Jeremiah's 4th Birthday

Yesterday was Jeremiah's 4th Birthday and he was super excited in the weeks preceding his birthday. I don't know what it is about kids and birthdays and kids and holidays, but the excitement leading up to these special days seems to be in-born because I really try to downplay the events. I felt really bad for Jeremiah this year because I knew I would not have the capacity to make his day special in the way that I usually do. My kitchen was still non-functional, so I could not bake him a cake or cook him a special dinner and I've spent the past weeks running around like a half-crazed lunatic in this disaster of a house. But fortunately, he is just four, and his expectations are not as high even though the excitement is there.

The other kids were also excited for Jeremiah's birthday and they had off from school all week long, so they got to spend the day with him yesterday, which was actually quite nice.

On the night of the 19th, I stayed up very late so I could be with Jeremiah at 12:17 when he was born and snuggle him and wish him a happy birthday and take his first picture as a four-year-old. He is so sweet to snuggle up with in bed.

Of course, the kids all woke up early with excitement and immediately started asking for a special birthday breakfast, which of course, I was not capable of cooking, so I started the day feeling pretty sad about that. I think all the kids are pretty sick of cereal, frozen waffles and bagels for breakfast.

I had wanted to take the kids on an outing, but this is a really critical week for the kitchen and David said he would feel better if I did not go anywhere this week and that I be home to monitor the contractors. Tuesday was the day the plumber was coming to hook up the sink and dishwasher and the installer was coming to hook up my 48" gas range top, plus Chris and Bobby were there all day working on drywall.

Isabelle was very excited about the gift she had selected for Jeremiah and could not wait to give it to him, so I let her give her gift in the morning. She got him a totally awesome and way cool giant Bat Mobile. All the kids loved it and had a great time playing with it.

Then my mom came over in the late morning and gave Jeremiah his gift. Then we all left after the plumber was finished and the installer had done his thing, to take Isabelle to the orthodontist. She had taken a really nasty spill off her bike, head first, and cut her lip and had a bleeding upper gum the day before. The gum bled for hours and my friend told me to take her to the dentist because the hemotoma was really big. She even called the ortho for me on Monday night and I took her in then and fortunately there was no movement in her teeth, but he wanted an x-ray to check for root damage and his system was down for the night and he implored me to bring her back the next day. So, that is what we did. Fortunately, Isabelle was quite lucky and sustained no root damage. He could not believe how lucky she was and he kept saying it over and over again.

Then, we went to lunch at Maggie's and had a nice lunch and came home and hung out for a while. Then, we made a quick trip to Safeway to pick up Jeremiah's birthday cake and a Christmas cake and headed to David's office for his "office" Christmas party. David's office consists of David and his secretary, so it's a pretty small office, but they invited some other people from the building. David picked up some party platters and we had small party. Then we sang "Happy Birthday" to Jeremiah and he sung to himself, which was super cute. Everyone was very excited about his Batman cake, which Jeremiah picked out himself.

After eating cake, the kids were very excited for Jeremiah to open his presents. I think the big kids were more excited than he was because they knew what his big present was and they wanted to play with it. Jeremiah's big present was a giant Bat Cave. Oh, he was over the moon excited and could not wait to play with it. Everyone else was pretty anxious to play with it too.

He also got some Hot Wheels and a Hot Wheels race track, which he was also pretty excited about it. After  cleaning up, we headed home and I got the kids to bed pretty quickly. They were all pretty tired.

So, Jeremiah ended up with a pretty nice birthday in spite of the chaos and if weren't for this blog, he probably would never know that I did not get to cook him any special food this  year. I plan to rectify that in the next week or so, God-willing.

We are thankful for a great fourth year for Jeremiah by God's grace and look forward to seeing what the fifth year has in store.