Happy Birthday

Well, we had a big day, that is for sure. The biggest bummer is that I didn't do a very good job of capturing the day in pictures. Hopefully somebody that was here will send us some good pictures for me to post.

The day started out with a soccer game at 10. Then after the game, we had lunch with some of our family. At about 1, people began to show up to enjoy the bouncer that we had rented for the day. It was one that had an area to bounce, a slide, an obstacle course and an indoor basketball goal. The kids really enjoyed it. At about 6, we ordered pizza for everyone that was still here. Stacey and I did a rough count of the folks that came by on our way to church this morning and we counted a total of 80 folks that came by. It was almost 8 PM before the last ones left.

Coy had not been feeling good the last few days before Saturday. He had a respitory infection and was coughing a lot. He did pretty well on Saturday and actually feels pretty good today.

We really didn't know how many people may come by on Saturday so we had 2 cakes the size of this one in the picture. A few families brought cakes and cookies too. We were able to eat all of this one but there was a ton of the second cake left at the end of the night. We pushed the cake as hard as we could but there was a lot left.

Our kids were dragging today after the big day yesterday. We just sort of hung around the house after getting home from church. We all went out a couple of different times to enjoy the weather.

Every birthday is a blessing. Whenever any child in our family has a birthday, it almost always brings me to tears remembering how they have grown up and seeing how they have matured. This birthday was no different. Even though Coy has not been with us that long, he has grown a lot (mentally and physically). And when I thought back to what his birth must have been like and what his previous birthdays may have been like, I couldn't help but crying about that too. I would like to think that there is a lady and man in a small town outside of Donetsk Ukraine that remembers September 15 and wonders and maybe cries on this day too. We have no idea if they celebrated their birthdays in the orphanage or not. There were so many kids and they had so few resources that I know that they could not have had the excess that we had. Coy is a lucky boy but we are very lucky too. Not just because we have Coy, but because we have so many family and friends that have supported us through this and lots of other things too.

This is a picture of Coy enjoying his cake just minutes before he throws it all back up. He mainly just ate the icing and that , mixed with all of the mucus that he had been swallowing must not have sat well with his belly so up it came. It didn't seem to slow him down any but I don't think he ate any more cake after that. I am sure that if we had put it in front of him, he would have given it another try.