Twelve.

Twelve candles on your cake, ehmm, stack of cinnamon rolls...

Noah, my oldest, is twelve today. I can hardly believe it. I was only 21 when he was born, but he was indeed a planned baby. :-) Born on a cold, snowy January night in Germany. Stuck shoulder. Vacuum extraction. Clavicula fracture. Meconium aspiration. - Noah spent his first week of life in the NICU, and I was so, so excited when I could finally take my baby home and nurse him and snuggle with him.

Noah - eating his favorite take-out from the local coffee shop (black bean burrito) after a 'Fighting Gnome' game here - is the brainiac of the family. The one who reads a football or soccer score and remembers it for ever. The one who could jump the 27s timestable in 4th grade. The one who has read the Harry Potter series so often that he has entire sections memorized. In 5th grade Noah read Jimi Hendrix's biography & became a huge fan of his music. (He was Jimi for Halloween, too.) Hendrix got his first guitar when he was about Noah's age. So, we've been looking at guitars on Craig's list etc. - trying to find a nice used one for this birthday...

Technically Noah is a 6th grader 'into' the Roman 'thing.' But Noah goes to 7th grade, which is working out nicely for him. - Above an explorer map he was working on over the Christmas break.

One more year, and you'll be a teenager! :-) (OMG! Help!)
I can't believe that either!

Happy birthday, my dear Noah! I love you so much.