Bre's Birthday Bash

Last Saturday, Ryan's family got together to celebrate his sister's birthday. Bre has one of the biggest, most compassionate hearts of anyone I know. She pays attention to people and their stories. She learns them, she feels what they feel, and she puts energy into caring about things that most people would overlook entirely.

It was fun to celebrate her, and while we do that every year, this time there were a few more people who joined in with us!

{Photo credit for this one goes to Ryan's mom.} This is Bre with Ryan and their other sister, Lori. Ryan's brother had to work that night, so he's not in the picture.

Ryan's mom made pizzas - like from scratch. Dough and everything. While pizza is not on my current eating plan, I let myself have one little middle piece with minimal crust, and I have to say, i don't think I've ever eaten a more delightful piece of pizza  IN MY LIFE.

And while we're talking about delights I'm not supposed to have, we might as well talk about the piece of cake, too. Our sister-in-law Megan is quite the cake baker, and she made a delicious cake, which our niece helped decorate:

For the record, THAT was not my piece of cake. I just had a sliver of what you see above.

I love catching glimpses of Ryan and his grandpa deep in conversation, mulling over who-knows-what:

Ryan's mom discovered she was out of birthday candles, so while we sang, Bre just pretended to blow them out:

And then she opened her gifts. We gave her the Streams in the Desert Bible. I love that devo book so very much. I've studied it two different years so far, and both times it was so perfectly suited for the days of that year. So when I found you could purchase the devo book tucked right into the Bible, it was perfect.

Eventually the kiddos got in on the fun. They love to help open presents!

Even the big kids.

Jenna caught me up on life in her world, when she was done helping with presents:

And that was the night! We stayed later than we should have, since we still had to work out when we got home - AND we had church the next morning, but it was worth it. A good time celebrating a wonderful sister!