Happy Birthday, Kidney!!!

We've been so busy lately doing new and exciting things and celebrating life, that I'm now just getting around to sharing our Happy Birthday, Kidney celebration!!  We actually reached the big one year milestone of Stephen's transplant while we were in the middle of another big milestone; Stephen's first airplane ride down to the beach!  We celebrated the day by hanging out at the beach and swimming in the pool, following by a yummy dinner cooked on the grill by Bill.  And dinner was capped off with some special deserts made for the occasion and singing "Happy Birthday" to Kristin's old/Stephen's new kidney.

The cookies and kidney-shaped cake pops were made by a local baker, Fresh Bakes in Ashburn.  Luckily, the cookies, which I stowed in my suitcase, made it the whole down to Sanibel, Florida and were a fun and delicious way to celebrate the day.

The gift that Kristin gave Stephen and to us has just been incredible!!  There isn't a day that goes by that Stephen doesn't do something that amazes me and we owe so much of that to her.  Without her lifesaving kidney, who knows where we would be today.  Certainly not taking off on vacation and spending hours at the beach and pool without a care in the world!!!  And definitely not sending Stephen to preschool; which also had been an incredible god-send to him and to us.  Over the past few weeks, he's just blossomed into this incredible outgoing, active, care-free little boy.  Health is truly the most important thing and something that you can't take for granted.  All you have to do is look back through the pages of this blog (here's the link to May 9, 2013; transplant day) to see the incredible transformation that we've been through over the past 3.5 years.  It's really mind-blowing!!

I can't wait to share more of our trip to Sanibel and all of the fun things we've been doing!  I'll post all of the pictures throughout the weekend and the upcoming week because there is A TON of photos!  But in the meantime, here's a sneak peak to show you just how much fun Stephen had and how much he's grown (this was the same little boy who was scared of the bathtub just a few short months ago) into quite a cool little kid.