Johnny Is Six and Josiah Is Ten

When Grace turned six, her Daddy transformed the living room into a castle.  I spent hours making little tea sandwiches out of cookie cutters.  

Then comes the fourth child in the family.  Gil's and my conversation went like this:

Me, on the Tuesday before:  I guess we better celebrate Johnny's birthday on Saturday.

Gil:  Yeah, that sounds fine.

Me:  But if we do it this Saturday, we will have no time to plan it until Saturday morning.

Gil:  Well, then I guess we better do it on Saturday afternoon.

That's what happens when you are the fourth child.

So the party got thrown together three hours before the actual event, but that was okay because Grace planned all the games and Josiah and Lily helped with the decorations while I made the cake.

And the little boys thought it was the greatest thing ever.  

Plus, I remember that the girls at Grace's six-year-old party showed absolutely no appreciation for my flower-shaped sandwiches.  I've learned my lesson since then.  Really, all you need are water balloons.

Then, less than two weeks later came Josiah's birthday.  His wasn't quite so thrown together, although he is easy to please.  Gil set up a nerf gun arena in our training center classroom, and he and his friends spent all morning shooting each other.  A ten-year-old's dream.

Oh, and I made Josiah's cake the same time I made Johnny's, so all I had to do was pull it out of the freezer.  Fry up some hotdogs and we're done.  Bam.