HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELIMICHAEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Summer for our family and friends means celebrating one birthday after another. 

But are you guys ready for this? It's a shocker! Make sure you are sitting down! MY BABY IS 8! EIGHT!!! Actually he'll be 8 in 2 hours and 15 minutes. But still... EIGHT!!!!! (Pausing here so I can go sob my eyes out! )  I now understand what my parents meant whenever they said things like:

"Last time I looked you were this big!" (While holding hands about 2 feet apart.)

"Just yesterday, I was holding you in my lap giving you a bottle and then burping you." (While holding one hand up to support an invisible head while patting an equally invisible back.)

"I remember when you only came up to here!" (While bending over and holding their hand about knee high.)

It does seem like yesterday, last time I looked he really was only that big, and I know I won't forget him being only as tall as my knees! I get it! 

I remember 12:08 in the afternoon eight years ago, hearing my OB/GYN, Dr Neal-Parker, yelling out, "It's a boy! A VERY big boy!" (We were expecting a textbook size baby like our daughter was, not the almost 10 pounds he turned out to be.) My mother-in-law had just brought Sissy by to visit, arriving seconds after Eli's birth. At 12:11, I was on the phone to my Big Grandpa Roonie to tell him that EliMichael Thomas Mullins had entered the world. (I was even still trying to catch my breath from the last push that brought him into the world!) A very welcome and waited for little boy that stole hearts at every turn.

But then again, this miniature man that has taken that little baby's place... Oh my God! Now, ask anyone who knows him, Eli is awesome! He's as polite in public as he is at home. He's sweet, sensitive, respectful, kind, VERY imaginative. And so very, very, very loving. He'll come up to me out of the blue, and say "Mommy, one day I won't want to say this to much so hold this memory... I love you!" And then he kisses my cheek. And no matter where we are, if he hears the song, "Lost In This Moment" by Big & Rich, he takes my hands and leads me in a little kiddie waltz. But even then, he's still so sweetly shy. 

What else can I say? Our lives are ever so much fuller with him in them. The world is a much funnier place with him in it. We are all better people just knowing him.

Happy Birthday Baby Eli-Man. We Love You!  

Love, 

Mommy and Daddy!