It's absolutely unbelievable that our once tiny baby boy is now EIGHT!  He's growing far too fast.  He's already got dreams and aspirations.  His interests vary greatly and it's amazing to watch him soak in as much as he can.

Yes, Lee turns eight in December.  His arrival that afternoon was much anticipated and a relief I cannot even begin to describe.  About 11 months earlier, in the same delivery room, with the same doctor and many of the same nurses, we'd been given the shocking news that oldest son would be stillborn.  People thought we were insane when we became pregnant again so soon.  In some ways I'll say that we had to be a bit out of our minds as I can look back now and know that we hadn't allowed ourselves to grieve adequately.  At the same time, had we waited, we wouldn't be celebrating the last 8 years of this special child's life.  Our doctor elected to induce early after letting us go past our due date with Bryan.  As it turned out, Lee was already in trouble and none of us knew it (despite having weekly NSTs).  We were told that had we waited much longer, we'd have buried our second son also.  I cannot begin to tell you how I felt when I heard him cry for the first time.  Nothing else in the room mattered except that cry.  If you've been in a silent delivery room, you know exactly what I mean.

His birthday party was family only, which is nice.  We plan to invite a buddy over after all of the Christmas and New Years stuff settles.  We went with a "military mission" theme and his cake was adorned with Army men.  Yes, it was a fairly simple cake but he didn't care.  He got to keep the army men and the cake was chocolate....what more could a boy want lol.  I'm far from Betty Crocker so it's a good thing she has a line of "bake from a box" goodies.  During his party we watched his one year old video.  His uncle put it together for us several years ago.  It's a slideshow of about 70 pictures from his first year.  ((sigh))

Lee is one of those kids who marches to his own drummer.  He's not a "crowd follower".  He knows what he likes and doesn't care if his friends think it's cool or not.  He's a detail oriented kind a guy and can build virtually anything from seemingly nothing.  He is generally very kind and giving with his sisters.  He's silly but also has a serious "do or die" mode also.  He doesn't hide how he's feeling about anything - what you see is what you get.  I cannot even begin to imagine our family without him.  Happy Birthday Lee!