Birthday’s Galore!

Mike is the most awesome Dad and husband. In the midst of his horrendously busy week at work, he came home long enough to have dinner, open presents and have some ice cream. THEN he went back to work. After this crunch week, I think the ORI will seem like “light duty”. {grin}

Bre called and had the entire Master’s Commission sing Happy Birthday to Nolan. He was thrilled. Unfortunately, when they called back we told them we’d call as soon as we were done opening gifts…and we couldn’t. They’d called with a pre-paid plan and we couldn’t reach them with the number. We’re sad – ok – I’m sad. {sigh}

Some pictures from the evening’s festivities! Ah – looking at these pictures I realized we forgot the Pig Hat for the first time in years….bummer!!!! Maybe they can take turns with him on Saturday. {g}

We’ll have the big cake on Saturday. The boys opted for cookies and ice cream tonight. HOWEVER….enough singing already…let’s get on with the eating part!

Trick Candles….

Our miners – yes, I realize Zander is without clothes in many of these pictures. I figure when it is nearing 70* outside it just isn’t worth the fight. Those from AK will be happy to know that he no longer takes his clothes off at chapel…or the commissary…. Thanks Cynthia for the suggestion of these lights!

Nolan gets a glimpse of his Radio control JEEP.

Zander did remarkably well watching Nolan with the Jeep. He opened his big gift and it was a bike helmet. He said, “What do you know – one of THESE!” He didn’t understand the significance of the gift. When he saw the bike…wow. Mike teased him and said something to the effect of “What do you think of my new bike, Alex?” Zander came right back with, “Actually Dad, It’s MINE!” {g}

It really is like Christmas around here….Zander ends the birthday celebration the same way he ended Christmas…playing with the *BOX*!

Poor Baby

Stacia with her rosy-feverish cheeks. 

Health Update!

Nolan - hoarse but motovating.

Zander - stuffed up and cold-like but VERY full of energy.

Stacia - please pray. She finally went down for a nap but her nose is running, she's coughing and sounds hoarse and I think she has a fever...but I didn't have the heart to wake her to give her meds quite yet.

Josiah - fever is better but his throat is really sore.

I'm thinking that a benefit to family parties is that you can carry on even if someone is sick and they don't have to miss out on the festivities.

Missionary Kids or Christmas in February

Somewhere along the line today we ended up deciding that we may as well open Zander’s gifts tonight. The issue is that we are not doing the typical cake, restaurant etc “family party” because they have chosen to have a “friends party”. The friends party happened to fall on Zander’s birthday. I think if we tell him all day it’s his birthday and then expect him to share all the attention at the park…..well I don’t think he’ll understand….and I can’t figure out how to fit in his private family gift giving thing with the Saturday party. Nolan suggested we let him open gifts tonight. This will be great because they got many of the same gifts. Zander’s big gift is a bike and so we may wait and give that to him at the Park on Saturday.

Josiah’s birthday is tomorrow so we decided to wrap all the gifts this afternoon…and it really was like Christmas in Feb….in fact…more gifts than Christmas. The kids, once again, are teasing me about my lack of wrapping finesse. Mom, I blamed it on you. :::snort::: I told them that growing up in Liberia we had to IRON our wrapping paper and use it again. That we took enough wrapping paper and chocolate chips in the missionary barrel to last for 3 years and that we had to be very careful what we used….so I didn’t do a lot of wrapping while overseas. :::snort::: The funny thing is that I ran out of paper to wrap all of Josiah’s gifts so I told them they would need to play “missionary kids” tonight and be very careful to save some paper so we could iron it and use it to wrap Josiah’s gifts.

Zander’s Zany Comebacks

I really think that there is something in Sam’s Club that causes my rather boisterous , “all-boy”, young man to loose all his inhibitions. This was his first trip back since the “last incident” in Sam’s club.

We had gone to the party store to buy goodie bag stuffings and paper goods for Saturday’s birthday bash. We ordered a cake. We picked up stuff for tonight’s birthday dinner…..I had Stacia and Zander in a cart and Arielle and Nolan were pushing a cart with food.

A sweet lady ran into me (literally!) and said, “I’m sorry, I was just watching your beautiful children”. I smiled. Zander said, “Are you NUTS?” UGH.



This so reminded me of Jamin’s question to grandpa when he was this age. Dad asked him if he wanted to take a nap and with the same intonation he said, “Grandpa, are you CRAZY?”


I can only pray that Zander matures past this into the man that Jamin has become.

Happy Birthday to Nolan!

Nolan turns seven years old today. Seven – doesn’t that seem like a milestone? To me it seems like he is leaving the “early childhood” phase. He’s very excited about this birthday. I’m praying to be able to make it a special transition for him.

Nolan is working so hard to conquer his speech problems. We are almost at a place where he CAN say most sounds….it’s a matter of slowing down now and saying them in routine speech. This is HUGE. When we left Alaska we were still at about 50% as far as “understandability”. He is also working very hard on his phonics. We’d been told to delay reading for him and we did. Now they are saying that the think his reading program is the big factor in his learning the sounds…because it is forcing him to slow down and concentrate on individual sounds….who knows?

We usually don’t have “friend parties”. It’s been our experience that each child has requested a “friend party” once or twice. For the most part they discover they would rather have a “family party”. We’ve got the “family party” routine well-honed. Everything came together this year for Nolan to have a “friend party”. 1. We have friends. Friends are not something we take for granted as a military family. In any given year you may be the new kid on the block or your best buddy may move the week before your birthday. You never know…so on a year when you have friends; it’s best to go for it. 2. Mike is insanely busy this week – the week before the ORI and so our typical “family party” – a whole day of celebrations will be “off” anyway. 3. Zander’s birthday falls on Saturday and so the boys can easily have a big combo party. 4. Narnia fever is big in our house and we are dying for a Narnia Party – what a great opportunity to have a birthday party as well. {g}

I’ve taken time to prepare him that since he is having a party this will be different than other years. We had planned to do family gifts today but I’m not sure if Mike will be home in time. We will have some decorations (thanks BreAnne), we’ll sing, we’ll have ice-cream and have our blessing circle….but the cake and such will be on Saturday. I think he’s prepared for this.

Children’s birthday’s are always a time of reflection for me. I can remember clearly being told that it was highly unlikely I’d carry babies to term….and here I am the mother of many. I remember clearly the day I told God he was “enough” and I’d make a choice to be content with no children….and soon after BreAnne entered our life….Nolan - our 4th son….7th child….turns 7 today. Yippee!