Camilla Maren is Officially a teenager!!!!

Its official. We have a teenager in the family. Luckily the teenager goes by the name of Cami and she is easing us into this uncharted territory. She has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few months and is excited to pass me up. She measures herself against me like every day or two just to check if the blessed event has happened yet. 

She continues to kick bum in school. She has loved math counts, debate, and show choir (where she is a student conductor). She has progressed in piano a ton and practices frequently without reminders...its a wonderful thing. She has also loved taking coding classes weekly at the college. She is a great baby sitter. The other day I was watching a baby girl, rocking her and singing to her and Cami walked in from school. Within like 2 seconds the baby was reaching and begging for her instead of me...Sad and beautiful all at the same time.

For Cami's birthday she couldn't decide if she wanted a party or a date this year. Finally at the last minute I decided to help her out and threw her a surprise party. I picked her and her friends up from their weekly temple day and we grabbed pizza. We came home at pizza and the kids hung out for a while til it was dark. Then we played a mash up of capture the flag/fugitive. We hid a red flag/box thing somewhere in the neighbor hood and they had to find it and get back to our drive way without getting flashed by our headlights. Brent and I drove around for about two hours flashing them with heaters blasting as they dodged behind bushes and cars or army crawled across grass. They seemed to have fun despite the fact that it was January...

Anyway, after that we came home to hot chocolate and a movie. We also had a family party the day of her actual birthday because I couldn't let the actual thing pass without celebrating the girl that made me a mom in the first place. 

Cami is a good kid in so many measurable ways but more importantly she is a good person in ways that can't be measured. She loves and has a gentle heart and watches out for "the little guy." I love this girl. She makes our family a great place to be.