Celebrating Seven Years!

 It is truly amazing. Our triplets just celebrated their seventh birthday. Many of you know that my Beloved and I tried to have children for ten years. We experienced many dark days with loss and miscarriages. I would cry out to God asking Him to bless us with children.
We eventually chose to adopt and after nine months with our adoption agency, our first son was born. I had the honor of being in the delivery room when our birth mom gave birth to him. It was a transforming experience for us.
Then, two and a half years later, a miracle occurred in our life. I gave birth to three babies. They were seven weeks early but, perfect. Max came out first. We called him our "Atlas" because for 33 weeks, he held the other two up. He weighed 3 lbs 8 oz. Charlotte came next. She had little, downy curled hair (very briefly) and then was my beautiful, bald headed baby for the longest time.

Now she has long, beautiful hair that I brush and braid each day to prevent tangles.
She weighed the same as Max.
Ben was last to come out. Dr. Nicole Brown reached in to pull him out and he kicked her hand away. She had to reach in again and get a solid hold on him to pull him out. He was our biggest baby weighing 4 lbs 4 oz. They were in NICU for 6 days and then transferred to a step-down unit to grow and gain some weight before they came home. They came home on Veteran's Day (27 days after they were born). We consider all our children to be our miracles. So, it is with great joy that we celebrate their seventh birthday.

I stayed up late the night before their birthday making three, individual cakes. Each year, they tell me what kind of cake they want and I try to make their dream come true. In the morning, they came downstairs to find their special cake waiting for them. Of course, they ate cake for breakfast, cake for elevenses, for lunch and supper I serve something healthy and then they sneak some more cake before bed.

This year, Max had an odd request. He asked for a "blob cake".  There is a Wii game that he enjoys playing. It is adorable. I highly recommend it for 6 to 10 year old boys. You can find a copy of it here on Amazon So, I had to get creative and make a blob cake for him.

Charlotte asked for a Hello Kitty cake (this is the third year she has asked for a Hello Kitty cake).

Here's a photo of the Hello Kitty cake I made for her fifth birthday.

Benjamin had numerous requests. First it was "Sugar Bunny" cake; then it was a "Lego City" cake and then a combination of "Mario in Lego City". I helped him settle on a Mario and Luigi cake. I think he liked it. Usually he chooses a dog cake. Here's the cake I made for him on his fifth birthday. I had a lot of fun making it.

Happy Birthday to our trio! May you all be blessed with many more!

Celebrating Nine

We celebrated a birthday this past weekend. Our Grant is now nine years old. It's hard to believe nine years have passed since I first held him in my trembling arms and kissed the top of his fuzzy, baby head and stared into those rich, blue eyes of his and thought of a thousand possible futures for this baby boy of mine and rejoiced that I would be his Mommy always. After nine years of trying, our son Grant was born. He did not come from my womb. He came from our hearts and prayers and longings and from a most remarkable lady who chose a different future for her baby. After nine months with our adoption agency, Grant was nestled into my arms and we welcomed another family into ours. 

 So, this past Saturday, we celebrated his nine years on our blue planet in style. Well, not really. Here's what happened.

Friday night we went to BJ's to pick out a birthday cake for him. He wanted a Lego cake made by Mommy. But, as you all know, Mommy is busy caring for our four kids, getting a home ready to sell and doing pretty much everything on her own. Their Daddy, my Beloved, is in Minnesota with a new job (insert cheering and hooting here)! Instead, Grant chose a Carvel ice cream cake. I had a cooler ready to go in the van and put the cake in that along with another frozen item. Off we went from New Hampshire (tax free shopping) down to Boston to pick up Daddy from the airport. The flight was delayed by almost an hour and the ice cream cake sat quietly melting in it's cooler. We picked up Daddy curbside and headed home. It was past midnight when we got home. My Beloved and I carry sleeping children up to bed; I dump the cooler in the garage thinking it would be fine (we had snow the day before), and we sleep peacefully through the rest of the night. The next morning, we let Daddy sleep in. By 10 he's awake and it's time to celebrate.

I head out to the cold garage and get the cooler. I knew the moment I opened the cooler that the cake was not well. The waxy box, the cake was in, was warped along the edges and this wonderful, light colored  chocolate soup was dripping from the bottom. I carried it to the sink and had to laugh. 

 We made the best of it. I poured the cake (vanilla and chocolate ice cream, Oreo cookie crust, frosting and jimmies) into a bowl, stuck nine tall candles in and the number six candle (from last October) upside down in the cake soup. The younger three were thrilled with this soup cake. They grabbed their straws and after the Happy Birthday song was sung loudly with the "ooo-gaa-laa's" and "funky chicken" at the end, they dove in. My Beloved set out cups and a ladle for the cake soup but, they all preferred straws straight in the bowl.

The birthday soup cake did not last. It was still cold and surprisingly tasted quite good. 

Can one ever get it quite right with an ice cream cake? They are either too hard because of impatience or soup because of stupidity or laziness.

Grant got Legos and lots of birthday money (thank you Grammie Bee, Grandpa Tom, Grandma Sonnie, Uncle Don and Auntie Molly)! He read his birthday cards last and spent the rest of the day sitting happily in the middle of a big pile of Legos.

A Happy, Blessed Birthday dear son of mine. 

May you have many, many more.

Dear Readers, I plan on making him a Lego cake during Spring Break. 

He will also get to celebrate his birthday with his wonderful friends then.

He wasn't too keen about the "cake soup".

I don't blame him.

My Beloved's Birthday

My Beloved jokes about meeting me when I was a teenager. It's true; I was two weeks shy of turning 20. He was already 20. This was back in May of 1986. We were babies practically. But, within a few weeks, I knew I would spend the rest of my life with this man.

When he was 20, he was zero population growth. I wanted to have 5 kids. He was in pre-med classes at the university. I wanted to be a photojournalist.

 He hadn't been around many children in his teen years. I was around children all the time (my nieces and nephews, and children I babysat or cared for through volunteer work at the hospital). I figured I could change his mind over time.

As he got to know my family, his feelings about having children changed. By the time he was 22, two children was enough (two being the perfect number to replace us - still zero population growth).

We dated off and on for 5 years. A lot of those years were painful. The pain was primarily caused by our  poor choices. I dated a few others during those five years but, I knew my heart belonged to this guy named David.

He mustered the courage to ask my Father for my hand in marriage. My Father agreed! 

 A few weeks later he took me on a chaperoned date on 13 February 1991. 

After midnight, on the top of Mount Soledad in San Diego, he was down on a knee asking me to marry him.

He teases me about never saying, "yes". I said, "Of course I'll be your wife!" We were married four months later.

 After some time in England in 1993, he told me, on my birthday, that he wanted to start a family. I was thrilled. I have always had a strong intuition and had a deep sense that having babies would not be an easy thing for us to do. I was right.

 It took us nearly 10 years of loss and suffering and many miscarriages to come to the decision that we didn't want to grow old without children. 

 We decided to adopt. We chose "open-adoption".  

From the time we signed up with our agency to the time our birth mother gave birth to our first son, nine months had passed. The length of a pregnancy. I had the honor of being in the delivery room when Grant was born. My Beloved and his parents were right outside the delivery room doors and heard his first cry. 

God works in mysterious ways.

Two and a half years later, I gave birth to our next three children. Triplets. Maxwell, Charlotte, and Benjamin.

 My Beloved is the best Dad. I could not have chosen a better Daddy for our four gifts. I think the best gift he is giving them is his love for God and their mom (me!).

 He was born on St. Patrick's Day 1966. His Mom says, "He was born in time for the evening news."

He is Scots-Irish (like me) and German. He loves my corned beef and cabbage, potato leek soup, pastries, apple or berry pies. 

He is an intellectual and would rather talk about string theory than sports. 

He is well read, loves dark coffee and classical music. 

He can play most wind instruments and has marched with a tuba in the most popular of America's parades (Macy's and The Rose Parade) more than once.

Anytime we watch Jeopardy, he is answering most of the questions right.

He has grieved not being a physician but, it's just as well. He is color blind and can't see bruising or redness on skin very well. 

Instead, he has a degree in chemistry.

 During these past 19 months of unemployment, he went back to school and is finishing up his Master's degree in plastics. He's a smart one.

 On this day of his birth 45 years ago. I wish him another blessed and happy birthday. 

May he grow old, by my side, and see our children's children having babies. 

Happy Birthday David Leon Gibson.

je' taime