Happy Birthday to Kell!

January 10 was Kell's birthday. He had been talking about it for about a month.  As soon as he heard Jesus was having a birthday, he was talking about his own!  In China, he was the birthday boy along with 120  other honorees!  I made that number up but we got pictures from his 2011 birthday, celebrated in March. The orphange celebrates birthday 3-4 times a year so all the children with birthdays in those months have a party together...talk about being lost in a crowd!

Well not in America!  You get to be the star for the day!  Kell was so excited about his birthday and his "pawty"!  All he wanted was for his friends to come celebrate and wear "pawty hats"...and sing "Happy Birthday" over and over and over....

Remember now, he is not a material guy...singing friends wearing hats would really have made his day but we started early making a BIG deal over him!  We went shopping many days planning for the "pawty", letting him pick out hats and horns, and talking about what to play at the "pawty".  He was so excited to pick out a cake that was bright green and had Shrek and Donkey on it.  Out of all things, Shrek and Donkey?  Shrek  is the only movie he has watched in its entirety and just loves the duo!  Shrek and Donkey it is!

The plan was simple: all his sweet little friends, mostly neighbors, would come play....trampoline, sidewalk chalk, riding bikes and scooters...then it rained!  Yikes!  So an hour before I picked him up from school, I gathered every bit of brightly covered Dollar Tree plastic and streamer in the house and created a last minute garage "pawty room" (hence, the classy backdrop for the pictures!).

Oh, but when he saw it, he gasped...like it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen!  "Oh, Mommy, thank you, thank you so much!".  And that was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen, too!  This child of God finally getting all the things he so deserves, like they all deserve...little things like the plastic garage birthday with a green Shrek cake and so much love!  He was feeling the birthday love from all the special friends he loves so much wearing "pawty hats"  and singing just for him...the only birthday boy at the party this year!

Check out that happy face as everyone was singing just for him!

Side note cuteness:   I decided to let him enjoy his day without all the usual etiquette that comes with a party...because he probably wouldn't get all that this year.  While I was setting up last minute plasticness before the guests arrived he came in covered in green icing!  He dug a little tunnel in the back of the cake and thoroughly enjoyed it!  (note to guests: none of that part of the cake was served to you!  Ha!).  While I was cleaning up green icing, he was in a corner quietly sneaking into his presents!  What are you going to do?  Just enjoy your day, special one!

And there he (my Chinese cowboy) is thoroughly enjoying some of his gifts...and still talking about his "pawty"!!!...and wearing his Georgia Boots, of course!