Eight is Great

Evan will be eight on Thursday. He informed me that in six more years, he will be fourteen... Aaaaaaaaagh!

Due to scheduling conflicts, we decided to celebrate his birthday early. We invited Mom, John's family and another family from church to come over Saturday afternoon.

Friday night, since I couldn't sleep, I decided to make a card. After a while, James came and helped me, because he couldn't sleep either. Evan tells us that when he grows up, he wants to live in a treehouse (the influence of My Side of the Mountain evident here) and be an inventor (maybe Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang). On the front of the card, we wrote: "For your birthday, we wanted to invent a CAKE EATING MACHINE..." Inside: "but then we realized: That's Why We Have YOU!!" I made a little collage below this of small scanned in pictures of Evan with cake at each of his previous b-days.

Matthew (the next day, of course) wrote in the card: "Dear Evan, Thank you for playing with me. I made a present for you, but it melted. It was made out of ice. Happy Birthday! Love, Matthew" Sophie wrote: "Love Sophie" and drew a little picture of herself.

When the guests arrived on Saturday, we put old t-shirts on the kids, supplied them with painting paraphernalia, and gave them sticks and driftwood from Mom's yard to decorate as whatever creature they could imagine. All the kids enjoyed this activity, but Michelle and Sophie especially spent a lot of time on the details. Michelle painted a woodpecker and a chameleon into existence. Sophie's stick morphed into a "moose"(?!) and Conner took offense when we mistook his kitty-cat for a lizard.

Of course, we ate cake and watched Evan open presents. We gave him an electronic snap-circuit set with which he can make "over 300 exciting projects". Right off, the boys put it together to launch a small plastic fan in the air. They also quickly figured out how to cause it to emit all sorts of loud annoying noises (James bought the present, not me! ...But seriously, I think the gift is great fun. John, Jms' bro., said that he wants one too.)

Angi ran out to buy some bottles for Josi. I came into the room as John was feeding Josi and saw her start to cry when she caught sight of the bottle. She suffers from reflux and may be developing an aversion to the bottle. I danced around and distracted her with toys so that she ate without fighting it. Prayer request: She is going into the hospital on Friday for a scope to see if they can find out what seems to be the problem and what possible solutions might be. Pray that the procedure would go smoothly, for peace for the family, and for a resolution to her eating difficulty. Thank You!