judah’s golden birthday.

Judah’s “golden birthday” was this week: he turned eight on September 8th!

We celebrated in style all week. He and Owen had a Pokemon-themed family party on Saturday, and his birthday breakfast request for Tuesday morning was donuts. David took a couple hours off work in the morning to open presents, help build a Star Wars Lego set, and play a game of Pokemon. The kids and I celebrated with a few friends from Classical Conversations at the park in the afternoon, and we topped the week off with a family trip to HiWire trampoline park today.

Judah and Amie have been anxiously awaiting this birthday so that the four kids in our family will be “2-4-6-8!” I have to pinch myself to believe that I have an eight-year-old. It makes me feel so old. I am thoroughly enjoying the elementary years so far. Our boy is growing up kind and funny and smart.

He’s become an avid reader in the last month. Favorite series are Magic Treehouse, Pokemon comics, and Star Wars Jedi Academy. He still loves to be read to, which makes me happy, and daily offers to read picture books to his siblings.

Judah enjoys drawing and making his own comic strips, playing Pokemon and Lego’s, jumping on the trampoline, hiking and camping. His favorite subject in school is science, and he has an amazing gift for memorizing facts in all of his subjects. He loves his astronomy class with Grandpa (at the moment he’s sitting at the table next to me making a comic strip about his astronomy class).

Judah started practice this week to prepare him for swim team with Columbia Swimming. His coach told me last night she’s very impressed with his form and the way he’s already beginning to pick up strokes.

We love watching his skills, abilities, and interests blossom, but most of all, we love his heart. Judah is very sensitive to the feelings of others, and doesn’t like to see people suffer or get sad. He’s an encourager. He’s fiercely loyal to his sister and brothers and wants to protect them in all settings (sometimes to their exasperation!), and he deeply cares for his friends.

He can be very detailed and particular. He likes his world and the people in it to function in a certain way and doesn’t like chaos or lots of noise. So as you can imagine, adopting two little brothers was very hard for him. We are so proud of the ways Judah has grown and changed this year in response to something that has been quite traumatic. We see him becoming more patient and flexible, willing to give up control, and love people who are different from him. That’s Jesus working in his heart, plain and simple.

We love you, eight-year-old boy! You bring us so much happiness!