A Week in the Life (of Jourdan)

Jourdan celebrated his 12th birthday last Monday.....just with the family (and Grandma and Grandpa, of course). We have yet to plan his "friend party" this year. We hope to have a spare moment to work on that this week sometime. Anyway, his sister mixed, baked, and decorated a birthday cake for her brother ALL BY HERSELF. Now, as you look at the picture, you might think "Hey, she made a cake that only SHE would think is awesome!"; but I assure you, she had her brother in mind. Jourdan loves Dahlias (he owns over 45 varieties - hundreds of actual tubers...just only 45 varieties). So, Julia made him a dahlia cake. She was so cute working on all the details for him. It was nice that he appreciated all her efforts. She even wrote him the cutest letter about how she would miss him when he grows up and goes to college someday because he's such a great older brother. It was SO CUTE!
The next day, Tuesday, we had our quarterly Court of Honor. Jourdan was awarded his Star rank in Boy Scouts. He actually earned it in February, but had to wait until this Court of Honor for his patch and his pin (I remembered to wear a shirt with a collar this time, yea me). Sorry about the strange picture with the huge chair, Julia took the photos for us and I haven't figured out how to crop things on the blog. On Wednesday, Jourdan had a choir concert at school. I didn't get any good pictures, and the videos I took are not great either, so we will refrain from posting them to spare you....you're welcome.

We were in Hawaii last month so we missed the award ceremony, but he was also awarded his Silver Award for 4.0 for the last trimester. Yippee! All his hard work is not going unnoticed. We are proud of him for putting so much effort into all the things he does. We don't think of him as an "over-achiever" but as a determined, hard-working young man.
The last news is that on Sunday, Jourdan was ordained as a Deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood. He worked hard to prepare for this too. He earned his Faith in God award and was presented with his certificate as well as his fathers "antique"* Faith in God medal. (*Apparently, Jonathan is WAY OLD because his medal was referred to as an "antique" by our bishop.....it was really kind of funny, but you probably had to be there.)He got to collect fast offerings for the first time right after church. He is looking forward to his new responsibilities (this is not sarcastic, he truly LOVES helping other people). Again, just to repeat what I always say, if cloning were possible, I really wouldn't mind having 10 kids....but....since you never know what you're going to get......I'll be happy with the two fantastic kids I have. I'm a lucky mom!