Sawyer's 8th Birthday

Holding my newborn baby, my first born, my son, those 8 years ago.

I love birthdays, if for no other reason, because it is a day of reflection.  I think back to the day we met him and remember of his birth only the joy of meeting him and being his mother.   I think nothing of the hardships that I experienced  those first couple of years, only the amazement at how this big 8 year old boy was once my teeny tiny baby and then my toddling little boy.  

I am grateful, for the chance to keep him near me, to school him at home, to spend every hour of the day with him under my care.  I rejoice and lament that I still have and yet only have (Lord willing) 10 more years with him before he will be a young man ready to establish is adult life.  I wonder how I will let go of him.  I wonder what kind of man he will be.  I think of mothers who have lost their children and I anguish for them because I can't imagine it.

I reflect on the job that I am doing as his mother and I hope to be better each day.  Do I pray enough, am I patient enough, do I enjoy the daily grind of mothering and homemaking enough, do I show Christ's love enough, am I training his character and building his faith enough, am I teaching him to love Jesus enough, am I establishing a love of learning enough.  Resounding no to all of those!  How can I do better?  Can I fix the mistakes I have made?  How can I do right by him because I want to do right by the Lord?  How do I mother him as an act of worship and as a servant to my Lord?   In the end, I want to be on my face before Jesus next to the man I was blessed enough to have as my earthly husband with a string of our heritage behind us.  With my children, my grandchildren, my great grandchildren....changing the world for Christ!  I don't even know what this really looks like for me other than trying to mother with all my heart.

Now, onto the birthday celebration pictures!

We found a big lot of army toys over the summer at a garage sale and managed to keep them boxed up and secret this whole time!

So many airplanes, helicopters, tanks, trucks, and army people!  Enough for everyone to play with!  And play they did....all day!!!

 
 
 
Willigs loaded up missiles for germ warfare (literally, she filled up the open ended missiles, her favorite of the army toys, with slobber and snot, poor thing).


Party!!

Can you believe this AMAZING cake that my Sister in law, Tina, made!  She took Sawyer's order of pumpkin cake with pumpkin ice cream and turned it into this camo army layered cake.  It looked professionally done and tasted delicious.  She could seriously go into business. Somehow, I think our birthday ice cream cones are no longer going to be appreciated!
 
 
 

Love this boy! 
 

Doing the honors of serving!
Posted by Picasa

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Boots

Image
Last week, was snowy and cold cold cold, then rainy.  I continued to work on getting the yard cleaned up.  I dug out the ponds and refilled the holes with dirt.  I loaded up rocks, pavers, and bricks.  I cleaned out the water features.  I collected the strawberry runners so I would have starts to plant.  I unloaded 2 loads of bark dust.  The children were a tremendous help.  They loaded an entire trailer of firewood all by themselves and then helped with another load of rocks and bricks.  I am amazed at how much there is to load and fix just in the yard alone.  It is a lot of work for the simple concept of "curb" appeal.   Waiting for the snow to melt so I can put down the bark dust. Even with two pairs of socks, my feet were freezing so I broke down and bought a pair of Muck Boots.  The funny thing is, 2 years ago, I really wanted to have a new pair of winter boots but I just couldn't justify paying so much money just to have ...
Read more

Then Came Dense Fog and the Thunderstorm

Image
Sunday, I woke up to a dense fog and smoke cover combination.  I think this is probably the densest fog I have ever been in. Before the sun came up, it was white.  Once it got lighter outside the smoke color showed through. On the porch, looking toward the swimming pool (North) but unable to see it or the goat barn or the walnut trees. On the porch, looking toward the barn, only able to see the garden before the parking area. Outside the window looking at the tree block, barely 30 feet away. I am not sure how I let Phil talk me into (trying) going to the store...but the fog was supposed to lift by 11:00 and we were scheduled to gather at the Rawie's for church and I needed ingredients to put together something for the potluck.  (We ended up having to cancel our homechurch.) Our mailbox, we couldn't see any cars, so we had to roll down the windows and listen.  I was already terrified at this point and didn't want to continue. After having to slam on his brakes multipl...
Read more

More Hats

Image
The Etsy shop is still a work in progress and unfortunately the name Over the Top is already taken.  I have been tossing around the names Tip Top and Whimsy.  I managed to get 7 hats made during the month of November.  I have a couple that I can put on Etsy when we are ready to list them and several Christmas hats made for the children.  I have been timing how long it takes me to make a hat and I am surprised (and not in a good way LOL) at the number of hours I spend.  A baby hat takes over 5-6 hours, a child's hat takes about 7-8 hours, and an adult hat 10 plus hours.  It takes even longer if I decide to tear out the stitching because it isn't looking the way I had imagined.  The more yarn variety I use, the longer it takes me to weave in the ends.  I usually spend over an hour just with a tapestry needle making all the ends secure.  Minimum wage plus materials puts the hats in the 50-80 dollar range.  Yikes!  I would never pay th...
Read more