Jay

It's just that he started out so small...I still can't get my brain to comprehend that he's actually 16 years old!  That's dating age?  I haven't allowed him to go near girls yet ( I may have been lied to, tricked or sneaked around a few times...maybe), let alone date them!  How can this be?

My beautiful boy...is 16!

We wanted to do something memorable for his birthday, but between summer activities, church callings, work and....work, our plans for a great surprise happened rather last minute.

We asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday...pretty much all we got out of him was he wanted to watch Star Wars, the original first---so the 4th (?) and we told him we'd take him out for dinner wherever he wanted to go.

Yay 16. no exclamation point.

I did make him what he wanted for breakfast.  That's about when "Jay's Day" pretty much ended.  He kept saying...I don't want today to be just like any other day! It kind of was just another lazy (for the kids) day...until Will came home from work.  We had planned to surprise Jay and watch Star Wars in our backyard on a big 18 foot movie screen we had rented.   But Will had to set it up first. I told Jay that we were going to get some driving time in so we left before Will got home and drove around while Will set up the movie screen in the backyard.  I thought that would take Will about 20 minutes...it took almost an hour.

Me and student drivers don't mix very well.  I hate that I am criticizing his driving all the time, and I want to be positive, but my foot can't press into the floor of the car any harder and I found that I was trying to steer the car using my phone in my hand.  Jay really does a great job.  There's just no way to have him experience all the scary, split-second things that can possibly happen while he's driving.

That's when "letting go" comes into play, I guess.

So we drove around for an hour...picked up Will in front of the house and went to dinner---just not where Jay wanted to go, poor boy!  We had an hour before the party started and Jay wanted to go somewhere a ways away...so we vetoed 5 Guys...and went somewhere closer.

The girls did a great job decorating the backyard and when we pulled up into the garage, Jay could see what was going on, but he just thought it was family there to surprise him.  He was excited to see his awesome friends and our awesome neighbors and super awesome family, and also the huge movie screen.  Probably not too happy about the store-bought cake though.  

Sometimes things have to give.

Flash photography...bleck!

Will rented a popcorn machine too.  Word to the wise...it's a waste of money.  It popped like 30 pieces of popcorn in about 5 minutes.  So inbetween batches in the popcorn machine, I would run in the house and make popcorn in my whirlypopper.  That's pretty much what I did the entire night...popped popcorn and refilled popcorn for the kids and cleaned up.

Oh, and I saved the evening by turning off the sprinklers minutes before they drenched everyone!  Yay for me!! Yes, sometimes I can think of everything!!

The weather was perfect during the party...although it had rained almost the entire day.  We were more worried about the wind blowing the movie screen over.  I bet I checked the weather app on my phone every 4 minutes to check the wind speed!  Shwoo!

I thought for sure the night-game-hating-neighbors-who-call-the-police-on-children were going to call the police on us because the movie was so loud!  I kept walking in front of the house to see how loud it really was.  I guess I should have taken a peace offering to our neighbors for forcing them to listen to Chewbacca yell, and the sound of poor sound effects of light sabers and X-wing fighters.

You can hear it right now, huh?

It really was awesome!  Jay has an awesome dad for thinking of it!  Princess Leia was also there!

So, Jay...I'm not ready to let you date yet, I'm not ready to let you drive yet, I'm not even ready to let you clean your room by yourself, but I'm so proud of you and for the good choices you make.  I love that you get out of the shower every night listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on your iTouch.  I love that you think that you had everything to do with your height!  I love that you're so easy going about clothes and shoes...not caring if they're name brand, too short, too old, too ripped to shreds!  Sometimes the ripped to shreds part bugs me, though.  I love that you take your church responsibilities seriously.  You impress me so often and I'm glad that my one and only son is YOU!

  

 You're exactly what I wanted!

 I guess now that you're 16 I need to let go of a few of my motherly-concerns.  Be patient with me.  My brain still cannot accept how fast you are growing up.  I just want the best for you and I want you to be your best...but that part's up to you.  So I'll keep bugging you about things that I think I can still have control over...thanks for having unconditional love for me when I poke you multiple times in church to tell you to stop biting your nails and picking at your face (it's in your genes...you grandpa Strong gave it to you!)

You've gone from 17 inches long and barely being big enough to fit in the car seat you were so small, to 6 ft. 3 in. and barely fitting in the drivers seat you are so tall!  And I'm so thankful that I got to be a part of every inch of you life!

Love you so much, Jay!