Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Happy 13... Yes, I now have an offical teen.

I cannot believe that I am going to say the old cliche... but wow, time flies! I cannot believe that Madison is 13! This birthday was particularly difficult for me because it dawned on me I have fewer years with her at home than the the years I've spent with her.

To paint Madison as a budding 13 year old would be one of beauty and vibrancy. I am so proud of the young woman she is becoming. She is beautiful, but her beauty radiates much deeper than just her smile and stunning eyes; it burns bright from her kind heart that is full of integrity and strong character. She has chosen some amazing friends with similar goals, attitudes, and values; which in turn has given us 1 1/2 years of little to no middle school girl drama! She continues to love soccer and plays on the competitive soccer team traveling all over Colorado to compete, they finished their fall season in 1st place in the league with an undefeated record. She is now playing school basketball, and her team is also undefeated. She picked up playing the bass guitar over the summer and has joined the school jazz band as well as continuing to play the flute in the concert band. She has excellent grades in all her classes including both Honors Math and Honors Literacy. She has written some amazing poetry this year, which was published in the local news paper, and given amazing reviews from local poets. She really tries to battle that typical teen attitudes and disrespect and readily apologizes when she messes up. Her brother absolutely adores her and wants to be everywhere she is and do everything she does. Now don't get me wrong, not everything is rainbows and unicorns where Madison is concerned, her room is atrocious, she regularly shows evidence of having no frontal lobe, antagonizes her brother, and thinks that her social life trumps pretty much everything else... but she is a great kid that makes our jobs as parent's pretty easy.

Enough with the sappy stuff....

This year for her birthday she decided to do a sleep over bowling party with her friends. These 8 girls mowed through the food and closed down the bowling ally! They were all very entertaining for Brian and I. One of her friends is a pitcher for softball and for her first turn she did a complete fast pitch wind up with the bowling ball before releasing it down the lane. Her face was priceless when she realized what she had done, and it gave the rest of us a good laugh. Gracy managed to get her finger stuck in the bowling ball, and fought off panic for several minutes before she finally got it to release. For their second game of bowling they did what is called "funky bowl" which included bowling by holding the hand of a partner, pushing the ball down with their feet, and even "Tebowling". They had planned to do a flash mob at the bowling ally, but to their dismay they were one of 3 groups at the ally that late. Our entire living room was covered with mattresses, blankets and girls sprawled everywhere. The record for staying up the latest was not broken at our house (6:00 am), and our latest girl reported only making it to 2:00... must be the Caster house, we just can't stay up late here! I think a good time was had by all, and Madison was welcomed into the teens with a memorable party! Here are some pics from the event:


Learned: If 8 teen girls ate 3 lbs of bbq beef, 2 gallons of lemonade, 1 gallon of milk, 1 package of oreos, 1 bag of licorice, 1 king size box of Jr. Mints, 2 bags of Fritos, 2 cans of bean dip, 10 cinnamon rolls, 1 lb of bacon, and 1 dzn eggs, then we are in serious trouble when Maddox has his buddies over at 13...

Learned: (sappy) As Madison gets older, I am reminded, and my excitement is stirred, in seeing the plan God has for her. I know it is big, I know it is good.