the face of 40

Brian's birthday was on a Sunday this year, so we'll stole about an hour of his busy day for dinner and his favorite-mint chocolate chip ice cream cake.

It was an intimate gathering of Brian's favorite people, all within hugging and smooching vicinity. 

After cake, he left for church responsibilities.  The rest of us got busy plastering his bathroom mirror with sticky notes telling him "40 things we love about you".

My favorites:

You let me punch your hands (Keaton)

You let us eat on the floor out of a big bowl when Mom's not home (Shelby)

You can build a good fire (me)

He loves Keaton and me (Weston)

He makes us safe (Kate)

Some kind of 6

A couple of days before Weston turned 6, I asked him why he was so excited for his birthday.  His answer was pretty simple, "My friends are coming over and there will be party bags."

My heart sunk.  We weren't giving him a party this year.

I tried to make it up to him with breakfast in bed.

I hoped that a dinner date with Mom and Dad would help him forget about party bags.

   

He ate ribs, got messy and I didn't even flinch when he squirted half the bottle of  Devil's Spit on his plate and smeared rib juice on my cream shirt.

 

Grandma & Grandpa, aunts, uncles, cousins gathered around at the end of the night to sing him a loud and loving version of happy birthday as he blew out his 6 sparkler candles.

So it wasn't exactly what he asked for, but it turned out swell.

she is

she is my first child, my precocious one.

she is the one who gave me my first kissing hand.

today.

she is ready for junior high.

everything grows

                                   {weston and miss bruce}

this was taken today, just after the year-end kindergarten program.  it was my last one.  i must admit, i was a bit weepy as the children sang, "everything grows and grows..."

muffins with mom

Last week I spent an hour with Keaton in his first grade class, eating muffins together and sharing a chair at his desk.  It reminded me that 7 is still not very old.  He was so excited for me to be there, to give me a handmade paper -flower necklace and to sit on my lap.  And, of course, there was the book...the book that tells it like it is.

I spend all my waking hours thinking about my children.  It's true.

That is, of course, unless I am on the computer...

...or going to Target.  True, true.

But the biggest truth is that I adore that boy with each and every adoring fiber in my being.

A Child's Prayer

"Please bless that we don't get cigarettes in our mouth."

(Weston age 5, almost 6.  He is also very concerned about falling asleep and seeing a man "cigaretting" in his dream.)