Ethan's 13th

Today is Ethan's 13th birthday!

Ethan was our 14th grandchild and 9th grandson.

He is a very important part of this large family

and of course a very important part of this wonderful family.

I wrote about Ethan in this post on his birthday last year and clicking on that link will take you to links to all his previous posts.

So now I'll just include a few pictures here to show how he's changed 'through the years'.

and talk about what's going on in Ethan's life right now!  First of all, he plays league soccer 

and he still loves science, magic tricks, and performing!  Here (on New Year's Eve) he's not only the writer of this skit about the different stages of life, but he's also the casting director and the narrator and it was SO good and interesting and entertaining!

And being an enterprising young man, he's started dog sitting for neighbors to earn a little extra coin.

Ethan is also a hard working and helpful guy!  He helped his mom when she coached the 2nd grade cross country team

and he's a big help around the house.  Not only is he very willing to help but he's happy to do anything that's asked of him!

Also, Ethan was inducted into the National Beta Club which is an organization for 4th through 12th grade students to promote the ideals of academic achievement, character, leadership and service among elementary and secondary school students.

So we can see so many great things about Ethan but these accomplishments don't cover all of his many wonderful attributes!  Ethan is a sweet, caring, and loving person.  He's conscientious hard working and kind.  And he's also respectful, smart, thoughtful, cheerful and has a great sense of humor.  

He loves reading (almost more than anything)

but doesn't like syrup or salad dressing.  In all other ways he's normal though.  LOL

So we are wishing this wonderful grandson a wonderful birthday and a wonderful year!  Happy Birthday, Ethan!  We love you so much and could not be more proud of you!

Matthew's 16th

Today is Matthew's 16th birthday!

Matthew was our 11th grandchild and 7th grandson.

He is a very important part of this large family.

and, of course, a very important part of this beautiful family.

I wrote about him in this post last year on his birthday

and clicking on the links in that post will take you to all his previous posts that tell you a lot about Matthew and how he's changed through the years so I'll just post a few pictures here.

and talk about what's been going on in his life during the past year.  First and most importantly, Matthew has maintained straight A's this year and is on track to continue that through the third quarter.  He also scored a 1340 on his PSAT which is in the top 98th percentile!

He played JV football and even suited up for varsity where he totaled one touchdown and one interception as well as some catches, tackles and even kickoffs.

Matthew was a captain on his JV basketball team and although his team didn't have the most stellar year ever, he feels like he learned a lot and has become a much more confident player.

And he has been with his girlfriend Sela for 8 months as of March 6th.

He's also practicing driving since he got his permit and will be able to get his license by the end of the summer.

So Matthew has had an eventful and successful year and we're very proud of that!  But there's lots more that we're proud of about him.  First of all he's one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet.  He's cheerful and fun and funny!  He started learning to juggle when we got to Gulf Shores last winter and by New Year's Eve, he pretty well had it mastered.

He's never too big for the little guys either which makes him very popular among all of them.

He's also fun loving,

talented, (here he's singing with his brother and accompanied by his cousin)

and athletic (but how could he not be when his whole family can jump like this)!

He's a Boy Scout on the cusp of becoming an Eagle Scout and hopes that this summer he'll be able to free up enough time to accomplish that lofty goal!

Add to all this the fact that he's conscientious, responsible, kind, loving, hard-working, and thoughtful; and you have a pretty amazing person which is exactly what he is!  We're looking forward to what the future holds for him and we're excited that we get to watch it unfold!  So Happy Birthday, Matthew!  We're hoping it's your best one yet but that it's only half as great as the many, many more to come!