Our Little Nehemiah's 1st Birthday!

Last night, we celebrated Nehemiah's 1st Birthday. He doesn't actually turn 1 until the 18th of December, but since Lord willing, we will be leaving on the 17th to head to the USA, we all thought it would be much better to celebrate here at home rather than in the van :)!
We are so very thankful for the blessing of our little guy! He's brought much joy to our home and everyone loves to "love" on Nehemiah all the time. He's really a sweetheart! As is our family tradition, we went around the room giving each person a chance to "bless" Nehemiah and say why they love him. We all remembered when he was first born last year and wouldn't hardly wake up and didn't eat for 9 days. We just kept giving Him over to the Lord as we thought God just might call him back home to be with Him. Then we remember how very sick he was those first 6 months of life as he struggled with his breathing. He's always been a bit weaker and seems to catch anything that's going around...yet the Lord's so gracious and little Nehemiah is growing and doing well.
All of our children have a nickname~ some of them have many :) We call Nehemiah either "Miah" (what Susannah called him when he was first born) or "the bullfrog". We had a froggie birthday party for him. The children made frogs from paper to decorate the table. I made or at least attempted to make a frog cake :) We bought a pack of green mints and some green olives to place on the table too. Everyone had fun blowing up green balloons and making 3 banners to hang up in the room. One said "Happy Birthday Nehemiah"; another said the words of Nehemiah's song I sing him every night, "Jesus is the Sweetest Name I Know"; and the last one said "Psalms 127:3 "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is His reward." For a special supper, I made homemade pizza~ 2 large pizzas for us and a little personal pizza for the birthday boy :)
Grandma had sent a gift for Nehemiah in the mail, so we let him open it. I just love his expression in that bottom picture. It is a little car dashboard/steering wheel and it makes car sounds and talks in English and Spanish. He had fun playing with it while we cleaned up from the party.
This week has been busy! We started out the week with most of the children under the weather with a couple of different sicknesses, but we thank the Lord they are all doing better now. We finished up 2nd quarter in our homeschool the week before, so we took this week to do some winter cleaning, Christmas baking, and other projects.
Tomorrow we will be putting together some goodie plates, and then in the evening, our church and our family will be going Christmas caroling. Sunday is our special Christmas service. Two Mexican Pastors from this state along with some people from their churches will be traveling to join us. We will be having a time of song, prayer, the children's choir will be singing, Daniel will be preaching, and then we'll end the evening with a Christmas Supper and gift exchange. Everyone is looking forward to it and we are praying that as our church invites their unsaved family members and neighbors to join us, that the Lord will open the hearts of many who will accept Him~ What a wonderful Christmas that would be!
Monday, we head "home" for Christmas. We are all excited about spending our first Christmas in 3 years with our family in the USA. We are looking forward to visiting and fellowshiping with our family, friends and church there. If the Lord brings us to your mind, will you please pray for the Lord to keep us safe as we travel, bless and direct our time in the states, and that our church here in Mexico will continue to grow and enjoy fellowship together in our absence. Pastor Humberto from the next town will be coming to hold services each week.
Well, I have a little Noah (age 3) who's half asleep and crying for a drink. Merry Christmas!