Deere Noah: 1st birthday tractor party.

When you have two kids, you can't help but compare them. For Natallie's 1st birthday we hosted a huge party. I planned months in advance, hand-made the invitations, drove all around town looking for farm-themed decor and cooked for a week to prepare. So when it came to Noah's birthday, I had fleeting thoughts to just give him a high-five and a Popsicle but then feared that later on in life, he would resent this and hold it against me. And although it was a ton of work and neither Natallie or Noah will remember their 1st birthday at least I can rest assured that both kids had awesome themed parties. Natallie's first birthday was farm-themed and keeping in tradition, Noah's birthday was a John-Deere tractor theme. Come down Neufeld Lane and see...

I didn't know at the time but Noah was fighting a bacterial Staph infection during his birthday weekend, so understandably he was didn't want to be anywhere else other than on my hip. There were a few moments where I caught his usual toothy grin. I mean it's hard not to be happy when there are tractors and diggers everywhere right?!

 

Its also hard not to have fun when there's a bouncy castle and lots of friends...

And those sugar cookies that I painstakingly painted each by hand were worth it. The kids loved it. Dare I say, I may even make pumpkin sugar cookies for Halloween. What else am I going to do with half a bottle left of black icing?

 Then there's the cake smash. I made the exact same cake I had for Natallie's 1st birthday. A zuchinni cake with cream cheese icing with zucinni from our garden. I made a small smash cake for Noah and bigger 3 tier cake for the rest of us. Not sure how much of the cake Noah actually ate, I think he mostly just squished it in his pudgy hands.

And thank you for all the presents. Our house is now officially no longer a girl-toy zone. Noah now has a fleet of diggers, cars and trucks.

So back to the comparison thing. Here are a few shots of Natallie's first birthday vs. Noah's first birthday. Both looked ridiculously adorable in their plaid birthday outfits.

 Both loved ride-on vehicles.

 Both couldn't walk yet at 12 months but loved to 'walk' if you held their hands.

 and both loved cake-smashing.

But most of all, both are loved so much it is incomprehensible. Oh Noah, sometimes I just look at you and I am so filled with joy that it almost makes me cry.

Happy birthday my sweet precious boy. It makes my heart sad that you were sick on your birthday but praise God you are so much stronger than last time you were sick. We pray that we will be celebrating many, many, many more birthdays with you.

un-birthday

I wish I were blogging about Noah’s birthday but right now I am just trying to figure out what is wrong with my sweet little boy. What we thought was just a runny nose before his birthday led to a mild fever and then red spots starting showing up on his arm the morning of his birthday party. Despite being more clingy than usual, he seemed to enjoy his birthday. Yesterday morning, the spots had got worse. We went to the walk-in clinic and that doctor was not much help, spending less than 3 minutes and declaring she didn’t know what it is, gave us a prescription of some sort of antibiotic steroid cream and told us to come back. I was not impressed that she didn’t even take off his diaper to look at his spots and was so relieved to get an appointment with our family doctor later that day. She took the time to examine in and took some swabs to get it tested.

I am now reading up on measles, chicken pox, impetigo and not sure if its any of the above. Noah was scheduled to have his 1 year immunizations for things on Thursday this week. What irony if he were to get measles or chicken pox days before he was scheduled to get the vaccine for it.

The last weeks of nights have not been awesome. Noah hasn’t been an awesome sleeper to begin with so add some terrible looking sores on his arms and you’ve got an up-all-night sad, sad baby.

And today I got a call from preschool that Natallie had puked and has a fever. I brought her home and she has a fever of 102.5 F

This is not what I want. Two kids sick.

At first I was feeling so frustrated and mad that God would allow Noah to get sick on his birthday. I mean what a terrible birthday present.  Then after listening to some God-sent  lyrics by Matt Redman, I realize that every day with my children is a gift from the Lord, whether they are sick or well, I am thankful I have them.

The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning
It's time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes

Bless the Lord, O my soul
O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

But do pray for them. And Simon. And me.  For energy and patience and the right attitude during all this.  Just holding him brings me right back to the hospital room 6 months ago. I don't think whatever he has will lead us to ER again but caring for a sick baby is exhausting. God carried us through that and will carry us through again.