Casey turns 17!!!

Seventeen! Casey is 17 today! It's hard for me to wrap my head around being old enough to have a child that is 17, let alone knowing that when Casey was diagnosed with SMA type 1, no professionals thought he'd be here today. Of course we were scared over the years, and those first 3 years were extremely rough, but we never let the diagnosis dictate to us. Casey has done so many things in his life that many 'typical' kids have not done; zip lined, touched a whale, ridden rides at Disney, been to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox-twice, concerts, road trips, etc, and we will continue to LIVE and enjoy our lives that happen to have SMA entwined in it. Happy Birthday to our BIGGEST!

I think that between my Facebook page and Casey's we must have over a hundred birthday wishes for Casey!  Thank you, Cashel Gardner for posting birthday wishes on SMA It Forward because he got tons of birthday wishes from Cashel's friends.  Very heartwarming to think that someone will take a bit of time out of their day to think of my boy and wish him a happy day!

Made Casey a Red Velvet cake.  I was going to use some prepared frosting but it smelled all chemically and tasted gross.  So I made some real frosting with cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla.  Of course the recipe I looked at didn't make enough so I had to make more.  But it turned out yummy and I didn't do too bad a job of frosting it.

I enlisted Julia and Karyna to help finish decorating Casey's birthday table.  It took a lot of directing and coaxing them, but we got it done.  We put up banners and streamers and hung some balloons.  I arranged his cake, cards and gifts.  He had a pretty good haul!!

Casey had a good day at school.  He stayed after and went to the community book discussion as part of his Read, Read, Read class from last semester.  Apparently there were two other books as part of the discussion and no one had read Francona, phooey.  Well, Casey had something prepared to say about it and Nancy H had read it as well, so she said a few things and that was it.  Gene picked them up at 3:15.  

Gene had to go back out to get Casey's birthday balloons.  Never too old for balloons!

Colin wasn't the most cooperative kid.  He was J E A L O U S!  Every time someone called for Casey he would yell/vocalize very loudly.  

We opened some gifts and cards but he still had lots left.  He really seemed to like the clothes that we got him from American Eagle--he is definitely growing up!  Colin made awful faces when we asked him if he'd like clothes for his birthday.  

We did the traditional singing of Happy Birthday and the boys 'blew out' the candles with the candle snuffer. We had cake and ice-cream and then it was pretty much time for bed.  

Happy 17th Birthday Big K, Plumpie, The Bigster, our oldest!