A birthday candle story

Five years ago, when my sister and brother-in-law were expecting twin boys, I was rooting for them to come on my husband’s birthday. I loved the idea of them all being birthday buddies.

As it turned out, our nephews were born the day after my husband’s birthday. God’s plan is always better than mine, and it has been fun to have one birthday lead into a double birthday.

Every year I make birthday cupcakes for my husband. He always asks for yellow cake mix and canned chocolate frosting, so that’s what he gets. The day before his birthday, I stopped at the store to pick up frosting and a few candles. It was then that I spotted the number candles.

My husband was turning 55. My nephews were turning 5. I realized that if I bought two 5 candles for John, we could give them to the twins the next day, and each of them would have a 5 for his cake.

It was magical in every way.

I bought the candles, and we sang to our birthday boy that evening. The next morning I stopped at my sister’s house to drop off the cleaned candles. Naturally, I also brought superhero-themed gifts for our nephews to unwrap on their special day.

They were turning 5 on the 5^th, so it was a year of fives. I had suggested we go to Five Guys or Five Below to celebrate, but you can only fit so much into a chaotic fall work and school week, so candles would have to be enough.

And, of course, they were.

But God knows I love a party theme. And, when I climbed into the van at the end of the 5^th, I discovered that the odometer had hit 55,555 that day.

The little reminders are such a wonderful sign of the big love God has for us.

Magnificent cakes and the photos of them are by my sister, the incredible Treasa Matysek.

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