Ben - 6 Years
A few months ago while we were sitting at McDonald's, I noticed the man behind us watching us. It's not that unusual to be watched, and even counted, because apparently we have more than the average number of kids. Out of the corner of my eye I could tell he was smiling, so I turned toward him to smile back. He told me that he has six daughters, the youngest being 20 and a grandson about the same age as Danner. With a serious yet gentle face, he told me that he was positive that she was just born yesterday - "It all goes so fast. Hold onto to these young years." I smiled back and thanked him for the encouragement. I'm trying.
Six years ago in July we had just moved into our Handyman Special. We had been working really hard for a little over a month to get the house livable so that we could move in before our 3rd baby was due to be born.
The night of July 21st Tom and I went for a walk, played a game with my mom, and then rushed to the hospital to have our Bubba Ben - by far the best and fastest of all my deliveries.
Ben has so many great qualities - creative, sensitive, and strong. He's made shoes out of plastic shoe inserts and duct tape, fixed the bathroom sink, and designed some very elaborate bunny traps (they really couldn't catch a fly, but they are very imaginative). He's a very fun kid, most of the time. He also has a tendency to be extremely strong-willed, stubborn, and foolish - he's a lot like me.
For his party he wanted a knights and dragon theme. Seemed easy enough.
The tough part was trying to come up with a cake that didn't have icing (Ben's not a big fan of icing). With some help from my honey and Livvy's cake-pop maker, I made some cake-pop dragons that took over a castle. I thought it turned out fairly well.
For games the kids played rescue the princesses (basically an obstacle course with the two girls at the party stuck in the fort waiting for their knights to rescue them from the dragon balloons that the boys popped with their wooden swords that Tom and my dad made), pin the fire on the dragon, and launch marshmallows with popsicle stick catapults into the castles.
And, of course, on his actual birthday we had a special breakfast with more candles to blow out.
We love you Ben, oh so very much - even if you do drive me crazy every now and then.
Six years ago in July we had just moved into our Handyman Special. We had been working really hard for a little over a month to get the house livable so that we could move in before our 3rd baby was due to be born.
The night of July 21st Tom and I went for a walk, played a game with my mom, and then rushed to the hospital to have our Bubba Ben - by far the best and fastest of all my deliveries.
Ben has so many great qualities - creative, sensitive, and strong. He's made shoes out of plastic shoe inserts and duct tape, fixed the bathroom sink, and designed some very elaborate bunny traps (they really couldn't catch a fly, but they are very imaginative). He's a very fun kid, most of the time. He also has a tendency to be extremely strong-willed, stubborn, and foolish - he's a lot like me.
For his party he wanted a knights and dragon theme. Seemed easy enough.
The tough part was trying to come up with a cake that didn't have icing (Ben's not a big fan of icing). With some help from my honey and Livvy's cake-pop maker, I made some cake-pop dragons that took over a castle. I thought it turned out fairly well.
For games the kids played rescue the princesses (basically an obstacle course with the two girls at the party stuck in the fort waiting for their knights to rescue them from the dragon balloons that the boys popped with their wooden swords that Tom and my dad made), pin the fire on the dragon, and launch marshmallows with popsicle stick catapults into the castles.
And, of course, on his actual birthday we had a special breakfast with more candles to blow out.
We love you Ben, oh so very much - even if you do drive me crazy every now and then.
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