eleven.

Hard to believe it, but Joshua is eleven now! I remember so clearly when I turned eleven... it's just so weird that he's now that age.

Joshua & me when he was about 8 days old.  He was so tiny! :)

Joshua had a really nice birthday. We took the day off school, as we always do when the kids have a birthday. (one of the little "perks" of homeschooling...) The kids played video games and I worked on making food. 

At the library after Matt got home from work.

Joshua with his birthday cake, one of the recipes I found on Pinterest.

David gave Joshua his best pocket knife.  Joshua was quite pleased. :)

The beautiful 3-dimensional card Marissa made for Joshua.

Jesse & Naomi admiring the Lego Star Wars set we got Joshua.

We have this thing going that the birthday kid gets to choose what to eat for the meals that day, well really it's more like they put in their requests and then I "tweak" them.  And almost anything is fair game... it doesn't have to be healthy!  We had eggs and cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  Before changing to an almost strictly plant-based diet we always called Joshua the "egg boy" because of his love for eggs, especially scrambled. :)

I tried a couple different recipes I'd found on Pinterest.  Both of them involved chocolate chips.  :)  

Here's a link to Joshua's birth story, because you just might want to read it again. :)  It's so hard to believe he was our preemie!  You'd never know it to see him today.  He is healthy & growing, learning lots, loving reading, hanging out with Jesse, playing Legos and cars.  And growing up more & more every day.  Wow!  Parenting is really surreal.