Handfuls of Blessings

We are very fortunate in planning birthday parties that all of our six children have different months for birthdays. However, Keith and I share a month, as does Skyler.  Hence, August is very busy for us. Being the last born, there are precious few pictures of me. Keith tried to pull off a surprise birthday party for me, but a woman knows the heartbeat of her home and can quickly detect when something is up.  Why is the spare fridge stocked with sodas?  Where did this extra wheel of cheese come from?  Why would my husband tell the girls they need to clean their room?  But my husband does get an "A+" for trying, right?  We really had a great meal and time of fellowship with two other missionary families. Good thing we have number candles, right? My darling daughter took over making my rice krispy cake 3 years ago.  Rather than a shape this year, I requested caramel - chocolate - peanut butter - rice krispies.  Aahhh - SO very good! ...

When children are born on the mission field, the 5th, 10th, and 15th birthdays are noticed more than usual.  Why?  New passports!  Skyler has reached the milestone of his third passport.  We have some good laughs going back through old passport photos. Swim Time As I mentioned yesterday, Skyler shared his birthday party with Keith last Friday.  He decided on a volcano cake for his party.  One problem, though, was that I had a terrible time getting the lava to turn from pink to red.  I ended up using so much food coloring that it made the frosting taste awful.  No problem.  We just scraped off any red and ate the chocolate cake. The volcano is on fire! Because rice krispies and marshmallows are very expensive here, I only make the rice crispy cakes for our family.  I thought I would just make another volcano, but Skyler decided he wanted something different and chose a turtle. 10 year old Turtle Looking back through the...

I've never really tried to before, and even this year hadn't planned on it.  However, I was actually able to surprise Keith with a birthday party. He knew that some other missionary kids were coming over to celebrate Skyler's birthday, but he had already made plans to take some of the radio workers out to eat.  With him gone, not only did the missionary kids come, but I secretly had invited their whole families.  When Keith walked into a darkened house and heard "SURPRISE" as the lights came on and we began to sing to him -- he couldn't believe that they were all there for him. However, today is his real birthday, and the kids and I really had a hard time deciding what to do for his cake. Since he has been enjoying his new grill that someone blessed him with, we finally decided that some "meat" would be an appropriate rice crispy cake. We as Keith's wife and children are so blessed by his presence in our lives.  We have great...