Hannah is very happy and loving school and life right now. She just celebrated her 8th birthday this past Friday, February 8, her golden birthday. John and I showed up with cupcakes in the shape of a heart, at lunchtime, for her and her classmates. She was really jazzed about that! It humbles me to think how happy, truly joyful, my and John’s company, brings her. Like John said, I think she’d have been happy if we’d have simply shown up to eat lunch with her, minus the cupcakes.

I created a cute little “flag” out of paper. I used pink paper and wrote “Happy Birthday, Hannah! Love, Mommy and Daddy.” Then I put some stickers and wrote a big “8” on the other side of the flag. I taped the flag to a wooden dowel, painted gold, and stuck it in the middle cupcake.

I actually had set up a neat thing where I was going to pay this young lady, who sings and perform at Six Flags Over Texas programs, to dress up as a princess for Hannah’s birthday. She was going to surprise Hannah at school, at lunchtime, and maybe sing some Disney song. But that fell through. At least Hannah never knew about it, I was really careful not to talk about it, and I'm glad I didn't, because the girl flaked out!

I recently read one of Hannah's homework assignments, and it was very interesting. Since Hannah attends a private (Christian) school now, she has Bible class. One of her homework questions said to name a time when God helped her through a difficult time. She wrote about how it was hard when her “mom and dad and me moved here to Texas,” but that God had helped her. I was glad to read that she’s depending on God’s strength for trying times.