A Heavenly Birthday Celebrated

 This year I decided to try to give the sky lanterns a try... The reviews were quite mixed about 80% good and 20% horrible... I decided to give it a shot anyway...:) 

They were perfect... Really easy to do actually. 
I probably wouldn't do them with just little kids, but with Greg, the older boys, and my friend Katie to help they worked out super.  They were beautiful!

It was a really special way to end the day thinking and remembering our 5th born Samuel.

 Caleb and Louis with their lanterns:)

 I love this picture... Levi was totally enamored with the bright lights of the candles...

 Katie was helping Hopie girl:)

 Watching the 4 lanterns making their way up into the night sky... They stayed lit for quite a while:)

It was funny we had some people that reported to Channel 6 here that there were bright lights in the sky in our town... I think that they might have seen Samuel's lanterns:)

 My infant loss support group MEND always sends flowers on Samuel's birthday.  It is so nice to have him remembered by others... That absolutely makes my heart swell!

We did our typical rainbow cake (only 3 layers this year) and decorate it with skittles.  It was such a treat to have Emily's mommy Katie with us this year.  As you can see that with each skittle representing the Lord's faithfulness and things that we are thankful for... we are very blessed!  It was a very colorful cake... 

It was a beautiful day... and honestly, I think my rough time earlier this month with the crazy blue rag incident, sort of had me get that deep grief and right back in the moment sadness out of the way already this month.  I know that may sound strange... I still missed him like crazy, and had sad sad moments... but actually I felt like I could celebrate his life with more joy this year than in years past... That felt good...

25 loaves of bread baked for our Orphan Sunday Bread for Life table at church... 5 more to come out of the oven soon... It should be a great weekend...