Belatedly acknowledging: he's one

Baby Elijah has turned one!

This beautiful baby has changed our life in so many wonderful ways.




God knew we needed him so much.
And forever and ever I will thank Him for His perfect plans that bypass our assumptions and expectations and take us straight to such tremendous joy.


We celebrated with my mom and my sister and her family on the weekend before. Talented sister of mine made a vegan gluten-free cake that was so moist and delicious -- it's like she bakes from thin air and aspirations and yet her recipes are amazing.

Then on his actual birthday his godparents and their three youngest children came over for dinner and ice cream cake.

One of my favourite moments was when the three big kids gave him his presents. I suggested they all make something themselves, so Anna coloured him a picture, which he seemed pleased by. Noah worked from the moment he came home from school until dinner was served to get the meal ready -- he made the salad dressing all by himself, made the rice and chopped the veggies for dinner. So in order for Elijah to appreciate that his gift was cooking, he taped some uncooked grains of rice to a card he made for his baby brother. (Also, when did I get a child OLD ENOUGH TO BE ACTUALLY HELPFUL IN THE KITCHEN?!)

And then Isaiah gave him his gift.
He had sewed him a pillow from a fat quarter my mom gave him over March Break. He worked on it diligently at school for over a week, wrapped it himself, and it was beautiful.
When Elijah opened it, our sweet baby squealed with absolute delight and I thought it was the most precious noise ever made by a baby, because he knew he was receiving a gift of such tremendous love.





Which is exactly what he is to us...


A gift of tremendous love.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

7 QT: Homeschooling with a sick baby & fangirl Pinterest moments

Image
~1~ I'm rather behind the eight ball on the first day of school blog post, seeing as though we've been at it for over a week, but oh my, what a week it was. On the night of Labour Day, my husband and I stayed up much later than we normally do getting our little homeschool nook in order. I wanted very much to have it look appealing to the boys because this is our first year formally homeschooling and I want to have them excited about it all. Anyway, we managed to create this little space: and I was quite pleased with it.  The boys each have their own IKEA-hack shelf with their daily read-alouds picked our for them, as well as a little calendar to learn more about the seasons and weather (mostly for Isaiah) and laminated prayer cards of the Morning Offering, the Act of Contrition and the Anima Christi. Oh, and the lunar cycle there for good measure. We love the moon a lot around here. Anyway, I went to bed that night thinking I'd sleep the sleep of ...
Read more

And the millstone award goes to...

Image
On Monday I needed to do some errands -- the weekly groceries, a trip to the bank, and I was in need of a gift for my mother-in-law who's birthday was coming up. She is an avid bibliophile, and I thought she might like One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, something I haven't read (yet!) but based on my exposure to Ann Voskamp's writing, it really seemed up my mother-in-law's alley. Rather than wasting the gas by going into the city another day during the week, I decided to bundle the kids up and do all the errands in one packed morning. We had a grand ol' time. We always do, really, when we head out (especially when we are lucky enough to have  this song  play on the radio while we cruise around). When we arrived at Chapters, I quickly found the Voskamp book, found a nice day-planner for myself at 75% off (yipee!) and then told the boys we could play around in the kids' section for a while. They have a Thomas train table set up there, as well as other vario...
Read more

7 Quick Takes on things that are bringing me JOY

Image
I don't even know if anyone still does 7 Quick Takes anymore, but I was in the mood for an old-school blog post, so here goes. 1. The Nester on Instagram . Her stories taking her followers shopping are DELIGHTFUL. She goes to antique malls or home goods stores and explains why you want feather throw pillows, not poly. Or why you want accent items that are at least as big as pineapple (any smaller, these items will begin to feel like clutter). It's really tremendously helpful and she's just so sweet and uplifting! {Do you not use this app? Never fear. Even without an Instagram account, you can open the website on your computer browser, and because her profile is set to public, you can access her photos and stories.} The Nester is just really calming, wise and has such great home decor advice. While we have quite different style, I devour her insights to apply to our own home. 2. Nature journalling with the kids .  Oh my, I always thought this was like, some lofty thing that ...
Read more