Madison's 5th Birthday

So, I lied. I decided to do Madison's 5th birthday before our extensive travelogue out East.

So for her birthday we had the 4 little girl cousins around here come out for a little party.








We decorated Halloween sugar cookies. Then painted paper lunch bags orange on the bottom and green on top. We put the cookies in the bag and tied it with raffia (for all you men out there raffia is a type of string!) and they drew a face on their paper pumpkin. They had a blast. (Thanks Kara!!)

Then we had a castle cake and one of my sweet and brutally honest nieces said "Oh I had a castle cake for my birthday, but it was much cooler than this one, it had....." I love kids! =)

We went to the dollar theater to see "Ratatouille". (Spelling?) That was cute and fun then we went to "Chuck E. Cheese's" to play with all of the fun things there. She was too shy to give the person dressed as Chuck E. Cheese a hug, or even give him "5" for that matter, so we just avoided the big rat altogether!

I will copy Sheila's idea (My sister-in-law) and give you some baby pictures of her to see how much she's grown. This is so cliche' to say, but it really does seem like yesterday that she was this small. =)

Now this may spark all sorts of questions like "boy, she's 5 now are they going to have more soon?" And the answer to that question is: your guess is as good as mine! =) But we're optimistic and will keep you posted. I don't know if it's unorthodox to get spiritual on a blog, but perhaps I will start a new trend.

I was just thinking today about Joseph-(In Genesis.The coat of many colors) and how he was betrayed by his family, sold, made a slave and imprisoned for things he did not do. I pictured him not complaining, but in trying to understand asking "What did I do to deserve this? Why me? I don't understand." And I found myself answering Joesph. "Joseph, it's hard to explain, but the end of this story is so neat. It all works out right in the end. It's supposed to happen this way, so that "this" and "this" and "that" can happen. Certain things wouldn't happen if you didn't have to go through this. You'll see."

So in answer to your wondering and our wondering, yes, we will have more children. And we keep reminding ourselves that only our Father in Heaven knows how our story will turn out and He is there telling us that it will all be for our good. Just as I found myself doing with Joseph. He wouldn't give us anything we couldn't handle. For whatever reason we need to go through this so "this" and " this" and "that" can happen. "It has a neat ending, just wait and see." We know that more are coming and that we will understand and see the wisdom in all this in hind sight.

We love you and will tell you all about Virginia next! =)