The Big One...

 Drew's big day, his 8th birthday!!!  I had been feeling extra nostalgic lately leading up to this big day.  Where has time gone?  My little boy, eight?!  I can hardly believe it.    His morning all started with johnnycakes, bacon, and fried ham for breakfast...per request.  

 And of course the discovery of presents.

 He got a coupon for an outing with mom and dad to pick out a bike of his choice.  And he was also really excited about his scout shirt.  He kind of knew about several of his presents like his scriptures, case, white underwear :), and scout shirt...but he was a good sport!

 One of my favorite things about birthdays is stealing my children away from school and treating them to lunch.  Someday it will be more of a "date," but for awhile we will be accompanied by the younger ones too--which is fun anyway.  I don't know why the birthday lunch seems so much more special than going out on any other day (not that we do that much) but they sure do feel special.

 Drew's birthday was actually quite a scramble for me.  I don't even remember the nitty gritty details about all the things I had swirling around me to be done.  I did have to go grocery shopping before I got the breakfast dishes all squared away so I could be back to get Madelyn from kindergarten, and took the kids out to lunch before I unloaded the groceries.  Then Drew really wanted me to sew the badges on his scout shirt by the time he got home from school because we thought that was his first day of scouts (turned out they actually didn't hold it that day...wish I would have known!).  Then get the cake ready and his special birthday dinner ready and teach a violin lesson (who ended up not showing up..wish I would have known that too!), and get that cleaned up so we could have family over for cake and ice cream.

 

 So, if anyone was wondering....this is what days like that look like at my house!!

And I just don't do well when the house looks like that....it makes me crazy.

 But things got better and cleaner and Drew was overjoyed at his newly badged up scout shirt.  (And I must admit seeing Drew in that little uniform makes my mother heart melt.  I'm pretty sure he is the cutest little scout there is.  :) ).

 The cake got made:  lemon cake just like he ordered.  Luckily for me with how the day was crammed full already, he didn't ask for any special decorations.  I thought the white frosting was special anyway, since it was his eighth birthday.  We made hamburgers and fries for his birthday dinner.  Those boys in our family sure like a good burger!

 Drew was eagerly anticipating his new scriptures from Grandma Donna and Grandpa Jody.  He got to go on  a special "date" with his grandma to pick out the scriptures he wanted.  He really does treasure them!  He had both sets of grandparents come celebrate with us, we kept it pretty low key since we were gathering the whole family for his baptism just two days after.

 Just had to throw this picture in with Madelyn and her grandpa.

Drew had a great birthday and he thought his 8th was the best birthday yet.

A couple of days later, we went out and Drew picked out this new bike.  Pretty snazzy.

It was so fun to celebrate this special day with Drew.  He really is a wonderful little guy and we are so lucky to have him in our family!!!