Happy 2nd Birthday, Joe!

(I am long, long, long overdue for a blog post and I promise to catch up soon...but for now, we are focusing on our birthday boy!!!)

Our baby is 2 years old!!  How can that be??!!  He has changed and grown so much in these past few months...and he has experienced so much!  A cross country move, meeting lots of new friends, camping and hiking, meeting lots of his Kerger family members for the first time, learning to run and climb and jump on a trampoline and slide down a big slide!  It doesn't seem that long ago that we were holding him in our arms for the first time.  

Joe is ALL BOY and FULL of life!  He keeps everyone in this home hopping.  He challenges me and Josh in new ways as parents and teaches us to trust more in the Lord for patience and wisdom.  He, like his brothers, has a VERY strong personality and lets it be known in big ways.  

Joe, like most little brothers, wants to do everything his big brothers do.  And for the most part...he can keep up!  He can already play Legos and change out the heads on the minifigures and build simple structures.  But the big boys block the bedroom door when they are creating their masterpieces since he can quickly become "Hurricane Joe".  He is very physical and loves to run and jump and climb.  Once, I found that he had pushed a stool to the kitchen counter, climbed up to get my PAM cooking spray, sprayed himself and the counter....all within a foot or two of a boiling pot of beans on the stove.  If I have more gray hair now, it is primarily because of him!

His enthusiasm is an amazing thing to watch.  He does everything with gusto!  He loves to draw with markers, but always ends up drawing on himself and the table and anything else he can get to before we catch him.  He wants his artwork to be everywhere!  He loves to be read to and usually sits in with our homeschooling read alouds.  He likes to do "school" too and I caught him sorting colored math manipulatives into piles.  He just wants to be part of everything.  He really enjoys being outdoors and had a great time when we went camping this summer!    

 Joe is also a comedian.  He knows just what to do to make us laugh or to be silly.  We especially enjoy when he dresses up with the super hero costume or combines dress up clothes...like here where he put the super hero arm bands on his legs!

 Other than his brothers and sister, his best buds are "The Twins" - Micah and Noah...part of a dear family that have become some of our closest friends.  He does enjoy their company...but as you can tell from the look on his face, he doesn't like the feeling of being outnumbered by two boys who look the same and each weigh about 10 pounds more than him!

 He likes to pick up Bibles and pretend he is reading them.  He has also started "praying" at meal time - he bows his head and closes his eyes and mumbles a little prayer...surely precious in the sight of the Lord!

 Joe has learned to be a good helper.  His morning job is to empty the silverware from the dishwasher...and he knows just where each piece belongs!

 Here he is helping again...by carrying firewood to the fire pit.

 Foods....his favorites are oatmeal, black beans or refried beans, tofu patties, watermelon, whole carrots, green olives and blueberry smoothies!  (What can I say, he likes healthy foods?!!)

We are going to have a simple celebration with cake on Tuesday, but we decided to give him his big birthday gift the night before so that he can have his whole birthday to play with it.  He seemed a little intimidated at first by his new tricycle, but he's started to push it around with his feet and we know he'll be pedaling soon!

We are so grateful for the gift of Joe in our lives.  He is a blessing and a joy and we cannot imagine life without him.  Thank you, Lord for our sweet Joe!  Thank you for using him to humble and grow us!  Keep him in the palm of your hand and teach him to hear your voice and feel your love around him.  Thank you for putting him in our family!