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!