Happy 8th Birthday Joshua

Our beautiful 8 year old boy

I know I have said it before, but I will say it again .... 8 years ago now a most wonderful precious little boy was born and came into our lives and completely changed us forever ... we will always cherish that day and our lives ever since. Just when we feel we could not possibly love you any more, you turn another year older and somehow our hearts just keep growing as well.

Even though Joshua's birthday fell on a Friday this year and it was a school day, we decided it was going to be a day of celebration from the beginning to the very end - and that is exactly what we had!

The morning started with phone calls from friends and family and then opening some presents in bed. Joshua went to school laden with home-made cupcakes for his class and a packet of chocolate goodies for all his classmates. When we walked into the classroom, all the boys surprised him by leaping out from under their desks to break into a chorus singing 'happy birthday' - what a fabulous start! And there sitting on his desk was a birthday certificate from Mrs Bell and all the boys. Joshua was made to feel very special all day.

And then we had his Pool Party that evening - the children were all so excited to have the pool entirely to themselves and have the opportunity to swim in the dark in a floodlit pool! According to Mrs Bell, they had talked about it all week. The weather 'gods' looked after us and gave us a relatively mild night which we needed because it was an outdoor pool! We made it a fun family affair and so invited Joshua's friends and also their brothers and sisters and ended up with 34 children all in the pool plus about the same number of adults. We had cranked the water temperature up to 27 degrees and Albie the inflatable Alligator took up about a third of the pool. Some of the Dads couldn't resist the chance to jump on the inflatable and so jumped in as well. The children dived from the pool into the hot spa pool and then back into the pool. Many of the boys bought their water guns (no surprises there ... and so we had weapon warfare en masse!). Daddy dressed up in an Alligator's costume and entertained some of the children, in particular the little girls who loved pulling his tail!

After they had enough of swimming, we then served cups of hot chocolate and marshmallows to warm them up whilst were waiting for the barbeques to fire up. A few sausages in their tummies, a lolly scramble and then birthday cake and goodie bags finished off the night. It was a lovely sound listening to 34 little voices singing happy birthday in the still night air as Joshua blew out 8 candles.
We came home and laid on the bed with Joshua, turned the lights out and all three of us just chatted about the party - it was a fantastic night!
The following pictures capture some special moments of the day...

Joshua received so many gorgeous gifts, it was quite overwhelming. He now has hours and hours ahead of him to open them and truly enjoy them all - thank you everyone. We are hopeful that the piano keyboard from us and Grandma & Grandad will help him in his piano lesson practise!