Eight is Great!

This boy turned 8 a few weeks ago.  Life has been busy so I'm just now sitting down to write this.

He has been so excited for his birthday for months. 

He kept going back and forth with what he wanted.  He originally wanted a big party with a lot of friends but then at the end he said he just wanted to go go Cloud 9 and Pungo Pizza with Nathan and Noah. 

It was the perfect day! These boys have been friends since birth and I couldn't pick better friends for our boys.  We are sad they are moving this summer.  The kids and I are in complete denial that they will leave.  So it was perfect to have a day for the boys to all spend together. 

We picked up the boys and took them to Cloud 9 (an indoor trampoline place) and then went and spent the rest of the afternoon at Pungo Pizza eating pizza and playing in the arcade.  We gave each kid a big bag of quarters and it was fun to watch how they spent it.  Colin and Noah saved theirs for the bigger games, Joel and Norah didn't play a single game - they used them to get those quarter toys and Nathan was a mix of both games and toys. 

It was the perfect day for our Joel and he loved that he got to do it all on his actual birthday. 

The day before his birthday Ma-Ma-Maa and Grandpa came over to watch the kids swim meet and to celebrate Joels birthday.  I was working the swim meet getting kids lined up and they were all at the other end and some how WE ALL MISSED COLIN SWIM breaststroke.  He made sure after that that we ALL knew when he was walking to his lane. 

We had a cookie cake that Joel had picked out and then Joel opened presents. 

Happy Birthday Joel!

Sometimes to be honest I'm not sure what to do with you. You are passionate and strong-willed and so demanding at times.  Yet you are the most sensitive and sweet boy at other times.  Your personality can do a complete 180 in a matter of minutes.  You have always kept us on our toes.

You are so creative that I can't wait to see where that takes you.  I love watching you get out all the craft supplies and spend hours making something.  What you come up with is amazing.  Sometimes your stories and drawings have so much detail that its no wonder you have a hard time sleeping at night.  It must be hard to turn that brain off sometimes.

Ever since your surgery you have gone back to rubbing our pretty ears.  ALL THE TIME.  It has been a long time since our pretty ears were rubbed so much.  I think you still have a lot of anxiety from the surgery so we are working through that.  You were terrified to go back to see the doctor a week ago because they would cut you open but thankfully they didn't (they did freeze off some warts so there's another thing for you to worry about)

You are a very hard worker in school but seem to think that at home anything that requires you to lift a finger should not be done.  Lately that's when you start to tell me your incision hurts.  I didn't believe you until last week at the doctors they said that you do indeed still have internal stitches that have not dissolved yet.  So at that you were telling the truth.  It was just always a coincidence it would always hurt when it was time to clean.

Colin got a new to us bookshelf from Grandpa and Ma-Ma-Maa so we moved his into your room.  I told you to remove all the books off your old smaller bookshelf so we could put the bigger one in its place. You grumbled and complained and took forever but finally did it.  Then when it was time to put everything back on the shelves you started ranting and raving "but YOU told me to take everything off. and YOU made my room messy (I did rearrange some things in there) so YOU should clean my room for me not ME!"  I mean you did have a point.  If I hadn't moved your desk around then all the toys shoved under it wouldn't need to be cleaned up. But it is your room so you had to clean it up and it took all day but you eventually did it.   You always find a loophole for everything.

There is no one who makes Colin laugh harder than you.  You can make Colin laugh big belly laughs and your whole face lights up when he can't stop laughing at something you've said.  There is also no one who encourages you like Colin.  I hope you always stay close.  You and Norah have a love/hate thing going on right now - you love to play together but have very different ways of playing at times and get annoyed very quickly at each other.  Yet when I tell you to go to your own separate rooms you refuse and want to be together.  

I hope you know how much we love you.  Life wouldn't be the same without you.  We are so thankful God sent you to us.  You are such a gift to us.  Happy Birthday Joely Bean! We love you!