Ben turns four!

Because of budget cuts, my library system is closed on Mondays in 2011.  Thankfully, full-time staff still get 40 hours, but that means we have to work a lot of weekend days.  We decided to take a trip during my only full weekend off in January, so that meant we had no weekend days to have a daytime "kid" party for Ben's birthday.  So we settled for a dinnertime party.  Thank goodness Grammy Pat came to help.  Just like last year, Ben pretty much got ignored while we prepared for his party.  :-( 
For kids activities, I blew up tons of balloons and put them in Ben's room.  Although I thought I had hundreds, it was only two layers of balloons, but the kids had fun.  Ben said he loved the balloons and he was having fun.  I also tried a treasure hunt for party favor bags.  That was one of my favorite party activities when I was a kid - my mother made an awesome set of clues for each kid to lead them from place to place to find a treasure at the end.  I wasn't sure it would work very well for 4-year-olds, but I really wanted to try.  I used the same set of 5 very simple clues in different order for each kid and had the parents help with reading them.  I think it worked ok - the parents liked it and everyone found their party favor bag.

Tim spent the day making another spectacular birthday cake, this time it was a monster truck.  Ben was super proud of it.  This time when we asked him if he had fun, he said yes.  So I hope he had a nice birthday.

Christmas 2010

Tim took the boys to the canyon school to see Santa and I think Ben was still a little scared of him and did not tell him what he wanted for Christmas.  But he told us many times:  a "mote troll monster fruck in lellow" (Remote Control Monster Truck in yellow).  I think Tim suggested ages ago that Ben would like a remote control monster truck, because Tim has had the idea forever that remote control stuff is a fun hobby he and the boys can enjoy.  This year he also really understood the "naughty or nice" part too and assured us he was a good boy and Santa should give him presents.

Grammy Pat and Aunt Wende came to our house for Christmas, which we all really enjoyed.  Oliver loves to cuddle with Aunt Wende and Ben adores Grammy.  Ben helped me make cookies for Santa and we left him some milk and cookies by the chimney.  I think Ben woke up first (at the normal time) and woke everyone else up.  Santa brought a couple of big presents and put balloons up everywhere, and ate the cookies.  Ben and Oliver opened one present each and forgot about the other presents while they played with the first present.  They would have been happy with just one!  Ben got a really big fancy remote control monster truck (blue, not yellow), as well as a remote control jeep, and was quite excited.  Oliver loved all his presents too.

Merry Christmas!