Birthday...Genesis 40:20

I love you, J. A lot. The fact that later this week you will be 11 years and 2 months old, and I am just getting around to doing your

Happy Birthday!

post just means that we had sooooo much fun for your birthday this year that I've been procrastinating loading all those pictures!

Your birthday celebration started off a few weeks early when we were in Indiana. Grandma and Grandpa got you cupcakes, ice cream, and your very own digital still/video camera. Unfortunately, I was in my inertia mode and I don't have any photos of that celebration on my camera. Grandma?

On your actual birthday, June 22, we celebrated with a family picnic with some ice cream cone cupcakes. Notice it looks like "11." Yep, that was planned!
We weren't at home, and I forgot to pack the matches. Fortunately Daddy had his magnesium/flint fire starting tool handy and lit up a napkin to light the candles.
Unfortunately, the napkin was a bit hard to "blow out."

You got a new Lego set from your siblings and instructions on how to build a air car/hovercraft from Mom & Dad.

That next week you and Daddy collected all the miscellaneous supplies and worked on putting it all together.
Daddy was skeptical that it would actually lift a 200 lb. person with just one old vacuum cleaner motor.
He was right, although it did work (a little) with the 2 1/2 year old guest at your birthday party. We're on the lookout for a heavier-duty motor to replace the current one.

I had fun making a skirt for you for your birthday! OK, so it was a skirt to go around the edge of the hovercraft to keep the air where it is supposed to be, but I had fun telling everyone that I was making a skirt for you! I couldn't find any nylon thread in our local stores that the directions called for. Fortunately I found some in the stash from the sewing cabinet passed down from your great-grandmother.

We put off your birthday party until the Sunday after your birthday. You requested tomato sandwiches! We had the same lemon cake that M had for his graduation, but instead of icing, we just put the raspberry jam on top. You made the ship with smoke stacks resembling "11." Of course, there was homemade strawberry ice cream also.


You got lots of fun noisemakers (it's kind of fun to have a birthday near the 4th of July), squirt guns, and water balloons.
A good time was had by all the little and big kids. No pictures, I had to keep my camera dry! Thank you for being so patient waiting for me to finally do a blog post about your birthday!