A Simple Sweet Sixteen Weekend

Last weekend our younger daughter turned Sweet 16! She’s our quiet, low key girl so she’s never one for a big fuss or for being in the spotlight. With that, plus all the complications with trying to plan a gathering during Covid, she opted for a quiet weekend with a few of her favorite things.

Favorite Thing #1: Friday afternoon we finished school and headed for the barn. We lease a horse at a community barn down the road from our house and she rides two or three times a week. The fall weather has been gorgeous for riding lately! We just love autumn days at the barn!! Midnight is so cute and fuzzy right now with his winter coat coming in. He looks and feels like a soft stuffed animal. A big one!

Favorite Thing #2: Our usual Friday night tradition doesn’t change for birthday weekends; it just gets better! Our usual Friday nights are pizza and Andy Griffith, followed by a movie and Joel’s legendary popcorn. On a birthday weekend, the birthday person gets to choose the pizza, movie, etc. This girl loves a braided pizza but mom goofed and didn’t have time to make the special crust, so we moved to Plan B and made homemade stuffed crust pizza instead, which she’d also recently mentioned wanting.

Barney Boy is allowed inside for the movie and, y’all, he knows the routine. When he hears Joel opening the kitchen drawer to get out the big pot, he knows Joel is about to make the popcorn and he runs to the kitchen to watch (and drool). Then, during the movie, he goes around the room with his sad eyes, begging for popcorn. We usually takes turns tossing a piece in the air for him to catch. He will stare you down until you give in.

Favorite Thing #3: On Saturday, we took the birthday girl to Bass Pro Shop, one of her favorite stores. She requested that we take Barney since the store is very pet friendly and he loves it there! He did have to warm up to the bear though and while we girls were over in the ladies clothing department, we heard Barney barking. Joel said he was barking at the bear, thinking it was real.

Favorite Thing #4: Saturday night wasn’t exactly a birthday tradition but our annual “Great Pumpkin Party” when we watch “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” and make Jack-O-Lantern Cheeseburger Pie with other party snacks and goodies.

I’ve been making this Jack-O-Lantern Cheeseburger Pie every year since my girls were itty bitty. It’s as tasty as it is cute!

Favorite Thing #5: Ok, breakfast is not one of my daughter’s favorite things because she never feels like eating much in the morning. But Sunday was her actual birthday and we wanted to have something special before church, so maple glazed donuts and pumpkin spice coffee ended up being just enough while she opened her presents (pumpkin spice coffee is one of her favorite things!). Since it was her Sweet 16 and she wasn’t having a party, I decorated the breakfast table to add a little something festive to her day. These are her colors! I got the paper goods at Dollar General which she liked a lot and had a good chuckle over the triangles since she’s been studying triangles in geometry. Ha!

Favorite Thing #6: After church we had her birthday lunch of spaghetti and salad, followed by her cookie cake that she made herself! She’s our baker girl and likes to make her own birthday dessert. After visiting Bass Pro Shop the day before, she felt inspired to decorate it with a wilderness scene. Can you spot the shooting star? It was pretty and delicious!!

Favorite Thing #7: And of course the weekend included copious amounts of kitty snuggles with Pumpkin! We are usually fighting over who gets to hold the cat, but we did give the birthday girl some priority cat-holding privileges for her special weekend.

Y’all, I just can’t with this cat. I mean, look at the face.

I haven’t blogged much lately because I’ve felt the Lord leading me in other directions that need my attention more. And I’ve been BUSY! I do miss it, and maybe my daughter does too because while we were having fun at Bass Pro with Barney, she said, “Mom, you should write a blog post about this.” So, per the birthday girl’s request, here it is! And I also found a few fall recipe posts from last year that were in my drafts that never got posted last fall (I have no idea why), so those might be showing up soon too.

Happy Sweet Sixteen to our dear girl!