Happy birthday to our #1

On this day in history, 9 years ago, Elijah Paul Svoboda pushed his perfectly round, pink little head into our world. I wasn't digital back then but here's a nice scan of our baby boy.

Isn't he just the most precious thing you have ever seen? Yeah, yeah, so you say your kid is more precious...well this is my blog and my kid, so there.

It all started after church last night. We gave Elijah a birthday card with a poem in it that read:

Elijahboy we can't believe that you're nine

You're growing up fast and doing real fine.

For your birthday present how would you like

To go out after church to get a new bike?

He looked up at us and said, "Do you mean it?" It was really cute. So we were going to go to Walmart and Target to look at their bikes, but we have decided that we are tired of buying cheap and getting exactly what we pay for, so we stretched ourselves a bit and went to a couple sporting goods stores and even tried out Toys R Us for kicks but ended up at Dick's Sporting Goods for an "X-Games" bike. The entertainment book has a coupon in it for $20 off a purchase of $100 or more, so that, along with money from mema and poppy, grandma and grandpa and great grandpa (plus we sold his old bike and Tim and I pitched in a little) he had "over $100" to spend. Not much, mind you, but enough to get this bike and we are glad we did it!

He is so excited about this bike! I am so excited for him! I think it was so cool to watch him "shop" for this. He has never done something like it before and it was such a big boy responsibility, so-to-speak, he LOVED it!  We didn't get started until sometime between 7:30 and 8pm (right after the Saturday evening service) and we still had to eat dinner, so we didn't get home until just after 10pm. Earlier that day we told the kids they could sleep in their "fort" in the living room, so we had to get that set up. Who would've thought that 5 kids can't fit so comfortably in a fort made of blankets that span a few of the kitchen chairs with one reclined recliner? We had to branch over to the couch and a couple more kitchen chairs, then Levi couldn't handle Elijah's snoring after a while, so he moved ON to the couch and after 11pm finally fell asleep.

They were up at 7am. Good grief! Tim and I woke up to the front door opening and closing. Elijah was out riding his bike. Of course! Later he and I went to Tate's Place for his birthday breakfast where he, for the second year in a row, ordered the triple berry waffles and a kid's coffee (hot chocolate).

Last year he only ate half of it and was certain he could stomach the whole thing now that he's 9.  It turns out he only gained 1/4 of the waffle over last year's attempt.

What does he care?  He had dessert for breakfast!

Everyone came over for Elijah's birthday lunch.  His request was spaghetti.  We didn't have time to do gifts after we ate because Elijah had a make-up ball game and had to be at the field at 2:30.  Just before the game, we went to an open house.  Tim rode Elijah on the motorcycle and while we were inside looking at the house (which is perfect and we LOVE and will buy if they will gladly drop the price a mere $30,000) Elijah messed with the throttle on the bike.  When Tim came out to start the bike, he learns that Elijah messed with the throttle and apparently broke it because the motorcycle was stuck on "wide open" acceleration.  I guess the throttle cable was so thin that it could have broken at any moment which would have the motorcycle uncontrollably accelerating...with Tim and Elijah or Levi on it...and Elijah happened to break it.  Praise God Elijah did what he did!!!

At his game, Elijah didn't get to pitch like we thought he might, but as short stop he made a double play that awarded him the game ball.  What a birthday.  We were so happy for him!  After the game we went back for presents and cake and ice cream and then the real "fun" began.

We were outside with the dogs not really doing anything when Toby started to run in the backyard neighbor's yard where "Rocky" lives.  Rocky is a rather large German Shepherd who didn't so much like Toby in his yard and somehow managed to get a hold of Toby and shook him like a rag doll.  Tim and I ran towards the [now 3] dogs, as Kevin decided to come to Toby's rescue, shouting their names like lunatics trying to get our dogs to get out of Rocky's yard, but it was too late for us to get Toby.  At some point Rocky did let Toby go, and then Kevin ran after Rocky for some stupid reason....Toby's honor I guess.  Oh my word my heart was pumping and I was yelling and Tim was yelling and finally everything stopped.  Rocky was taken into the house and I apologized profusely to my neighbor for not having our dogs leashed, etc.  Mom and dad took Toby to the animal ER where $600 later they find that Toby is a VERY lucky dog with nothing much more than a severely bruised body with 8 dog bites on his teeny little body.  They are keeping him overnight to make sure he makes it to the morning, and if he does he can go home with his pain meds.

Mom, Ruthie and I were supposed to go to Shipshewana on Wednesday.  I guess we won't be going now, all because Toby thought HE could tell off a German Shepherd.  I suppose that works out just fine because I didn't have a babysitter for Titus and Micah as mine backed out.  That pool is VERY shallow for me.  Humphf. 

I am very tired and need to get to bed.  Tim kindly pointed out that I could blog a whole lot more regularly if each one wasn't so daggone play-by-play.  I can't help it.  On that note, goodnight!