Happy Birthday Noah!

On Sunday, I was lamenting the fact that Noah has already grown out of another pair of church pants. I keep telling the kids to knock it off and stop getting bigger, but they are either not listening or grossly disobedient. I swear, I just bought those pants like a month ago for Noah's baptism. And then I remembered that Noah's 9th birthday was the next day! How does this happen?

So in honor of his birthday, I decided to document some of the great things about Noah today. (Actually, I'm a day late, his birthday was the 10th, but somehow yesterday I blinked for about 2 seconds, and then the day was over.)

Noah is one smart cookie! He has been able to read anything since he was 5. It is a joy to me that my passion for reading has been passed on to my child. As a toddler he could sit on my lap literally indefinitely and listen to stories...now he disappears for hours with his books, surfacing only when he has finished.

I am still waiting for the day when Noah will need my help with his homework, but he is so capable and independent that I think it will never come. At some point, maybe he'll ask me about trigonometry and I'll have to confess that I don't remember anything about it. That will be a sad day because right now he thinks I know everything.

Noah takes good care of his little brother and sister. He is the one who is always willing to play board games with Isaac, to read stories to Anna, and to play inventive games with his siblings in the back yard.

Noah is cheerful. When I picture Noah at any stage of his life..baby, toddler, boy... it is always with a big smile on his face.

For his birthday yesterday, I brought lunch from Taco Bell to him at school and ate with him in the cafeteria. For dinner, we made individual pizzas, topped however we wanted, then we went to a juggling show at the library. We came home and ate birthday cake (chocolate...it's not fair that all of my children insist on chocolate birthday cakes when I don't like it) and opened presents. On Saturday, he is having a birthday party with a few friends from school. It seems such a short minute ago that he was baptized last year, and only slightly longer when we brought him home from the hospital on an unusally warm November afternoon.

Happy birthday Noah!