Ben Turns 5!

It's official...on Monday, Benjamin turned 5! I can easily recall most all things from his birth. We decided to do a homebirth with him and so everything was so new and exciting! He has brought so much joy and happiness into our family. The little girl next door has the exact same birthday -- in fact they are just 25 minutes apart in age! Isn't that a hoot?! So after Ben got home from preschool, we had some of the kids' mutual friends over for a little luncheon/celebration. Here's a picture of Ben and Dacee :)

Dacee had been talking about how she was going to be going to Red Robin for the people to sing to her and to get a sundae... well, this made Ben think that he *had* to go as well... I had already made dinner so we decided that after we all ate, we'd head over there for some birthday dessert. Ben was so excited to go and was just so cute. After we ordered, he looked over at John and I and said (in Jack Blacks voice from Nacho Libre) " My life if gooooood... it's fantastic" -- it was so hilarious! He loved being the center of attention when the servers brought out his Sundae and sang to him -- so glad such a simple thing could make his birthday brighter. Of course, we did have to have some sort of calamity, right? It's nothing too major, but while we were there, Nathan grabbed my glass and slammed it down against the table breaking it! We left shortly after this happened because we kept finding little shards of glass (and didn't want to risk anyone getting hurt!)... For his birthday, he did recive a few little gifts... a Leap Frog alphabet thing from grandma and grandpa Vogt, a Spiderman motorcycle stunt man from grandma and grandpa carlson, bubble gun blowers from friends and a dragon dude that flies from his brothers. At the beginning of the year, we had a family council where we decided that we were going to save as a family all year long and then go on a cruise at Christmas time. This means that we forego birthday gifts, etc... So, with all the money he recieved, he was able to put over $100 into the Cruise fund - he was SO EXCITED! Although then he kept asking " so, are we going on the cruise on Tuesday?"... we had to explain that our cruise fund only has enough money in it so far for 1 person to go - LOL.. but it is slowly growing :) Well, here's to another year of health and great photo ops for my little guy! :)