Happy 9th Birthday Joseph!!!

Before I forget about today, here are some pictures of the day Joseph turned 9 years old.

This was the last picture taken of Joseph at age 8.
He turned 9 a few minutes after we took this picture.
He and I are night owls :)
(Those are band-aids on his face to cushion him
from getting those bipap marks.)

It doesn't look much, but I spent three hours past midnight
to blow up these balloons  and  make the cupcakes.  

No cake this time; just cupcakes to make a 9.

Chocolate sundae cupcake.
Another idea from Pinterest :)

Happy Birthday Joseph!
No crowd.  Just him, his Daddy, his Nana and me.
Too many people with cough, cold and fever and we
did not want to take any chance to pick up some illness.

I love the ombre balloons in shades of blue.
Another idea from Pinterest.

And this was how Joseph pretty much spent his birthday:
glued to his new computer.

And so we went pretty low-key for Joseph's actual birthday.  Thank God that we already had the birthday crowd earlier in November for his Almost-9 birthday bowling party.  Pictures as follows:

Birthday theme: Sonic the Hedgehog

Favor bag

Birthday favors

We finally met Isabella and her Dad, Stephen.
They drove an hour and a half to attend the party.

Daddy helping Joseph with the ball.

Daddy helping Isabella with the ball.

Isabella is absolutely beautiful!
We were so happy to meet them.

Singing Happy Birthday to Joseph.

Blowing the candle.

It was a good day.  It was the last of the three consecutive outings Joseph did in 10 days.  We breathed a sigh of relief that Joseph did not get sick even after being around a lot of people in those outings: Dinosaur Exhibit, Zoo Boo and bowling party.  And so we thought.  He got sick the week following his bowling party.   It was mild, thankfully; just low grade fever, sore throat and lots of suctioning. 

We are officially confining Joseph to the house from now until mid-Spring.  Brady and I plan to wear isolation masks when we get home from work.  There are so many people with the flu, people who had the flu shot!  There are RSV cases.  Plus the stomach virus that is going around.  Even Hillary Clinton had the stomach virus and suffered a concussion when she fainted.  We will do what we can to keep Joseph from getting sick, but in the end, we have to trust God to keep Joseph and us all healthy and safe from illnesses and harm.  Right?