Matthew (our oldest) turned 12 years old last month. Scott and I have been parents for quite a long time now apparently. Here is Matthew on his birthday (looking very serious). He had scouts that night so was wearing his scout shirt. Our stake has already separated from Boy Scouts (they were chosen to pilot the new church program) so the troop is run by the community now. So he has Young Men one night and then Scouts another night each week. Some boys from the ward are in the troop too. At first he wasn't sure he wanted to do Scouts but then he decided he'd give it a try and really likes it now. We had to stop doing Aikido because it interfered with scouts. He has been in four different BSA councils since he's been in scouts - Lewis and Clark Council in Illinois, National Parks (I think?) in Lehi, Monterey Bay/Silicon Valley Council in CA and now Trapper Trails Council in Northern Utah. He recently went on his first big hike with the scouts. They hiked Frary Peak on Antelope Island. Antelope Island is so close to us. The hike was 7 miles long and Matthew was pretty beat but made it to the top in spite of mud, snow and general exhaustion. Good job Matthew! We also registered him for junior high recently. Matthew and I got to go over to the junior high, which is very nice and new looking, to register. He choose some different electives including band and a STEM class. I also signed him up for a summer school P.E. class that is highly recommended by all our neighbors as a funner and more varied alternative to P.E. during the school year. So Matthew will start his first junior high class in June. Matthew is also a deacon now and because of the church changes, has been since the beginning of the year. He requested a suit, which he didn't have before, so he would look nice while passing the sacrament.
Here he is in his new church suit.
This was back at Christmas time.
On his birthday he requested crepes for breakfast. I got up early to make them. Here are our leftover crepes plus his cheesecake!
Singing happy birthday!
We had burgers and fries for dinner and cheesecake for dessert.
I think there were actually 12 pieces of cake. How perfect.
I purchased this cheesecake and Scott made his famous blueberry compote topping that everyone loves.
Anna was sad about something on the birthday evening - possibly the birthday treasure hunt. That often makes someone cry which makes me wonder why I still do it. But I feel like the kids should be able to cooperate on a task without fighting with each other. Matthew is usually very sympathetic to Anna. I snuck a picture of him trying to comfort her. What a nice brother. You can also see the famous blueberry topping. Yum!
Matthew got some Magic cards as a present along with some other things.
He enjoys playing that game with some of his school friends.
We had a friend party for Matthew with some of his friends. He had about five school friends over to hang out, have pizza and watch a movie. I think they had fun. Here they are playing the Portal board game. Portal is a computer/video game Matthew played to completion. He wanted and received the board game version for his birthday.
On the weekend after his birthday we went out to lunch at Freddy's - one of our favorite birthday places. There is one in Ogden so we drove up there. It was kind of far, but we enjoyed our lunch. Here are the boys eating. Then we went to see Lego Movie 2. It was a lot of fun. Happy Birthday Matthew!!
Here are a couple more pics of Matthew.
Recently Matthew had a school presentation where each member of his class dressed up as a famous person. The requirements were that the person not be American (or not born in America), must have been influential on the world in a positive way and be deceased. His classmates chose people like Nicola Tesla, Mother Theresa, Galileo, Nelson Mandela etc. Matthew chose Satoru Iwata. He is a former president of Nintendo. I felt a little embarrassed at his choice since it seemed somewhat frivolous compared to all the people he could have done - he really wanted to do someone Japanese since he is interested in Japanese culture...and video games. So I didn't make any effort early on to influence his decision but wondering if I should have. I do think its important for kids to do their own work and come up with their own ideas for projects like this, so I don't know. Each class member got up and read a biographical poem they had written about their person. Matthew delivered his poem with much animation and spirit. Here he is reading his poem.
Here he is with his poster board about his person.
He did a good job.
Matthew was also involved in his school play recently. They did the play Alice in Wonderland and it was very cute - the musical Disney version - they paid for the rights to use it. Matthew chose to be on stage crew rather than act in the play. The stage crew was in charge of making all the sets so the first few weeks they were painting a lot. They had parents supervise but the kids did most of the work. Here is Matthew with some of the sets. We went to see his play this past weekend and the kids were excited to see him moving all the props and sets. Good work Matthew!
Matthew is a great big brother and puts up with a lot from his younger siblings.
We love you Matthew!!
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