Celebration of a birthday on earth and in Heaven

Cole is finally six and couldn't be more excited.  He was lucky enough to celebrate his birthday for an entire week!  We had Pop and Nana over on his birthday, took him to Cheesecake Factory over the weekend (he loves cheesecake), had his party with his friends and cousins the next weekend and then celebrated with his Grandma and Grandpa after his party.

He decided he wanted a party at his Dojang (Tae Kwon Do School) and share his love for Tae Kwon Do with his friends and family.  Majest Martial Arts does a great job hosting parties and all the kids had so much fun.  They started with a demonstration for the kids to see how well trained black belts kick boards.  Then they took a class so they could all break a board themselves and learn some Tae Kwon Do moves.  They even asked mom and Cole's Uncle Pat to break boards and they did !

The kids also had free time to play on the moon bounce and take a ride in the Majest limousine.  And a party wouldn't be a party without pizza, fruit and a cake cutting with a Korean sword!  My sweet boy decided instead of asking friends to bring him gifts he would make donations to the Ronald McDonald House in Akron, OH.  We will be going back in December and plan to take the donated gift cards to deliver them personally.  We look forward to being able to help other families who will need to stay there.

As tradition continues, we chose to light a lantern in memory of our sweet Kendall Kaye.  Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate on her angelversary this year so we moved the celebration to the following weekend.  It's always a somewhat difficult evening, but it's also something the kids have started to look forward to. They don't ask as many tough questions anymore so that makes the evening a little more relaxing. The sting is not quite so difficult, but the loss is still an ache in your heart that never really heals. Reagan has started writing notes on the lantern now that she can write.  Cole did ask how the lantern actually gets into Heaven...and of course I had to break the news that it's not quite as easy as going up in the sky or I would have done it already :)  He is so curious and I love it.  The other day he asked where the heat comes from in the car.  When I told him it comes through the vents he said, "no, how does it actually get hot."  An explanation of coming through the vents was not sufficient. Luckily Johnny is very patient and does a much better job explaining things like that than I do.

Other than school and activities being busy, life was pretty uneventful until this week.  Cole is unfortunately suffering from three days of head aches. I'm trying to work through a good routine with the school to call when they think he needs medicine but not send him home just because he says it hurts.  It's a harder formula to develop than you'd think.  Unfortunately he vomited on his desk at school today and hasn't stopped telling me about it.  We are hopeful tomorrow will be free of pain for him.  The neurosurgeon does not think it's shunt related given the pain is not persistent, but we are, of course, monitoring him closely.  For the last three days the pain is on and off from about 8am until 2pm and then he seems fine after that.

We are headed into the tough Fall doctor schedule so there will be lots of updates coming.  Hopefully they will all be boring !!  Both kids will be seeing their neurosurgeon and neurologist.  Cole also has an appointment with the low vision specialist and Reagan has an appointment with the orthodontist. All in the next week and a half!  What was I thinking?!