Elden Turns 8!

It's kind of weird to me that my baby is 8!  Just when you think they'll be crawling around forever or never be potty-trained....now my kids are all baptized!

I suggested to Elden that he bring popsicles into school for his birthday treat.  It's a win-win in my book.  They don't make the classroom messy, I don't have to bake anything, and the kids rarely have them at school.  We went in before school one morning to purchase them.


I did bake him a cake though.  He kept changing his mind and finally settled on a very difficult cake...a Millennium Falcon. I was super busy that day cooking and baking and prepping for 41 people that weekend.  I started on his cake around 10:30 at night or so and was a bit overwhelmed. 


It actually turned out better than I thought it would!  All the little details take a lot of time, but are worth it....I think?  I started making cakes years ago as something special for my kids' birthdays since we weren't giving them hardly anything.  We still are pretty low key on birthdays around here, but I'll make a cake for them if they want! I think (hopefully!) they'll remember the cakes when they are older.






Elden opened a few presents the morning of his birthday.




By lunch time we had a good crowd with us.  How do you fit 41 people in a small house?  You don't, but we made it work and did some outings.  Sadly the weather wasn't great that weekend.  It wasn't raining so that was good!










Elden wanted boxed mac-n-cheese for his lunch.  I offered to do homemade, but the box won out. 








The first outing was after lunch.  We headed to Shenandoah to go to the library.  Lee found these books on the book shelf.  Pretty cool!


I let anyone in my family check out books.  I hit my limit of 100 and had to put books on Elden's card.




The checkout list was very long!


There was lots of quiet reading.




I kicked the teenagers out to go on a walk together to 7-11 to get slurpees.




It turned out great to have the baptism in the afternoon.  Fun fact: all of my kids were baptized on their birthday! Many friends came too, which was so wonderful!


Elden was so cute at home before we left for the church.  He asked me in a slightly nervous voice while he was getting ready: "What do I do?"  He wanted to make sure he brought the right clothing items and was properly prepared.  It was really sweet.

Lee baptizing his youngest! Elden on his big day!


After his baptism I had my family stay at the church to eat dinner there.  It was just more convenient.  Two of our friends joined us also, the Frankes. We had plenty of pizza and veggies to go around.


I love seeing the cousins group up and have fun together.












That night at home we had a little party for Elden.  He received more gifts. 


The kids had cake and ice cream, and watched a movie.


Since it would be hard to hang out at my house with the big group of cousins, we adults left for an evening of our own at Hank's BBQ.  It was so awesome that 6 of the 10 siblings were together that weekend!  Lee and I had fun treating everyone.  We had our dessert here. 


The kids found different nooks and crannies to play in around our house.




It's still kind of weird that Elden is 8!  He told me that in 10 years he'll be gone.  That's really weird.  We sure love you Elden!  Your kindness and hard work and love for God will take you a long ways.