Happy Birthday, Andrew!

Last night we celebrated Andrew and his birthday. A lot of his friends from football, school, and his 2 best buddies who moved away all came together to swim, play football, play capture the flag, and eat (the best birthday cake I've made to date...chocolate mousse filling). We started the party at 3pm, which was really fun for me. When we start at 12pm, I'm never quite ready, this time I had showered and everything was in its place before the first guest arrived, Andrew had a lot of fun, and it was perfect for me.

Andrew is tall for his grade, but normal height at 8 years old for our family. He is very verbal and athletic. He loves playing quarter back for his football team, but he loves to tackle and especially sack the other quarter backs the most. Every 2nd grade boy that comes in contact with him admires him. He emanates confidence, patience, and gratitude. He truly listens when I talk to him, and he truly cares about what I think and say. He wants me to be happy more than he wants to be happy himself. We works hard at school, and everything he does. He wants to make everyone happy, and when we aren't happy with him he is very stubborn and difficult to be around! Parenting him is a balancing act because he is wonderful, and truly works at being a good boy, but when he makes a mistake, if I bring it to his attention he does a 180' and pretty much stops trying. He's motivated by success, and luckily he has a lot of it. He has many true and devoted friends and many admirers. I admire Andrew and love him much more than words can say.

Yesterday was a busy Saturday. We dropped Savanah off at her school at 6:45am so she could swim the 100 meter breast stroke in 1.26 minutes in the Last Chance Swim Meet. She hasn't qualified to swim at state, but she's improved a lot. Eli's football team played their last season game and ended the season 7 wins 1 loss. Andrew had his birthday party. And Ryon and I went out last night to a dance party that was thrown by our very fun friends, Travis and Sarah. Seeing Sarah dance reminded me of the fun time we had when we went to the Christian music concert together, she really is a talented dancer! But by the end of the day I was just really ready to go to sleep. I enjoyed this Saturday, but definitely could do with a few less activities in one day. But more than anything I feel very blessed with joy in my family.