I've been sounding like a broken record lately. "Where did the time go," has been said by me multiple times a day as of late. It seems that each five-year increment of life seems to get progressively faster. The first five years as a mother moved along at a nice leisurely pace; story time and mall walks with stops at the sale rack at the Baby Gap and a big pretzel to share filled our days. The next five years started to pick up significantly with more kids in the mix as well as adding in school, scouts and extracurricular activities. The last five years? Some days I'm left wondering if they even really happened at all. Life is increasingly becoming a blur. One day you are doing little league baseball and elementary carpool...the next you are getting ready for dating, driving and wondering if you've done enough to prepare your child for a mission and college. I'm not kidding. All I can do is accept it and work hard to live in the moment. And this moment has truly belonged to Josh.
How wonderful it has been to reflect on Josh and to celebrate who he has become (and working to become). I have loved seeing him thoroughly enjoy this milestone. Sometimes it is nice to stretch out a celebration and this year we did just that. It started last week with a special surprise from Chad. He surprised Josh with tickets to the Dream Theater concert. Spending an entire night with his dad's undivided attention would have been enough...the concert was the cherry on top. A night with dad, a sandwich from Moochies and a concert...Josh was in heaven.
Wednesday we got to celebrate again by going to dinner with Chad's parents and Aunt Tammi. Grammy's birthday is Oct. 3, so it was fun to have a joint celebration. Josh got to pick the restaurant...Q4U bbq.
Friday night a friend party was in order...a boy-girl party...his first to host as a matter of fact! After buying the entire junk food aisle with a few veggies thrown in for good measure (the veggies were the first to go btw!), cleaning the basement and creating a photo wall of Josh, we were ready to go. (If you ever want to do something super easy...and special, do this photo collage. It was a big hit on so many levels.) Josh had about 25 friends. They had fun eating, playing games, watching movies...and mostly just hanging out. It was actually really fun. I loved getting to experience Josh's friends. And guess what? He has really good friends! He hasn't stopped smiling since last night. I can't tell you how much I love seeing him feel so loved and celebrated. What a good kid....a very good kid indeed. 
3 comments:
SIXTEEN? I'm stunned. I can't believe he's 16. Where has the time gone my friend? What a cool way to have him celebrate his milestone. I love the collage. Very cool - you are so creative! Hold on to every minute, Julie, make every memory count...time doesn't slow down as I'm learning, too!
Mega dittos on the time flying. It's crazy. He is so handsome and such a great kid. I am in the midst of party preparations for Andi as we speak (and totally doing the 16 photo collage too! thanks to pinterest!).
Awesome!!! I feel the same way about time flying!! I will have to use your idea about the picture colllage!!
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