Caelan's 20th Birthday

Our first child graduated from the teenaged years! She and Noah returned on the heels of a nationwide blizzard from enjoying an early Christmas with his family. She happily displayed all of the special gifts Noah's family gave her for both Christmas and her birthday. That evening, Caelan's birthday eve, Gabby and Chase stopped by after doing some Christmas shopping. Gabby was scheduled to work all the next day, so Caelan got to open Gabby's gift to her early. It was kind of a solid few days of gift opening for Caelan, lol :) She was very excited about the three-foot long box filled with make-up brushes from her sister!

With extreme cold temps outside (like negative 40 with the windchill), Caelan didn't really want to go anywhere on her birthday. Graysen made her chocolate chip waffles for brunch, while I cooked up some eggs and bacon. It was a pretty low-key day around the house . . . I made the brownies she requested in lieu of cake, and then spent about 25 minutes mixing, mixing, mixing Christmas fudge from the Chip and JoJo magazine. It turned out soooo yummy! A big section of the pan mysteriously disappeared overnight, ha, but there was plenty left for Christmas :)

While she was visiting Noah's family, Caelan finally completed her turtle project! It quickly became the favorite lounger on our lounging around the house day :)

But, eventually the boys got hungry. We were hoping Buck could join us, since he went in to work early, but with the craziness of the storm aftermath and employees calling in sick (eye roll), he got stuck working later than he wanted to. Since he had the truck, and Noah's car has all-wheel drive, Noah agreed to drive us across the slippery, snow-covered roads to the restaurant. The boys were waiting, and waiting, and waiting for Caelan to be hungry enough to give the go-ahead. They had to wait all the way to, like, 5:30! :)

Even though the restaurant was quite busy, we got a table right away, next to the Christmas tree! Our food was served quickly and was delicious (it was almost a bit dizzying after the graduation dinner fiasco :) We missed our usual crowd, but we were glad we got to go out to celebrate a special meal for Caelan. And, Buck arrived home shortly after we did. He watched the end of White Christmas with us (Noah's first viewing), and he ate the second half of my Reuben (the magical sandwich that contains all the ingredients I find disgusting on their own, but when combined become something delightful! :) We enjoyed the birthday brownies, with special sparking, sparkling candles, and then Caelan opened the remainder of her gifts.

Graysen gave her sparkly pink pens (with refill cartridges), Brennen gave her a personalized travel-sized make-up mirror in pink, and Buck and I gave her her annual salon certificate to get her hair done (she's already got that scheduled :) 

And what about Noah? Well, he's been secretly working on a birthday project for months! Knowing how much Caelan enjoys Broadway plays and music, he wrote her a personalized musical score. For each of the five songs, he wrote lyrics and music, performed and recorded the piano and drum and vocals, mixed in strings and choruses, and then edited and edited and edited until it sounded just right (I'm sure there were a lot more steps, but those were the ones I could comprehend :) 

We all knew about the project, so when it came time to play the gift for Caelan, he wanted to do it at their special place--where he first asked her to go out with him and where he proposed. Both times, she was resistant, not really wanting to go because of the weather. Both times it was well worth the drive! She told him she would never again hesitate if he invited her to the trail. So, when he invited her on her -40 degree birthday, she thought he was joking, and of course was like, "No way are we going on a hiking trail today; you can't be serious." But he was! And we all knew why, as per usual. Of course, we also all knew they would be sitting in a heated vehicle, not walking the frigid trail--he just didn't mention that part. It was really funny. We reminded her of her plan to never refuse such an invitation again. Noah even added in, "We'll grab coffee on the way!" She finally complied and was very glad she did, as per usual :) 

We got to listen to several of the songs when they returned. The funniest is called "Chemistry in Biology," recapping how they were taking the same Biology class (albeit online and in person) and how discussing that class got them talking, revealing the fact that there was some relationship chemistry between them :) Very sweet!

Hooray for birthdays and celebrations and thoughtful surprises! I'm grateful for the amount of love in our family, and I'm grateful that it pours out in abundance on special days like this 💕