Happy 5th birthday, our beautiful Elijah!

It is nearly impossible to believe that it has been five years since our beautiful oldest boy was born. I remember so vividly the night before Elijah's birth. I had been to a particularly difficult doctor's visit that day. Every doctor's visit was difficult, but this was a tough one. A doctor sat us down and "prepared" Dan and me for the worst-case scenario. She told us that there was a possibility that our baby would either die in my womb or die once he was born. Dan and I got home from that appointment and went straight to bed. I laid in his arms and cried myself to sleep. I remember PLEADING with God. I asked him to please just allow us to be "done" with that particular chapter. If our baby was going to go to heaven right away, fine, please take him! I couldn't take the wondering any longer.

As a total answer to my prayer, literally a few hours later (and exactly five years ago today), Elijah let us know that he was ready to leave my belly. The next few hours were such a strange mixture of excitement and fear and joy and anxiety. We honestly had no idea what to expect. That first day of his life was a crazy wild ride.

And you all know the gist of the rest of the story. We have experienced the journey of a lifetime together, but we are all ok. Our strong and steadfast little boy is just this amazing (strong-willed) little person, and we have managed to come out on the other side intact and stronger than ever. I cannot even put into words how proud I am of Elijah. His strength inspires me!

Elijah, we love you so very much! Happy happy happy birthday, my dear boy. Here's to many more years!



Growing up, my mom always made a big deal out of birthdays. It wasn't necessarily gifts that made me happy, but I always loved feeling special on MY day. I believe that is an important thing for every child to feel on their special day. And so we try to do this very thing for our boys.



We had a special party for Elijah yesterday. I'm telling you, there is NOTHING better in this entire world than seeing your child's face genuinely happy. Every year when we sing Happy Birthday to Elijah, there is a moment when I see pure joy on his face and it makes me so happy I want to cry.



After thoroughly enjoying his party yesterday, we continued to celebrate his actual birthday today. We started the day off with a trip to the zoo (no school today on President's Day, perfect!), and then Dan and I made a delicious chocolate chip-blueberry pancake lunch. For dinner we took a special trip to Applebee's, where I once again got to see the happy face as people sang the Happy Birthday song to him. I won't lie, I had to fight HARD to hold back those tears. I had the thought, I refuse to cry in Applebee's over a birthday song! :) It was tough, though!



For some reason, five years has really made me look back and understand what we have to be thankful for. Five years ago, I would have been beyond happy to know that THIS is where we are today. I am incredibly grateful that everything has fallen into place the way it has. I am even grateful for the tough times because it has shaped who we all are as individuals, and who we are as a family. And I do adore our little family!



This is such a unique time in our lives, with me being home with our boys and Dan not working crazy hours (yet). We are doing our best to take advantage of the time that we have together because for a good chunk of the year "time together" is not something we can claim we have much of. Later in the week we are going to surprise the boys with a trip to a big local water park for a day and night of happy-face fun! I am 100% sure that I am more excited than anyone else in this family (maybe except for Elijah). I love seeing happy faces on my boys!

(Here's that happy face I speak of!)



That's about all we have for now! Enjoy the rest of the photos and thanks for checking in.