He's 18 !!

Holy cow - I have an 18 year old son ?!

I put extra expectations on myself when it comes to my kids birthdays,

especially when its a big milestone birthday - like 18.

So, for Justin's birthday, I put up balloons and a sign on the garage.

When Justin got home, his first comment was

"were you bored today?"

Such thanks.

He didn't see the sign and thought I'd just put up the balloons for the upcoming

Utah game.

For his 18th birthday, he went to school

and then came home and played

Pac Man on the computer.

Justin by his birthday sign

Doesn't he look old :)

The boys waiting for their dad so

Justin can start opening presents.

Speaking of presents,

check out all those presents ...

Kamryn and Jared ready to give some presents to Justin.

They could hardly stand waiting for him to open them.

In our family, Paul tells the kids they can either go out to dinner as a family on their birthday

or stay home and then get more presents. Justin picked to eat at home, sad for me, good for him.

Really, I was glad to make him a nice birthday dinner but he wouldn't tell me what he wanted.

So I grilled steaks, made twice baked potatoes and cream pies for dessert.

A couple of days before his birthday,

I asked Justin what he wanted

and this is the list he came up with:

• Kakuro or Sudoku book
• iTunes Card
• The Village (movie)
• Edward Scissorhands (movie)
• FYE/Ross gift cards
• Metroid Prime (video game)
• Funeral (album)
• The Office Seasons 1, 2, 3 on DVD or Community Season 1
• Harry Potter 7 shirt
• Dad to fix the computer

I thought this was a pretty do-able list.

I'd already bought the scissorhands movie so I was glad to see that on his list.

Taylor was a very cool brother and had already bought the game on Ebay with his own money

Instead of the Office on DVD, Brooke gave him an Office t-shirt.

Jared and Kamryn gave him Toy Story 3, which we all watched that night and really enjoyed.

My parents gave him an iTunes card. He also got the gift cards he wanted and the Harry Potter shirt.

Unfortunately for the family, Paul did not fix the computer for Justin's birthday.

He did something so much cooler - through his boss, Paul was able to get Justin 2 tickets to the Utah vs TCU game. And not just tickets but 2 tickets on the 50 yard line, 5th row!

Justin definitely got spoiled on this big milestone birthday! Hopefully he enjoyed it all.

We love him and are grateful he is part of our family and are really enjoying him.