Double Digits

Somehow, don't ask me how, my firstborn son has suddenly become a big kid.  For years now, sweet, well-meaning ladies in the grocery store checkout lines have been telling me, "Oh, honey, the years are going to go by so fast."  To which I have responded by putting my hands over my ears and singing "LA LA LA I can't HEAR you!"  Well, okay, not really, but this is a fact that I am all too aware of, and not especially comfortable with.  I treasure each and every day with my kids as the gifts from God that they are, but still, here I am with a ten year old boy, asking myself, "Where in the world did the years go?  Where is my snuggly little pumpkin and who is this handsome young man?"  

Isaac, of course, is thrilled to have hit the double digits.  He has been so excited to turn ten years old!  He is not missing being a baby nearly as much as his mommy is.  And that is the way things are supposed to be.  

Grandpa Jan played "Happy Birthday" 

on his guitar for Isaac:

And Isaac enjoyed seeing what his siblings picked out for him:

 Then, after his family party, we had the friend party the following weekend.  Derek's mom and little sisters prepared some special music for Isaac, and (after a brief bout of stage fright) they did a fabulous job playing a song for him:

Then, at Isaac's request, we had an inventing party.  We spread out a bunch of junk on the table, along with duct tape and aluminum foil and other odds and ends, and let the kids loose to invent whatever cool thing they could think up.  The kids didn't need much encouraging:

 The finished inventions:

 Then we moved some furniture and turned down lights to create a movie theater atmosphere, and the kids ate all the popcorn they could eat while they watched one of Isaac's favorite movies with him:

If you have not seen "Meet the Robinsons," I highly recommend it.  It's about a kid growing up in an orphanage who wants to be adopted, which explains why I love it (obviously) and the kid, Lewis, is a super smart little guy who is always inventing amazing contraptions, which explains why Isaac loves it, and it involves traveling into the future in a time-machine jet, a pizza-delivery-rocket, and a crazy food fight, which explains why Josiah and Gideon love it.  And it is pretty hilarious and convoluted, and the first time through you might not fully get what is going on, but when it all comes together in the end, it is really neat.  

So anyway, Happy Birthday to my dear Isaac.  I am so happy to be his mom, and to spend my days with him and watch him grow up and learn new things and grow closer to the Lord and to his family.  I am so happy to watch him growing into himself, and figuring out who he is and where he is headed in life.  But still, I am just puzzling over how and when exactly he went from this:

to this: