Quinn celebrated his 12th birthday last week. I
know I say this all the time, but I honestly can’t believe he is 12! I know I
will say that each year because it does seem like just yesterday that he was a
tiny little baby (well, not so tiny for those who remember his birth weight but
still a lot smaller than he is now). He’s growing into a fine young man, and I
love that he while he’s grown up in a lot of ways, he still has time for hugs
from mom and is very loving, telling us every day that he loves and appreciates
us.
As usual, his birthday seemed to last more than just one day
– with really three different celebrations.
The first celebration was the weekend before when Nana, Papa
and Aunt Annie came to visit and celebrate with Quinn. We went out to dinner on
Saturday night (thanks Papa!) and Quinn chose the restaurant – although it was
partly governed by him wanting to go to the Lego Store which meant he chose
from the restaurants at Tysons Corner. We had a great meal at Gordon Biersch
Brewery, and got our shopping in at Lego – even Keely managed to get some
shopping in at Justice (how does that manage to happen?!?!). I made a train
cake…I at first thought Quinn was harkening back to his younger years wanting a
basic train cake but in typical Quinn fashion, he surprised me by making the 4
cars into a Metro train cake. Fitting since I work on the Dulles Rail Metro
extension J
He’s so creative, just asking me to make and ice the cake and then he takes
over with decorating. He designed each of the cars, and even had Gummy Bears
waiting on the platform to board the train. Two cars were carrot cake with
cream cheese frosting and the other two were chocolate cake with vanilla frosting.
It was a really cute cake, and tasted great! After cake, he opened presents –
the theme this year was mostly Legos and books. I honestly wonder when he will
outgrow his Legos – maybe never! There’s nothing he likes more than tearing
into a new set of Legos and following the directions to build the set…except
tearing it down and making his own creations! Oh, and devouring a new book of
course :)
The second was his actual birthday. Since he’s now in middle
school, there was no celebration at school except he did get 12 pieces of candy
from the 6th grade principal. He chose dinner…which was breakfast.
French toast J
We surprised him with Crumbs cupcakes for dessert – a treat for the whole
family (except James who doesn’t eat cupcakes) and he got his presents from us –
a Lego set from Mom & Dad, and a book from Keely. See, the theme continues
on…
The third and last celebration was with his friends. He initially
tried to talk us into Paintball, but we talked him into a sleepover because paintball
is quite expensive. At 3 AM when they were still awake, I was thinking maybe
paintball would have been a better – albeit more costly – choice! We had his
two best friends over. They had pizza, watched a movie, ate popcorn, candy, and
ice cream cake (homemade – and much better on my second attempt!).They stayed
up way too late…and got up way too early. They had fun though, and that’s what
matters most!
So now Quinn is 12, and we have one more year before he is
officially a teenager. Still, I marvel at how quickly that seems to have
happened. The reality is he’s growing up, and there is not one thing we can do
to stop that – so we enjoy each day with him and marvel at the fine young man
he is becoming!
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