David has begun the Birthday Countdown. He turns 6 in the middle of February. My goodness!! I tell him almost every day that I really don’t think he should be allowed to leave the 5′s behind, that being 5 suits him very well and that he should re-consider. So far he isn’t interested in my ‘stay five forever’ plan.
Look at that face – would YOU let him grow up and turn 6? Surely that silly-pie should stay 5.
Daniel told David he should have a Family Only Birthday Party. I’m not sure why he felt his interference was needed, but perhaps he was looking to avoid a houseful of rambunctious 5 and 6 year olds (and I must say I can’t blame him, in fact I might go so far as to join him–ha). Or maybe Daniel is hoping we’ll have a fun family outing. One year we went to Odyssey One for Daniel’s birthday. We had just moved here and weren’t involved in any activities and were not yet well-connected in our church (i.e., the list of birthday invitees was non-existent). We had a wonderful time celebrating Daniel and exploring the adventure center.
Just about every other day David changes his mind about his upcoming birthday – in fact he doesn’t seem to remember what he had decided the day before. It’s rather funny.
“Mom,” he said to me yesterday, “I need to tell you who I want to invite to my birthday party.”
I interrupt his litany of names. “David, I thought you were going to have a family party this year.”
“Oh, that’s right,” he shakes his head. “Let’s see, I think I want to do something fun for my party. What are you going to buy me?”
He definitely makes us laugh. Rachel and I were watching some little home video snippets (from my digital camera) last night and at one point Rachel said that I should video-record David all the time because he’s so hilarious.
David didn’t get his Special Day with Tim today, so he decided to use some of his evening time playing Age of Empires. He certainly knows how to ham it up for the camera.
Rachel went upstairs to David’s room with the instructions to take pictures of David with some of his favorite toys. This is one of the pictures she took.
We had a visitor join us for dinner tonight. I love some of the blessings that having guests brings, in particular the opportunity to try out new recipes and the excuse to tidy up the house. Of course, that does raise some questions such as: “Why would you clean up for company and not your own family?”, or “Shouldn’t you try new, creative menus for those whom you love best?” Hmmm. Since the children are called on to do most of the cleaning, they would probably shout “No! Leave the house messy!” I’m not sure they are completely unbiased in this regard. Tim really prefers a ‘tried and true’ menu so he wouldn’t necessarily vote in favor of new, “interesting” recipes (read: could contain strange vegetables and spices). Joshua, being a hungry 13 year old, votes in favor of food and lots of it; if Mom need some creativity in order to be interested in cooking more, he will go along happily.
Here Tim and Carl try to figure out the secret ingredient in the creamed spinach.
Nutmeg was the hidden spice in the spinach.
David sat next to Carl and found himself suddenly shy, but still ready to smile for the camera.
Thanks for joining us, Carl. As always, it was lovely to have you.
Tim has a pile-up of Special Days to do this weekend. I believe, so far, only Rachel has had her Special Day – lucky girl, I wonder how she managed to sneak hers in? Joshua, Daniel, and now David have all been moved to Saturday. How fun – that means we’ll be playing lots of games this weekend. Joshua wants to try out one of our new, complicated ones. I don’t know what Daniel and David will choose. David likes to have one on one time with Tim so he’ll do his best to find a time when everyone else is busy.
Maybe they’ll work on the plans for David’s birthday party. Lol!
Kathy
Kathy and I often wonder if we should have named David Isaac (which can be translated as ‘Laughter’). Who knew that he would be such a fun-loving and silly boy? A couple of days ago, he said to me, “Daddy, I don’t like my name.”
“Really?” I said. “Do you know why we named you David?”
“No,” he replied.
I kicked into lecture-mode, something that comes easily to me: “We named you after King David in the Bible, because out of all the people that God knew, He thought David had a heart that especially loved God and wanted to please Him. The Bible says that David was a man “after God’s own heart”. We wanted you to be like that.
“Oh. I think I’ll keep my name, then,” he concluded.
So far God seems to be granting our wish that our David would be like the David of the Bible — our David seeks the heart of the Lord and serves as an example to us all in love, humility and contrition.
Acts 13:22: After removing Saul, he made David their king. He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’
Kathy, you must be a prophet. You managed to write this blog at 11:15am, describing all the events of that day. The part I can’t figure out is how you got those pictures in there. Now if I had thought to check the blog before I left work, I would have known what we were having for dinner.
The spinach was actually very tasty, really. But I hope the children don’t start to think, “Oh no, Carl’s coming. That means we’ll have to try some new vegetable recipe”. Next time you should try parsnips or rutabagas. I’m sure with enough butter Tim would find a way of liking them. Either that or he would be all the more grateful for the wonderful meals he usually enjoys.
Now if there was only some way for me to fix the time stamp on this so no one could tell that I had to stay up until 1am to catch the latest blog entry.
Kathy, if you and Tim figure out how to stop David from turning 6, please share. I have 4 boys growing older this month and I think I’d like them all to SLOW DOWN…..they grow up so very fast.
Kathy, my baby turned 7 this past December. Where did the time go? It’s so strange not to have a real little one in the house anymore. Like De’Etta said, if you can find the way to keep them young . .. let me know