Mattais Turns 8

On Feb. 11, our curious, lively middle son turned 8 years old. We surprised him in the night by decorating his bunk bed with streamers, balloons and a “happy birthday” sign. In the morning he pounced into our bed, laughing and asking “who decorated my room?” All week long he’s loaded his arms full of colorful balloons to sleep with in his upper bunk. (I’m not sure if or when he will allow me to clean things up so for now, it will stay)

Mattais has an incredible imagination-always creating his own robots with Legos or hand drawing little creatures he invents. He’s curious about all things science, space and how things work and I’ve joked for years that to watch him play peacefully reduces my blood pressure. His name means “gift of God” and that is what he is. We’ve been privileged to raise him right from the hospital as a beautiful little newborn and it was my first experience with nighttime feedings. I remember feeling in those first few months that the sleep deprivation would be the end of me. I can remember the encouragement of friends saying “You’ll get through it-one day you won’t believe your celebrating his first birthday.” And now we’re at number 8! So bittersweet to watch them grow but I’m so thankful for the experience of nurturing him right from the beginning. We celebrated his actual birthday with homemade cake, root beer floats and homemade deep dish pizza, with a few gifts to unwrap afterward. We all took turns saying something we appreciated about him as he smiled at the special attention. The February celebrating will continue as our next birthday boy Liam Everett turns 6 and we have a wild boys birthday bash invading our home.