From Josiah to Johnny on his fifth birthday:

You’re the best!  Johnny, I’m glad you’re my bro.  I also LOVE you with all my heart.  You make my life way better!

That pretty much sums up how all of us feel about Johnny.  This little guy makes all of us laugh hysterically.  He is happy and easy-going and enthusiastic about everything.  He has the most fantastic lisp that I probably should start worrying about now that he is five….but I love it too much to care.

Once when watching the sunrise with Dad, Johnny exclaimed, I see the orange thing!  Gil responded, Do you know what else that is called?  A pause.  Johnny tried, A circle?

For months he couldn’t remember the word for “breakfast.”  He would come into the kitchen every day and instead would come up with creative descriptions.  What are we eating for dinner in the morning?  What are we eating for when I wake up?  


One day Gil transformed Lily’s old pink bike into a cool red Spiderman bike and all day long Johnny repeated to Gil, I love you so much, Daddy.  I love you so much.

Out of the blue Johnny said to me recently, Mommy, when I was at my Baby Home, I prayed for you to come get me.  

I mean, seriously.  Who couldn’t love a kid like this?  I think he might be contemplating taking over the world one day.  He turns us all into piles of goo so we would let him get away with it.

He loves learning letters and can now write the names of everyone in the family.  He can do puzzles for hours.  He loves anything mechanical, especially cars and planes.  He grew four inches in one year.  Four.

Johnny has been looking forward to turning five years old for at least the past nine months, so he was pretty darn excited that the day finally came.  And we were all pretty happy to celebrate with him.  As Josiah said best, Johnny makes our lives way better!


I’m pretty sure these super cool firework candles are illegal in America.  But then again, this entire water park would be illegal in America too, so let’s just not worry about it.