Andy at age 13

This past year has marked some real growth for Andy. He grew 8 inches between Sept. 2023 and Sept. 2024, starting at 5'1" and ending at 5'9". I think he's grown another couple inches since then and is looking really close to Cameron these days. (They wear the same shoe size right now!) He's in the thick of teenager-hood these days and is changing rapidly. We love him so much.

We try to have monthly appointments to go do baptisms at the temple. Cameron and I usually alternate taking him. In general Andy likes going and says he notices he feels good the rest of the day when we go.

Andy continues to mostly enjoy mountain biking. He did the Junior Devos again this year. He and I had to share my bike this season because he outgrew his old bike.

Andy loves cars and is always taking pictures of cool cars when we're out and about.

Like the rest of the middle school boys, Andy wanted a summer buzz. Most boys also bleached theirs, but he's so blonde it already looked bleached.

Andy and cute Grant in Bear Lake. Andy's really sweet with the younger cousins.

Andy went to BYU soccer camp with Kade Ballam and got to sleep over for the first time! All in all a success even though we didn't know he was supposed to bring soap, so I'm sure he was the smelliest camper all week. He told me he just showered with water haha.

His counselor

He's still sometimes into pokemon. He and Max will occasionally play together.

At a trampoline park this summer with his friend Grayer. He hangs out with Grayer a lot.

Andy and Louie

At a junior devo race

I think this is from a ride in Cedar City after a junior devo race. It was fun to do races with Charlie this year!

Big change--Andy switched to a new soccer team this year! Overall, it's been a great thing. The new coach Ezra is awesome. Andy's a key player and get a lot of play time. Bronson and Cooper from his old team moved to this team too. He plays defense. He prefers the side (I think left?) but coach has been sticking on mid more.

He's done choir this year and has really liked it. We told him we'd pay him $50 if he accompanies them next semester. (We did talk him into joining our ward choir recently and he even accompanied the choir today playing "Still, Still, Still."

Andy kept telling me he'd go on a big hike with me so I finally checked him out in October and we did Sunset Peak together. It was so fun to have some one on one time with him and he totally opened up to me and chatted with me much more willingly and openly than I typically experience. I felt like I had an afternoon back with my boy that I've missed so much. I loved it.

Also, he's a good hiker! I wondered if he'd have trouble keeping up with me but he had no trouble at all.

Andy's been deacons quorum president since January and it's been a wonderful experience for him. He's really good about taking his responsibilities seriously and remembers his meetings, activities he's supposed to plan, etc. He still gets to church early so he can be ready to pass the sacrament (I think this is mostly because he has a certain position that's his favorite).

Andy's had very strong opinions about his hair this year. And they differ from my opinions haha. We finally went to GOAT haircuts and settled on this compromise. I'm still not a fan of the front of his hair, but I'll deal with it. :) He was very pleased with this haircut. You can just tell overall how much he really cares about his clothes, hair, shoes, and everything appearance related these days. 

Piano has been quite the battle. We tell him he require him to do it, even though he says he'd like to quit. We promise him he'll regret this, so we won't allow it. He practices an hour a day. (Though I would say, probably 20-30 minutes of it is effective practice.) His main pieces this year have been Prokofiev Sonata No. 2 4th movement and Liebestraum No. 3 by Liszt. It was so fun to hear him play "my" Prokofiev from when I was young! (Even if he wasn't open to any feedback from me and still plays some wrong notes that I don't bother to correct, haha.) He wasn't quite ready in time for the Encore Keyboard Comp. so we had him do the Ogden Piano Festival. He got second place! He's incredibly talented and good and makes remarkable progress considering how little he actually practices. He's working on Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G minor right now and really loves it. He's always wanted to play it. He also just accompanied our ward choir with Still, Still, Still. His first time accompanying and he did great!

Another pic of his awesome new team. They got first in their division and will move up this spring.

Choir concert

8th grade picture

• He's wanted to learn to wear contacts, but is particularly sensitive to touching his eyes and it has been very difficult. He's tried every year for the last few years. He recently broke his glasses playing basketball (I think this has happened five times), so he was particularly motivated to try again because he really hates his backup glasses. He did finally get contacts in one day, but I'm not sure if they just weren't in right or don't fit correctly? He could hardly keep his eyes open and they were all swollen by the end of the night. But he acted like he was fine haha.
• Girls. I don't want to embarrass Andy too much, but I'll just say he usually has a certain girl he's texting quite a bit. Right now, it's Jules. Earlier this year it was Isla. He may have dropped off a candy bar on her porch as a Christmas present.
• He's still super into candy and treats in general. He stole almost my entire stash of piano teaching treats (this was a large stash) and I found all the wrappers under his pillow. Entire bags of things will disappear of things and we all know it was Andy. He also takes all of our gum. 
• He is super into his music and is constantly listening. We recently got him an iphone and his own spotify account plus airpods. But before that, he had to use his gabb phone to make video recordings of music playing from his alexa. He had hundreds of recordings on his phone. He'd use headphones to listen. We go to say his name a lot only to realize he can't hear us because he always has headphones in. He loves Travis Scott and rap in general. Right now his favorite song is Dark Red by Steve Lacy. Also 90210 by Travis Scott. 
• He's usually blasting music from his alexa late at night even though we've told him not to and that his lights to be turned off, haha. He still likes both of us to come down and say goodnight to him, which I think is really sweet. He'll usually let me hug him but he says "no kisses." :)
• Andy says 8th grade has been better than 7th grade. He's still learning how to stay organized and on top of assignments. And how to study in advance for things, instead of always planning on just retaking things if they don't go well. We've recently had to create a system where he comes home from school and does an hour of homework where we can see him (so he doesn't just play games on his chromebook). We also have an incentive system where he gets paid for grades. I think his hardest subject has been Spanish and he doesn't love it. Choir has been his favorite. He recently did the honor choir. He's still in all four ALL classes (spanish, math, english, and history). He's a really smart kid!
• Screens continue to be a hot topic with Andy! We recently realized he'd been getting up at midnight to watch the Simpsons. (He's only admitted to doing this a couple of times, but I'm sure it's happened more than that.) So, we had to buy a new family IT system where we have more control over when devices work and what he can see. 
• He loves to play ping pong and is very good. He and Cameron play a lot at night. 
• One of the things he'll semi-willingly do with me is play Cover Your Assets. But I think he's won basically every time. He's a genius and counts cards, and I never stand a chance. 
• Friends! He's definitely at the age he wants to be with friends constantly and never with his family. :) His second family is Grayer Paulsen's family. He also loves to be at Kade Ballam's house. Isaac Smart joins with that group a lot too. He also has a group of ALL friends he hangs out with--Nathan, Bennett, Parker, Drew, and Gideon. He's also been hanging out with Rhett with Newman. It seems like he has good friends and is surrounding himself with good people. 
• Andy talks about his mission semi-regularly. He also wants to go to BYU. He also talks about wanting to make a lot of money so he can buy a big modern house and drive a Porsche 911GT3RS. His mind was blown after going to House of Jade's parade home and he started talking about how he was going to make enough money to live in a house like that. :) 
• We love our Andy! He's definitely in full blown teenager mode, but he's still such a good kid. We can't wait to see where life takes him.