Walter's 4th Birthday

It's hard to believe that Mr. W turned 4 years old in May.  He has filled our home with lots of joy and activity.  His hugs, sweet smile, and contagious laugh warm our hearts and we are so thankful the Lord brought him to our family.

 

Walter had his first "friends birthday party" this year.  We went to an indoor park and had a ton of fun.  Gramps and Mimi Megan made an amazing C3-PO cake that miraculously made the journey across town and arrived in one piece!  If only I could manage to get a few pictures that aren't blurry! 

 

With the cake, before the party...

Back of C3-PO

One of our tables - we had lots of help from the Mimis and Gramps and Grandma.

Walter cruising in the gym.

Shooting hoops

A little friendly competition with Mimi Erin

Noah

Parker

 

Getting a few minutes to talk in the midst of flying basketballs and zooming scooters.

Nate and Ryan



 

Dinner:  Pizza, chips, and Han Solo "frozen" at the bottom of carbonite Jell-O.

 Singing "Happy Birthday" (apparently we were loud).

Walter and Henry have been practicing their dribbling skills lately.

 

Brooke and Melanie

 

These guys were wild - no fears!

The 'rents - a rare picture together

On their way to the top of the climbing stuff.

Opening presents...

Sienna and Mary

Our kids would have stayed to play all night!  It's fun to see their friendships growing - especially when we enjoy being with the same people.  :)   We are grateful for our family and friends who pray for our kids, laugh with them, and love them! 

Paper Airplanes

 

 

The boys have made tons of paper airplanes over the last few weeks.  They were given a book on making paper airplanes, complete with cool paper and stickers.  It arrived just in time for all the rainy days that followed - "Thank you" to our thoughtful friends!   

Spring Fling 2013

We were relieved to make it home from the hospital on Wednesday evening (and have a hot meal waiting for us at Nate's parents' house) so we could be at Henry's Spring Fling Program on May 2nd.  It was hard to believe the end of the school year was just a few weeks away.  Once again, it was a fun and thoughtful program.  The grandparents have much better pictures - I'll have to ask for those and post them later.  Just for the record:  I did send Henry in clean clothes but they had chocolate (birthday) cupcakes before the program!  

 

Singing - Henry loves to sing... sometimes he did the actions for the songs,

sometimes he skipped them.

 

This was Henry's favorite part of the program - his teacher read a description of items used in their classroom and related them to spiritual truths they learned this year.  As Mrs. V.O. read each description, a student would hold that item up for the audience to see.  Henry was happy that he was assigned the pencil.  



 

I think this is when I finally cleaned my camera lens! 

Singing a counting song about fish that had some pretty flashy actions.



At this point I decided that if I got the chocolate stain out of this shirt, I should move it to Walter's side of the closet. 

The "I" in the Alphabet Poem...

...and an exclamation point!

With some of the friends he really enjoys playing with at school (J and C).

Mrs. V.O. is the best.  Isn't it great that she has a spot for the kids to put their special Lego creations?  Henry showing off some of his items - we better start saving for some sort of engineering program.

At his "spot."

 

After the program, the grandparents, Mimi Megan, and our party of three were invited to have lunch at "Grandma and Grandpa Close's house." 

Walter and Mimi Megan checking out a special book.

 

Next year we'll have a preschooler and a kindergartner!  Yikes!

 

 

Wednesday

On Wednesday morning, the Infectious Disease doctor told us that we could go home in the afternoon - yeah!  We were very grateful that the Lord brought us to Children's St. Paul because Walter received excellent care...and thankful he was ready to go home.  We were really missing Henry and anxious to see him.  During one phone conversation with Henry he said, "Boy, Walter must be having the time of his life there."  I think he pictured us on a big vacation without him!  At any rate, we were so relieved that Walter had improved and we would make it home in time for Henry's "Spring Fling" program at school on Thursday. 

The view from our hospital room.  It was beautiful weather each day we were there - until the day we left.  Jackets would have been great - but that was one thing I hadn't packed!

 Our sweet friends, sent some special gifts for Henry and Walter.  They have spent hours and hours looking through and reading these books (and making lots of paper airplanes). 

 

 Passing the time playing games and listening to music with Dad.

 

 Walter was pretty worn out and tired (Nate looks a little tired, too) and feel asleep while we waited for the doctor to visit.  He also missed a few MN Gophers athletes who stopped by to say hello. 

 The view from Walter's bed.  It's funny how you settle into a place and it starts to feel homey - it doesn't even feel strange when you wake up multiple times during the night and there are people hoovering over the bed.

We liked to walk across the hall to look out this window.  The James J. Hill house is in the upper right side of the picture. 

After lunch he was back in his street clothes.  It felt a little sad saying goodbye to Nurse Linda and room 4116...but also wonderful.  We couldn't get over the fact that the grass was green - how long were we gone?  God gave us incredible peace during this week.  We can both remember a few moments when we felt fearful/uncertain about the situation we were in but each of those moments were almost immediately replaced by His comfort and peace, trusting that God knew all of Walter's needs and had a plan for him.  We have quite a Provider!