These friends have been celebrating birthdays together since they first met in scouts in the first grade. Matt had to drop out of scouts many years ago due to swimming commitments and scouting ones conflicting far too often, and Alex finally called it a day with scouting last year, but the friendships continue and the memories they built in those years of scouting activities, camping, and such have led to the memories they make now with their teen social years.
Their voices have all changed...they all shave...they all drive...they all are juniors and they all don't see that we parents still see them sitting around the birthday tables when their feet didn't even touch the floor and wonder where all this time went all so quickly. 
Susan, these next two shots are for you! Susan makes and custom decorates the most wonderful sugar cookies for all occasions. She made Matt's centered around swimming, 17th birthday theme, baseball, etc. and they were a big hit with the guys who love cookies and brownies.
The next photo was taken after the baseball game with them sitting down at the kitchen table to desserts of cookies and brownies, and trying, with their 17 year old large size hands, to untie the little ribbons Susan had carefully tied to each little package of cookies. 
It was hysterical to watch these guys try to get those little ribbons untied, unknotted, and the cookies unsheathed. Susan, you would have enjoyed it and the giggles from the guys trying to see who could get theirs out first, or at all!
And, because Alex was not able to be there this year, here's a photo my friend Jan found the other day while scrapbooking some scout memories for Johnny, of Alex at scout camp in 2005 when he was twelve years old. Alex, always the littlest guy through the years, is the one at the first table facing the camera. Talk about changes...he's grown a bit since then, changed eyeglass styles, and has a different haircut, but when I look at this photo, I still see him like this as if it were yesterday. You were missed, Alex. 