Ben's Birthday!

Well, we have had some technical problems over here, but luckily my amazing husband could fix it and now we are back in business, which means I have a lot to catch up on! So, let's start with Valentine's Day. We had a great celebration. Patch sent these amazing flowers to me and the girls (thank you) and the kids and I all made cards for each other and Daddy. We had a fun dinner and celebration after dinner. Thanks to everyone who sent cards - the kids love opening up cards specifically sent to them!

Around here, Valentine's Day is also known as the day before Ben's birthday! On February 15, 2006 at 10:55 am, our baby Ben was born! Luckily, I was already scheduled to volunteer in Ben's class that day for computer class, so I came early, brought treats for the class and was able to read the class a story. Ben picked out "The Lorax", which is his favorite book. Here he is (with his birthday crown and sticker) getting ready for everyone to sing to him.

Later on at home, Ben wanted to help make his cake...Ben loves to help me cook or bake!

Ben came up while I was icing the cake and requested I put Lightning McQueen on the cake. I told him that unfortunately I wasn't that talented. He then asked for penguins. So, I steered him towards a football themed cake because I figured I could do that without much planning (considering this was right before dinner on the day of his birthday). Here is how it turned out...not too bad considering I was just planning to ice it with white icing!

Singing to Ben...

Then it was time for presents! The girls had worked very hard on home-made birthday cards for him and he was so sweet about it. He really took the time to look at each one and point out to the girls what he liked about it - it was super cute and made the girls feel really good. Here he is looking at Juliette's card, which was basically a bunch of stickers put on paper and some scribbling :)

Then Abbey showed Ben the card she had made. Ben really likes pop-up cards so she wanted to make one for him and it turned out really cute. He definitely appreciated her thoughtfulness and effort!

Then he got to open cards from other family members, which sometimes included money! And he opened up some gifts as well, which he seemed to all really like.

He got right to playing with his gifts.

And Juliette got right to asking me to read one of Ben's new books to her!

It was a very fun family celebration. We are so proud of Ben! I will post later about his growth and achievements over the past year.