just assumed that since his teacher of 4 years quit that he was done with piano. No such luck!
10. He just started his first season of football.
11. He is a great friend and loves to hang out with Jace, Logan and Matt!