You are sixteen going on seventeen

 

Sydney's teacher recently called her "the eternal child," and it's true. One of her defining personality traits is her continued love of pretend and whimsy. She is unconcerned with looking cool or like everyone else and dances to her own music literally.... even if there isn't any. She loves to laugh and feels deeply. She is very concerned and mature about her emotions and discusses them with forethought and understanding. She is learning to take more and more responsibility for herself and will be an amazing adult. She has a beautiful soul. 

She wanted to celebrate her 17th birthday with family, some of my friends :D and her boyfriend. She loves interacting with older people because she prefers their company to the frivolity of her peers. She also requested a reverse piñata that she could break out of, rather than break it open from the outside. Her boyfriend, Tyler, obliged with a giant Cheez-its she could get in and then break out of. It's so fun to watch her be silly. We love her a million!

Visitors!

 Nicole, Brendan, Tru, and Tru's roommate, Mia, came to visit us over Valentine's Day weekend! We had such a fun time hanging out together. We didn't get many pictures, but we enjoyed seeing them, and it's so awesome for our kids to get to know their older cousins :).

While they were here, Sydney was at the Montana Thespian Festival competing with her school. She won the best monologue award, so Nicole and I made her a shrimp piñata to celebrate! Sydney loves weird celebrations and hates shrimp, so we made her a shrimp piñata to destroy (filled with her favorite thing... Cheez-Its!). It was super funny to watch her break it open. Andy made a sign for it that said, "Your monologue was 'shrimply' the best!"