Leah is 16!

 On December 30th, Leah turned 16! We spent the morning celebrating with good food, presents, and friends!

In the afternoon, kids wanted to revisit the 'derecho park'.  It was just as fun as ever, and thankfully no devastating storms this time. 

There was a tri-stake dance the night of Leah's birthday, and she decided to have a fondue and Jackbox games party before the dance with lots of her favorite friends. 

She had quite an unusual birthday cake this year- a fondue platter!

Such a fun group of friends! And, of note, Leah's first boy-girl birthday party.  It was definitely a success!

And then it was time for the stake dance!  In a marked action that highlighted this new chapter we are launching into, all of the party guests divided up into three or four cars and drove themselves to the dance. Including Adam!  His first stake dance was an extra fun one, and with a bit of brushing up at home he was ready to dance!

Thanks to Leah we got a few peeks into the dance- it looked like a hit!

Adam and Leah each danced every slow dance, as boys and girls should do at stake dances. 

Overall it was a fantastic day to celebrate Leah, and a great chance to reflect on what a sweet young woman she is growing up to be. Leah loves her mom and dad.  She wants to spend time with her family.  She smiles at people and says yes when she is asked to do hard things. She loves babies and has very little tolerance for mean people and she wants to serve a mission just as soon as she possibly can (January 2026 doesn't sound too far away at all!).  She is a great example of kindness and contentment.  She is grateful and kind and hardworking and gives us lots of reasons to be proud and laugh every day. 

Her big birthday and Christmas present was a new bow and/or violin.  After lots of testing out of lots of different options, she chose to get just a new bow, and it sounds wonderful. 

She's looking forward to a lot of firsts in this year- driving, getting a job, tackling some tough school courses, and dating!  In fact, she went on her first date just a few days after her birthday. 

On the same day as our stake winter youth conference- that Emma got to attend because she is officially a young women now!- Leah went on her first date.  A sweet young man in our stake asked her out and after quite a bit of planning, they went axe throwing and out for ice cream. It was supposed to be a double date and the other pair ended up being Adam and Andrew's little brother Eli.  And their parents drove them around!  So it was a pretty low-key first date and they all had a great time!

It's nice to have that highly anticipated first date checked off the list, and there are lots more fun dates and exciting adventures in store for Leah this year.  We took her out for the traditional birthdate a few days after her birthday at Olive Garden.  But first- pictures!

Delicious food, excellent company, only one kind of sad picture.  Ha!

She also got Crumbl cookies from Auntie Al! 

And of course there was a bit of birthday shopping. Look at this cutie!

It was a fantastic celebration of our best biggest girl. Happy sweet 16 peanut!  We love you!