15!

Savannah reached her 15th birthday today.  I never got used to 14, and now I have to reconcile 15. Wow!

We celebrated at home with family.  

We lit the candles on the cookie cake, but we also enjoyed cheesecake.  Andy learned a secret to making cheesecake from The Cake Boss, and Andy's cheesecake is way awesome!  Andy's mom also brought her homemade angel food cake along with strawberries and whipped cream.  Savannah is our only child who prefers homemade desserts for her birthday celebration. Wyatt sometimes requests them too.

John and Tessa

Per our tradition which actually started because of Savannah's birthday, we take a picture of the birthday child with each of the guests.  I started this after celebrating Savannah's fourth birthday.  Andy's dad lived out of state and joined us for that celebration which we held the day before Savannah actually turned four.  I felt led all night to take a picture of Savannah with her Pa as they were having such a great time together.  However, Andy's mom was unable to make it to the party, and we were going to vacation with them in the summer, so I decided to wait and get a picture with both of them.  Andy's dad was hit by a car while running the next morning and killed instantly.  I now try to follow every prompting to take a picture because when planning the funeral, pictures were gathered of Tom with each of his grandchildren, and we could not find one of him with Savannah.

Uncle Joshua, Savannah, and Dad

Granny (Andy's mom) 

Logan, Austin, and Tiffany - Julia crashed this picture with her smiley face balloon.

Jonathan, Regan, Danielle, and Ira - easier than expected to get both kids to face the camera, but I think Ira is mid blink

Tara

Our day started with all kinds of craziness.  As soon as I first entered the kitchen this morning, Wyatt warned me that there was glass on the floor.  I discovered a group of dish towels laid out on the floor.  The kids picked up the big pieces of glass then covered the rest with the towels, so clean up was a bit messy as I had to be careful with the towels embedded with tiny shards of glass.

Wyatt asked for cinnamon toast, so I prepped and put the toast in the oven.  I walked away and returned to black toast with smoke pouring out of the oven.  When I opened the oven, the fire alarm sounded. Oh Joy!

Savannah had to see the dentist, great birthday gift, right?  I took her and dropped her off and then dropped Julia off at a birthday party.  I used Andy's key because I could not find mine.  When returning to pick Julia up from the party, I lost Andy's key.  I had to drive Zach's car to work in the church nursery.

We started the party, and I went to take a picture of the cake only to realize that the battery for my camera was dead.  It literally lasts for months, so I rarely have to charge it.  I ended up using my phone which is a positive step for me.  In the past I probably would have slowed everything down to wait for the camera battery to charge.  I do confess that I am spoiled by my camera as I am disappointed in the quality of the pictures from the party.

 It always seems that we do not sprint to a celebration around here, we run an all day marathon, but it seems to work out in the end.  I had fun.  Savannah had fun, and hopefully, everyone else did too.

Julia looked like this after her friend's party.