Ben's Birthday Weekend (Part 1) - "Breakin' the Law!"

Last weekend Ben had three days of birthday celebrations.  We started the celebration last Friday morning when Jill and I sung "Happy Birthday" to Ben about 10 times.  He was looking at us like we were crazy! ...but still smiling the whole time.

This card was one of those cards that 'sings' when you open it - it would say, "HURRAY!  BENJAMIN!" and then sing a form of Happy Birthday to him.  Ben thought this was the coolest thing and he must have opened and closed that card about 23 times, laughing every time that it called out his name. 

So now you know weren't going to have to get him speaking cards from now on....  

In preparation for Ben's "Puppy Party" we put up a bunch of big vinyl doggie stickers up on our living room wall the night before his birthday.  He loved them!  He spent quite a bit of time when he saw them petting each dog.

Then he gave every one of them a big kiss!

We're going to move them up to his room soon so he can pet them every morning when he wakes up and in the evening when he goes to sleep.  Of course, he can also pet his realy puppy Lybbie too!

That Friday evening we all celebrated Ben's actual birthday with his Grandma Jean & Grandma Eileen & Grandpa Ed.  He had is first cupcake too, and we let him go to town with it.

Then we opened presents...  ahhh..presents.  Ben got lots of nice fun things to play with.  Like a kitchen?!

I think Mommy wants Benjamin to learn how to cook like his Daddy.  Also, maybe if he has his own kitchen cabinets, he'll stay out of ours!  I doubt that very much...

He also got a big blow up ball pit, and he thought that was pretty cool too.

Ben got many presents, but I think his favorite present was the one that I was most excited about giving him...  A new Kawasaki ATV!

Oh Yeah!!

Battery powered, (yes Ben is going Green too) All he needs to do is push the little button on the handle bars and off he goes!  And off he did go, right into the front door!  

So we quickly realized that this was an outside toy.  He figured out how to drive it pretty easily, although he's drives a little like an old lady - he's on and off the throttle and he hits a lot of things.  I'm sure he'll get better in time.  I'll be teaching him how to peel out and do power slides and such.

It also could be because he was driving around with his cell phone... 

He wouldn't let go of that cell phone! 

I don't know if the laws apply to texting while on battery powered ATVs, so we let him break the law and keep the phone.  Our little rebel. 

So Ben had a great birthday... but this was just the start of it.  Tomorrow was his BIG celebration - and he doesn't even know it yet. 

We still can't believe he's one already!  This year has gone by so fast!

Happy Birthday Benjamin!

The Big Birthday Boy!

We can't believe that a year went by so fast....  It was exactly one year ago today that Ben was born.  He was a big baby then, and he's even bigger now!  He's only a year old and he's been wearing 2 year old sized clothes already!

Just to remind you how much he's grown over the past year, here's a picture of Ben just minutes after he was born, compared to a picture of him now.

 

There's obviously no doubt that we've enjoyed every second with Ben over the past year.   He constantly surprises us with how quickly he learns, his curiosity, his sense of humor and how much he just enjoys having fun.

We also think that he's way ahead of other kids his age.  In fact Ben is pretty much walking already.  For the past two months he's been walking around with just holding on to us with one hand and occasionally taking a few steps on his own. 

He's getting more and more confident with walking and just this week he's been taking off more on his own taking lots of steps before falling or stopping for a break.  With a little help, he'll walk to where ever he wants...  Like to his slide.

And he'll climb right up the slide and get a good view of the yard before sliding down again.

Ben is definitely a one in a million kid.
Let's all wish Ben a great first birthday!

All Hail King Ben!!  

He is one today!!

And Mommy and Daddy couldn't be more proud.

Slide plus Pool equals FUN!

Ben has a couple toys in the backyard that he really enjoys playing with.   Of course we all know that he has his little pool, but after a while even that can get a little boring just sitting in there.

Then Ben also has his slide.  He likes to climb up the slide, hang out on top and then slide down.  But even after a while even the slide can get a little boring...

Dad... what are we going to do about this?

Well, how about we combine the two for some great water slide fun!!

OH YEAH!!  Here we go!  Now this is fun!

At first we had to help him down the slide a little...

But then before we knew it, he was sliding down on his own and having a great time with it!!

    

Yeah...  Ben is one cool kid.  And he knows it.

King of the water slide!

Afterwards Ben posed for a couple of cute pool shots.

I know I'm a little biased, but I think that Ben is the best kid ever!

The Stair Master

We have gates set up on the top and the bottom of our stairs for good reason.  Maybe its our fault for letting him try to climb them a few weeks ago, but now any chance Ben gets, he's climbing up those stairs.  The trouble isn't so much with him climbing up the stairs - he's actually really good at it!

Here he is at the starting gate... Get ready, get set...

GO!

And he's off...  Up..

Are you guys still watching me??

And right up to the top...

So now the trouble isn't with climbing up the stairs, its with climbing DOWN the stairs.  Ben just doesn't understand that his legs aren't long enough to walk straight down the stairs yet and he often just tries the "Superman" technique to fly down the stairs.

 

Fortunately Mommy was there to guide him along down the stairs and then pick him up so he can take a look at his most favorite picture in the whole house...

Even Ben agrees that he's the cutest baby around!!

Rumble at the Mall

A few weeks ago we had a rainy weekend and we all were looking to get out of the house for a while.  Jill remembered that there was a big kiddle play area over at Woodbridge mall, so we took a ride to investigate.  I used to go to Woodbridge mall all the time as a teenager.  It was THE place to go and shop and just hang out.  I hadn't been to that mall in years, so I was curious to check it out too.

We walked through the department store and when we got to the mall we jumped on the first ride we saw.

I think this was like an elephant or something... I'm not really sure.  I've heard of pink elephants, but not blue ones.   Ben steered (unless we were about to hit something) and we got to ride this thing wherever we wanted and it sang songs and made funny noises the whole time.  Ben seemed more interesed in people watching and pushing the little red button on the back of the elephant's head.  I don't think the button actually did anything, but he sure had fun pushing it. 

Next up was the big play area where all the slides and stuff were covered in cushioned foam.  There was another slide that Ben was very interested in, and this time he actually wanted to climb up the stair stide first!  But this is where we ran into some trouble...    There were lots of kids running around all over this place - many of whom seemed to be completely unsupervised and unware of the concept of 'sharing.' 

Here's little Ben (at about 10 1/2 months old here) climbing up the slide, with another unruly child climbing up to block his way - with me and my balding head standing right there next to him!

I said to the boy, "Can you please move out of the way, my son would like to slide down the slide."  He replied, "NO!"   Excuse me?  "No, you will move and you will move now."  And with that, he finally ran off.  Ben seemed to be unfettered by the whole situation and just continued to climb and slide down.  Two minutes later, another boy came back and this time sat on the top of the slide with his legs across the top again blocking Ben!  What is it with these kids?  Well, this time Ben responded first.  This time he appeared to be a little frustrated as well and he stood straight up and with his eye brows curled he exclaimed, "BAH!" at the top of his lungs!  And with a few more choice words from Daddy, this little boy also ran off.   We tried playing on a few more things, but then decided it was time to move on.  Ben taking the lead this time...

Next up was the merry-go-round.   I actually think Jill was more excited about this ride than Ben!  They picked out a horse and waited for the ride to start.

Now this is fun!

All in all, we had fun at the mall on this rainy day, but Woodbridge mall isn't anywhere as cool as it used to be.  We may go back just to beat up some of those other little kids when the urge hits us.. 

Father's Day Fun

A few weeks ago I celebrated my first father's day with Ben and Jill.  We had a lot of fun celebrating all weekend, but Ben and I also got to spend some quality time together at the park.  Ben just loves dogs - little dogs, big dogs, loud barking dogs, licking dogs, it doesn't matter - he loves them all.   So I thought I would take him over to the dog park so he could enjoy watching the packs of dogs run around.  He was absolutely mesmerized watching all those dogs run around the park.  A number of them came right up to Ben to give him a lick or two and to let him pet them.  A few of these dogs were pretty big - big enough to put a saddle on them and let Ben ride them around, and I thought that he would be intimidated by them.  But to my surprise - he was fine with them all.  The only time he got upset was when they woudn't come close enough to let him pet them.  Unfortunately I left the camera in the car, so I don't have any pictures of him with the dogs, but afterwards we walked over to the play ground and played there.  (Yes, I remembered the camera this time.) 

It had been a while since Ben was on a big swing... and he loved it.

A woman was pushing her son next to us and she was watching me take a zillion pictures of Ben as I pushed him on the swing, so she nicely asked if I wanted to be in a picture with Ben.  Sure!!   Although, Ben wasn't too sure about it...   "Who is this woman taking our picture?"

A minute later, he was back to giggling and smiling again.

Next up was the slide...  and it was a BIG slide, not like the little one we have in our backyard..   But that didn't stop Ben.  Skip the stairs, his goal was to climb right up the front of that slide!

Wow, this sliide is a little high...maybe that's far enough.  Let's slide!!

Slides are exhausting after a while...

So its time to move on to the next play area.  That rock climbing wall looks interesting...  Let's climb it!

In case you haven't figured it out, I cut my arm holding Ben out of this picture.  He's not actually climbing the wall here, but I think he thought he was.

All this playing is wearing us both out, so we took a break and sat in the grass and had some snacks, played with sticks and picked clovers as we watched the other kids play.

What a fun time we had at the park.  We headed home after all this playing so we could take a much needed bath, but on the way home we ended our bonding time the best way possible....

We shared a McDonalds vanilla shake!

Yummy Yummy!!