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8.31.2020

happy birthday {a dozen for Daniel}

Daniel's day began with a birthday greeting, being handed his lightsaber, and receiving the message that there was a disturbance in the force in our front yard he needed to take care of before school started...

He took his Jedi responsibilities seriously and challenged Vader to a duel.  Loser would submit to the champion.  Clearly the Dark Lord had no idea the training our padiwan has received...

The lightsaber battle lasted just a few short minutes. 

In the end, Daniel was promoted to Jedi status and the force was restored to the light side in the 'hood.  


On the way back in he noticed a birthday greeting left on the door by a good friend's mom while she was on her morning walk.  Knowing his buddy took time to make a sign added extra special vibes to the morning!


Logging in to school brought another birthday wish, this time from his fantastic teachers.  They all seem energetic and excited for the year and definitely bought points with Daniel that they had taken the time to put together a bitmoji greeting to celebrate him.


Much of the day was a regular Monday, but a birthday means cake will be baked.

And if it's your birthday it comes with privileges...

Dinner was a much anticipated take out order from Cowfish.  I'd have to go back through archived pictures of past August 31sts, but I'm pretty sure this is at least the third year running he's had sushi and fries from his favorite restaurant for his special meal.  With exception of our Friday night pizza and picking Chick-fil-A up in the drive-thru twice, this was our first meal from a restaurant since Kylie's birthday on March 10.  So you could say it was a treat for us all...

After eight orders of California Roll, a Tempura shrimp roll, two large burgers, a kids bento box of burgers and SO. MANY fries were consumed, we cleared the table for him to finally open his gifts.  The two smaller ones gave themselves away as he picked them up.  Legos are still a surefire way to bring a smile!

RC cars were the other "big ask" this year (see what we did up there with the Cars wrapping paper?).  Daniel now has a  "Hyper Charged" Dodge Charger Hellcat and a 2017 Ford GT in his fleet of vehicles.  


And then after presents is the sweet treat of a birthday.  For the fourth year running his cake choice was a  "fruit pizza."  Not surprising for my fruit loving kiddo...I'm pretty sure he consumes more fruit than his siblings combined over a week.

Fits of giggles over the fact that his candles made him either 12 or 21 depending on which way the cake was turned.  


My 12 year old boy, the perfect mix of sweet and silly.  One minute baring his soul, the next laughing about  "cutting muffins."  


Once the candles were blown out ~ photographed as 12, viewed by him as 21, hence more giggles ~ we devoured his favorite dessert with much of the fruit being picked off slices and passed to the birthday boy by his siblings.  At that point his smaller Lego set was "burning a hole in his pocket," so he constructed his Ant Man Quantum Realm Explorer Pod and eagerly showed us all the features.  But the birthday surprises didn't end there.  Last special thing of the night was getting to watch his birthday video.  We sent an invitation to friends, family & his elementary school teachers (because they are some of his favorite people in the world) to record a short birthday greeting and compiled it into a video. He was truly in awe with each person's birthday wish and called it the best part of his birthday.


My little peanut,

Each day with you is a gift.  Your top character strengths according to the quiz you took for school truly do align with the things that make you such a special part of our family!  It is no surprise that love is your top character strength as you love the people around you well.  You remind me of Christ in that way...loving freely and without discrimination.  Zest and joy are followed by love of learning and as your big sister said, you love school enough for all your siblings.  Your willingness to forgive others and offer a second chance (and often MANY more past that) even when it seems they don't deserve it inspires me to do better. Your innate sense of being grateful to others for things big and small makes it a joy to bake your favorite dessert or give you special gifts.  Your twelveth ride around the sun is going to be a wonderful year and I'm just glad to be on the journey with you.

All my love,
Mama


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