Summer Birthday Season

There are 6 people in our family, and we seem to like to celebrate birthdays only two times of the year. Noah, Hannah and I have winter birthdays while Levi, Aaron and Jacob just celebrated their birthdays. In fact, Jacob just celebrated his 4th birthday today! Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!! As we all have achieved some milestones lately, I thought a little Kelley kid update was in order.

Like I said, Jacob turned 4 today. He was so pleased with a modest cake and the few gifts he received today. He grinned, politely said, “Thank you” every time some one wished him a “Happy Birthday,” and he was thrilled with the family’s attempt at singing to him. He is such a sweetheart. Tomorrow we’re taking him to Chocolate World for more celebrating. Although that means he and Noah will miss a day of VBS at Faith Church, we wanted to honor his request for a visit to one of his favorite places. Here are pictures of our birthday boy. He’s blowing out his candles and opening gifts. The game was played and appropriately won by Jacob.

         

Levi celebrated his second birthday just two weeks ago, a day before Aaron’s birthday. Aaron and I were in the middle of training, so my mom threw Levi a party. When we got home, we celebrated both birthdays with some gifts and a take out dinner. Five Guys and Cold Stone Creamery saved me from cooking, while it made all the boys very happy! Levi got a guitar. He loves playing music and dancing. He is talking more and more every day. His favorite words are “no” and “why?” but he also says “k” and many other nice words. The boys got Aaron some Angry Bird pj’s and airplane underwear. I think they thought his underwear weren’t as cool as theirs. 🙂

     

Hannah is 6 months old. She is enjoying baby cereal and some veggies. At her 6 month wellness visit, she weighed only 13lbs, 9oz, which puts her at the 6th percentile. Such a tiny little peanut. She’s learning to sit up, and she’s loves sporting a pony tail on the top of her head. (And Levi thinks he needs the same hairdo…What a goof.) We so enjoy our sweet, mellow little girl. What a blessing she is to our family!

Noah is 6 1/2 years old. He is loving Legos these days. He and Jacob have been playing on the stairs (between the closed gates) with all their Lego creations. The closed gates at the top and bottom of the stairs keep them safe from the littler two…It makes for an adventurous walk up and down the stairs, but it’s working for us at the moment. Just today, Noah discovered that he has a loose tooth!!! At first, he sobbed. He was so worried that it would hurt, or that he’d swallow his tooth, or that he’d loose it without knowing it. He cried and cried, holding his mouth like it would pop out any minute. After holding him and reassuring him that it would take days (or longer) for it to come out and praying for him and telling him about the tooth fairy, he was still worried. Playing Jacob’s new game helped to get his mind off of it, but he still kept talking funny and playing with it all day. Finally, at the end of the day, he was excited about it. The idea of getting money for loosing a tooth was the winning argument. Sigh…

As for Aaron and I, we are tired. He has been working so much that we haven’t spent any meaningful time together since we got home from the training session. When he’s working so much, I feel extra pressure to keep the house running. I get lonely and feel as close to a single mom as I ever want to feel. We’d appreciate prayers for the following things: 1.) our stamina while we attempt to get ready for our move, 2.) our quiet time with God, and 3.) health. It seems like as soon as we get ourselves on a healthy spiritual and physical routine, we get slammed by one thing or another. We know it’s Satan’s attempt to discourage and distract us. We know we are doing God’s work. However, it’s hard to do our work well when we feel distant from God. Please pray that we’ll be diligent in making time for prayer and Bible study and that we will find true rest in Him. Thank you, friends!