Joshua's 5th birthday! and New Year's Eve

Joshua has such an exciting birthday.  What could be better than celebrating until midnight, watching movies, and sleeping on the floor?  He was excited for his birthday. He and Lydia love looking at all the cake books and choosing their cakes.  He looked and looked this year and finally settled on the robot made of cupcakes that we did last year.  He loved helping me make it.

Some of the Andreasen family came and spent a few hours in the afternoon playing games with us to celebrate New Year's Eve.  They stayed and sang to Joshua and had cake. It was a fun little party.

We went to Pizza Hut for dinner.  Everyone thought that was lots of fun. We don't take the children out to dinner very often. After we came home the children started their marathon movie watching. Our family tradition for New Year's Eve is that the children stay up as late as they can watching movies and mom and dad go to bed at a decent time.  The children love it!  This year they started later than usual so they didn't get as many movies in.  We still have a few left to watch.

Joshua definitely has an interesting birth story.  We found out two weeks before he was due that he was going to have pretty severe heart problems.  That ranks right up there with the hardest things I have ever heard.  It was Christmas Eve when we found out.  I had a regular doctor's visit. She didn't like how his heart sounded and sent me to the Powell hospital to be monitored.  Even with an ultrasound they couldn't decide if his heart was normal or not so they sent us to Billings to see a specialist.  He confirmed that there were definitely problems and told us to go to Denver for him to be born.  We asked if we could go to Salt Lake instead so we would have family support.  He arranged for us to see some specialists in Salt Lake.  The children ate cereal for dinner because I hadn't been home at all to make dinner.  We got home from Billings about 8:00 that night.  We told the children what was happening and called our parents to let them know.  It was hard to focus on Christmas that year and I spent a lot of time in tears.

We left for Salt Lake two days after Christmas and began this heart journey.  Some of the specialists were encouraging, others were not.  The doctor at University Hospital wanted to have him born in controlled circumstances and so scheduled an inducement on December 31, 2008.  I thought things would go quickly, but it was not to be.  He wasn't born until about 4:00 in the afternoon. I remember that there was a football game on and I thought when the game got over I would push.  Oregon was playing, but I don't know who they played or who won.  Joshua was born in a special delivery room with a window to the ICU.  After he was born he was taken right away. I only got to touch his foot as he was taken away.  It wasn't until about 9:00 that night that we got to go over to Primary Children's and hold him for a minute.

It was 3 surgeries, and a long 5 weeks later that we got to bring him home.  I am grateful every day for his life and the tender mercies of the Lord in his behalf.  We love his fun personality and spunk. He keeps us laughing and smiling.  Happy Birthday, Joshua!

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