Happy Birthday, D!

It's official... I'm the mother of a teenager as my oldest son turns 13 today. I'm having a difficult time wrapping my mind around this fact because it just doesn't seem possible that my baby could be this old already. Even though he's only 5'4", his size 10 shoe indicates to me that he's still got some growing to do.

Here are a few pics of my boy as we celebrate his special day...

This was taken at the birthday party he shared with his brother. You may or may not know that their birthdays are one day apart. He's still cool with sharing a birthday party with his younger brother and I'm grateful I can get by with one shindig a year instead of two.


Here the big man gets thrown in the stockade for misbehaving in Colonial Williamsburg. That'll teach him!


The big guy learned to make baked apples while at Boy Scout camp in the spring. He likes to make them for other people. Here he is in my mom's kitchen in Kentucky, making baked apples for the fam. Now if we could just get him to expand on this whole cooking deal, I'd have it made.


D is still dealing with braces, even though this isn't an updated photo. He now has braces on his lower teeth as well. It's all part of growing up, I tell him. He's not buying it.


Here D poses with Dad, M and Air Force football coach Troy Calhoun at a fairly recently held college coaches tour. D loves watching football and is gearing up to play flag football this year.


If you've seen D in only a few candid photos, you'll notice he has this thumbs up pose he quite frequently makes for the camera. It's like his signature thing to do whenever he's having his picture made. One day he'll look back at this photos and ask me why I allowed him to act like such a geek.


We were actually out to dinner when this photo was taken. D is totally uninhibited, can you tell? He's quite the clown wherever he goes.

Happy Birthday, D! Love you, big guy!