Sunday, October 4, 2009

Happy 14th Birthday Bryan!

I am way behind on posts but I am going to do Bryan's birthday blog first and work my way back to Kristy's birthday and my anniversary - hopefully!

Bryan turned 14! I can't believe my youngest is 14. I never thought this day would come. When all my kids were little I would look at moms in the ward whose youngest kids were teenagers and I just couldn't imagine when I would ever get there but here I am.



When I think about Bryan when he was young, the same word always comes to mind... trouble! It seems like he was always getting into something. As a baby, he did not sleep much. I was so used to my young babies sleeping a lot during the day and then Kendall decided she wanted to be awake most of the day and then Bryan came along and slept even less than Kendall. As a tiny baby, he rarely slept during the day and when he did it wasn't usually longer than an hour. He really threw a wrench into my schedule. I counted on infants to sleep so I could get something done. He was adorable, though, so that made up for it!

He was so cute with his strawberry blonde hair. I think one of his biggest fans was Nesha Roylance. Every time she saw him she would say, "That kid is so stinkin' cute!" (Maybe she says that to all the little boys but she sounded pretty sincere. It always cracked me up.)



The following picture of Bryan brings back a lot of memories! He would constantly find shampoo,conditioner or lotion (often all three!) and put it in his hair. He would also dump the bottles into the bathtub and make a big concoction. None of my other kids did this but he did it all the time. We tried to keep things out of his reach but with 6 older siblings, there was bound to be shampoo around. How can you not love this kid?



I was always amazed that my kids did not write on walls. It just wasn't a problem around our house. Then Bryan came along and made up for all of them. We couldn't get him to stop writing on walls! I hoped that he would outgrow it by the time we got into our new house and he just about did. The last surface he wrote he was 3 years old and it was on a dresser in my closet. It was permanent marker and I was so grateful that it wasn't a wall in our brand new house. I still have Bryan's artwork on my dresser from 11 years ago. I took this picture today. It makes me smile now but it wasn't so funny then. I could have relaxed if I had known it was his last work of wall art.



For his birthday he had some friends over for some paint ball wars.



Zach Dart, Chandler Stever, Noah Noble, Sheldon Law, Kenan Dehart, Reece Leavitt, Cameron Law, Ben Crowell, Bryan, Easton Baker, James Hurst



Then Grandma Earl came over and made her famous scones! Yummy!!



Bryan and Grandma Earl:



All the party credit goes to my wonderful husband who planned it all while I was gone in Utah. He's a gem and he knows what is fun for boys. Here is David and Bryan:



Bryan is a great kid. We were so happy to have another boy. He is the perfect caboose for our family. (Although I must admit that I have told Bryan - maybe more than once - that we wanted 8 children but he was the straw that broke the camel's back! I said it lovingly?)

We look forward to watching Bryan grow. I do always say, though, that if he turns out bad... his brothers and sisters will have to take the blame! They have had way more influence on him (for good and bad) than his father and I have. I am hoping that it has been more good than bad!!

Luckily, he has good friends as you can see from his illustrious paintball group. Here are Bryan and Easton Baker:



I love you Bryan. Happy 14th birthday!

Look out girls, he's coming to the stake dances...

3 comments:

Lori said...

And here I thought Nesha only said that to Easton....Happy Birthday Bryan. We feel lucky our kids have such good EARL friends.

Kristy said...

I'm still offended I'm the only child whose birthday you skipped, though I'm a little bit glad that Dad also gets to feel my pain. One of my most memorable moments of young Bryan was when KC and I were babysitting him. We had mascara with us and we had only set it down for literally 30 seconds. The next thing we knew Bryan had it and his face was covered in it. He looked like a pirate with a really ghetto eye patch. I remember not being that mad bc he did it so quickly, I was astonished. Happy Birthday Bryan!

Tyler - Danielle - Emree said...

Fourteen... crazy! It looks like the party was a blast and I always love reading your posts about your kids. Bryan and easton were always my favorites to have around the house. Kenzie thought her and the girls were funny... lol Love those earls