Happy Birthday, Micah!!!

Can you believe that my sweet baby boy is 7??!?!?!? When and how this happened, I don't know. I mean just yesterday he looked like this:

And now he's reading, writing in cursive, and singing in Latin to me. Oh, what a bittersweet thing it is to watch your children grow! My sweet boy has grown a lot in the last year. Whereas his selective hearing has not improved as much as I would have preferred, he has matured in many ways. He is a big helper. He helps clean bathrooms, take out trash, unload the dishwasher, dust, start laundry, and will ask if there is something he can do to help me. He is reading much easier now and comprehending as he reads instead of me having to remind him what was said in the last sentence. He's skip counting, adding, subtracting, and doing basic algebra. He lost his first tooth after we moved here, which was a pretty big deal to him as you can see a "Man Tooth" poking through. He's grown in height too, of course, and is within two inches of Nathanael. Thankfully, he has not outgrown his need for regular snuggling and is a super cuddly kid. Not sure how much longer that will last, but I'll take it while I can get it. :)

On his actual birthday (which was Friday, the 16th) we celebrated with a breakfast he requested.  We had some special guests at our house sharing this wonderful day with us. Some of our very good friends are missionaries overseas. They have been back in the States to renew their visas and have a baby. We saw them back in September when the mom was still pregnant. Due to a delay in getting their new visas, they are still in the US and decided to use some of their extra time to come introduce the baby to us. They came on Thursday night and stayed through Sunday around lunch time. We were so excited to meet our new little friend! And we were really excited to share another birthday with our good friends who have been at almost all our birthday parties since Luke turned 1. There are many years of memories with them. The weather was fabulous and we got a break from the frigidness we have been having and had a 63 degree day. So the kids got to play outside for the first time in a long time. We went out for gluten free pizza for dinner and had apple crisp for dessert. John and I gave him our gift, which he had requested for Christmas and had not received at that time. He was pretty happy with it.

To celebrate his big day, Micah had his first pool party! We held this on the 17th. As a perk of being YMCA staff, I get half off party packages. We have often gone to King's Dominion (amusement park) to celebrate Luke and Nathanael's birthdays, but those kinds of places are never open in January. So Micah was pretty excited for this opportunity. We invited all his friends from his CC class, as well as our new friends from church, and a couple of kids from our neighborhood. We had a great turnout. The kids splashed and played and slid down the waterslide for the first hour. I was in the pool with the kids, so there aren't pics from this part of the party. Then we changed and headed into the gym for the second hour. We had cake and ice cream (yonanas for the dairy sensitive kids) and then Micah opened his gifts. One perk to having a lot of people at your party is that you get a lot of gifts. He got some great stuff! After the gifts were opened, the kids played with the balls that are in the gym until it was time to leave. We went back home and had one of Micah's favorite meals (chili and cornbread) and then my kids and our friend's kids watched Planes:Fire and Rescue and had popcorn. Micah said it was a great birthday and he had a great time.

He asked for a pool cake

Having fun eating cake

Playing with the balls in the gym

Now marks that time of year when all my boys' ages line up for the next three months and I get to have fun shocking people with the closeness in their ages. They are now seven, eight, and nine (until the end of April when Luke turns 10.) The year that I got the most fun out of it was in 2009 when they were really little. People would ask if they were all mine and be shocked that they were and then ask how old they were. Answering with "One, two and three" was sure to draw comments all of kinds.

I will leave you with my little cutie on his very first birthday, getting tickles from his mama.