Happy 12th Birthday Jennifer!

I can't believe my baby girl is 12 years old already. We prayed and prayed for this child and God answered our prayers in a wonderful way by blessing us with this little girl named Jennifer. We had a very low-key celebration this year compared to normal. For those of you who know us, we tend to celebrate birthday weeks not days. But this year, Jennifer traded her birthday party (which is A BIG deal to her!) and all gifts from us(her family) in exchange for one nice big gift- a girls' only cruise with her 2 best friends and their Mom's!! We are celebrating all 3 girls' birthdays (2 turning 12 and 1 turning 13) on board a cruise ship in late March. I am sure we will post on all that later. But she still had a great birthday day without a slumber party or numerous gifts. Although there was no "party", we did let her invite one friend over for the day. She chose her friend Rachel because she hadn't been able to see her in quite a while and she chose Jennifer to spend her birthday with last year.
We started the day at church and then we went to the nursing home where my grandfather has recently made "home" and a small group of choir members sang hymns for the guests there. Jennifer had been wanting to play her clarinet for them, so this sounded like a great time to do that. Rachel plays the oboe, so they decided to do a duet. I was nervous about singing in front of a large group without the support of my fellow sopranos, but figured most of them couldn't hear or wouldn't care. :) It was a joyous time of worship and fellowship with a crowd larger than anticipated. As for the "Choir", it consisted of myself and 4 others.The sweet people that were there enjoyed singing with us. My Papa just cried through the whole thing when he wasn't singing. He had a stroke years ago and has been able to care for himself until just recently. He has a LOT of trouble verbalizing his thoughts but I was shocked at how he knew the words ( of even the middle verses!) to all the songs we sang. Here is a picture of him. He enjoyed it more than anyone I Think.Otis was our special soloist and he has such a DEEP beautiful bass voice. Everyone enjoys listening to him. He has just become a christian in the last few years but has such a testimony and love for Jesus. Towards the end of the "singing" the girls played their instruments for everyone. Rachel's reed broke right after she started so she didn't get to play too much. But I think everyone enjoyed it regardless. And I think the girls were very brave to play in front of a crowd like that. I also am very proud that they would both want to do this for the nursing home people. I don't know many 12 year old girls that wouldn't complain about spending their birthday at a nursing home. After that we came home for just a little bit before heading over to my Mom's house who was sweet enough to have a cookout for the birthday girl. Mom reminded me that I promised not to give a party, but she didn't.

The kids had a ton of fun playing with some streamers and blower things (don't' know what they are called).

We had hotdogs and hamburgers and all the "fixins", then had some wonderful birthday cake(brownie cake with frosting-yum!) and ice cream. The kids then enjoyed some time in the hottub before opening a few presents. Overall, she shared with us that she had a great birthday. This time, it looks like we will be celebrating again later next month.