Teenager in the House!

Impossible as it is for me to belive, my first baby has just turned 13! It is absolutely crazy to me how quickly that time all went. And this year I have been reminded constantly how fast Taylor is growing. He has had several growth spurts and most of them were literally overnight. I had to buy new jeans and Sunday pants for him four times. Two of the times were within two weeks of each other and he'd barely worn the new stuff before they were already too short!
Taylor is a great kid. I know I've said before, but he seriously has one of the most brilliant minds of anyone I know. The kid can retain information like nothing I've ever seen. One of his quirks is that once he starts telling you about something, he cannot stop until he's finished. So sometimes we get quite an earful! He loves to read and watch any kind of scientific documentary out there. He is also hooked on the sci fi show Dr. Who along with Kalen and Kendall. Taylor is artistic and can sketch the most amazingly detailed scenes. One of my favorites is a poster size sketch he did of a tropical rainforest depicting all sorts of wildlife and plants. He has been coming a long way this past year with some of his sensory struggles including learning to swim. He has been going to work at it with Kalen and some of the other boy scouts about once a week in order to be ready for scout camp next week, and he has been doing really well and found that he actually is enjoying himself. Taylor challenges us in so many ways that we had never anticipated before we had kids but he is such a joy to have in our family and teaches us so much.

He had a fun birthday with just the family. (Even numbered birthday's get a friend party). Among all of his gifts, he ended up getting the game Risk and after the cake and ice cream were done, he, Kalen, Kendall and Timothy ended up playing for probably the next 7 hours. They went to bed at around 3:30 a.m. They're already planning another game night this coming weekend.

Oh, and just to show you exactly how tall my child has become I made Taylor pose for his picture:




I know it's not saying all that much because I'm not exactly even average height, but still it's a strange thing to be talking to him and actually have to look up a tiny bit!