Balloons, Paper Streamers, Plastic Table Cloths, Birthday Cake, Children and Family & Friends. Those made up a day of blessings for me. Today we attended our Grandson, Casen's birthday party. It was his second, but the first that we were able to be a part of. It was a good day! It brought back so many memories of our children when they were little and made lots of new memories for us to cherish.
One memory . . . for our children's birthdays, Brian normally drew the design on their cakes, I would fill it in with frosting and we'd try to keep little fingers from swiping a taste of the icing. Funny, the same thing happened today. Casen was looking at his Train Cake. I went over to see his face as he looked and out came a finger and with a quick swipe a taste of icing went into his mouth. He looks up and tells me, "I tasse choo choo, it good." (not a misspelling - just my attempt to mimic his phonics) My heart filled with love and the memories.
Today was special also because our son, Jordan was there to share the day with us. It has been so long since we have been together as a family, just enjoying one another and making memories. To see Jordan and Amanda together. To see Jordan joking and being ornery as he and his dad used the helium to fill the birthday balloons. (This one is not part of the birthday party, but. . .) To hear him tell me, "I love you, Mom," when I dropped him home to get ready for work. My heart again fills with love as I remember today.
Today we were able to also spend time with our added family - our son-in-law Josh's family. We saw some of Amanda and Josh's friends, ones we now count as ours. It was good to catch up with them all and to see their children. It was fun to visit with Josh's Mom and talk about our grandsons. To watch the kids taking a quick taste of icing from the birthday cakes, letting their balloons go, sure that a nearby tall person will retrieve it. It was good to see them enjoying the fact they are together and having fun! 
Finally, it is so good to NOT be leaving in a few days to go home to Arizona. Instead, we just drove home to our little apartment, with the knowledge our kids will spend time together this week and we can see Liam and Casen just about anytime we want to.
Like I said,
a day of blessings!
