Ben Turns 2!

Our baby Ben turned 2 on April 29th! Since his birthday comes only 8 days after Jonathan's, we have very little time in between to recover, recharge and get ready to celebrate again. But for Ben's sake we did the very best that we could!
We planed out the boys gifts so they would be similar, but not the same. Also, giving Ben something on Jonathan's birthday, and saving something for Jonathan to open on Ben's birthday. I think we had it covered! The boys had a great time and loved their gifts! 

If you recall a few posts back, Ben really, really loved being on the horsey on the carousel at cousin Aubrey's party. In fact, he now LOVES all horses, he talks about them all the time. So we decided to get him one! I liked this one because it will hold up to 150 lbs. Most of the others would only hold up to 50 lbs, and Jonathan already weighs 50 lbs!!! So this one works out perfectly and the boys love it!

He is getting so big!!!

Michael's big gift to the boys - a TENT! Long story short, I wanted to get them a fort for the backyard and Michael wants one too, but he wants to build it. We want to go camping sometime soon, so Michael suggested we get them a tent to use as a fort now, and then we can use it to go camping later!

Loving being in the tent!

Later that day Grand and Grandma came over to wish Ben a Happy Birthday!

I snapped the bottom photo on 4/28/13 and it reminded me of something....back on 4/21/09, Jonathan's first Birthday!!

On Ben's actual Birthday...

We thought it would be fun to take the boys to the "Founders Plaza" at the North end of DFW Airport. It is where you can watch the planes take off and land. It's lots of fun, especially with to plane lovin' boys!

I love the expressions on all their faces!

Watching a plane come in!

Jonathan pretending to be a statue!

Ben says, "ME TOO!"

JJ is taking off!

"Look!"

Ben saw something interesting under that pole. We weren't sure what it was, he took us both over there to look at it. It was suddenly more important than planes. HA! On the pole above them is a speaker that lets you hear the tower speaking to the planes. It's really cool.

Love this!

Around the corner is a 9/11 monument. It honors all the flight crew, the pilots and flight attendants. It is a really neat tribute.

This is a stone from the field where Flight 93 crashed.

This is a limestone fragment from the Pentagon.

This is a piece of steel from the NY Trade Center.

 

Our little family!

Later the boys were playing, Ben was wearing his hat and pretending to be a monster! He stopped and said, "No, I Ben!" I don't think Ben liked Jonathan being *pretend* scared of him! (please excuse the mess...the house was still out of control from the weeks events!)

And to close out our Birthday fun, we sang happy birthday, blew out more candles and had blond brownies!!!!

Bluebonnet Birthday

It was a tradition when I was young, that my mom would dress Amy and I up in cute little dresses and take our pictures in the bluebonnets every Spring. So I of course had to try to do it too. I almost missed it this year since we have been so busy. I was trying to wait for a good day, since cloudy days are the best for photoing outside. But, Wednesday afternoon, in the middle of the boys birthdays, I picked the boys up from school and headed to Las Collinas. I worked right across the street from this field and I knew it always had a good collection of them. I dressed the boys in the "Happy Birthday to ME!" shirts that I got them months ago, thinking that they could wear them to their joint Birthday party! I thought it was still appropriate since it was in between each birthday!
At first I tried getting posed pictures of the boys, but they weren't having it! So I told them to run around and have fun...SO THEY DID! I love all the pictures of them find rocks and putting them in Ben's pockets. It is the very first rocks of Ben's rock collection. Jonathan already has a HUGE box of rocks, so he is very excited to help Ben start his own collection too! I love what a loving and helping big brother J is...and Ben just cracks me up!  

Singing and Dancing

Jonathan is trying to lift Ben's head for him, tehe.



"Look, momma, petty fowers!!"

Dancing and singing.

"Come here JJ."

Looking for rocks.

"Happy Birthday to ME!"

Ben found a rock.

JJ helping him put it in his pocket!

Ben found another rock, JJ is helping put it in his pocket again.

YAY!

Jonathan Turns 5

Jonathan turning 5 was a really big deal for me. It just seems so old! It means that Michael and I have been parents for FIVE years...I have been a stay-at-home-mom for FIVE years...this little baby is FIVE years!!! WHAT? It all seemed to go by so fast!
He is such an amazing little/big guy! He is so smart, sweet, loving, and creative, it is so easy to love him! Everywhere we go, people stop to talk to him and he is so respectful and sweet, you can tell they are surprised to have such a good conversation with such a young guy!
He LOVES his daddy more than anything on this earth, and I know Michael feels the same way. They are attached at the hip, especially on the weekends. He loves to cuddle up with me and we have long talks. He and I love working on art projects together. He is the best big brother any boy could ask for. He is patient and kind with Ben, but best of all, he teaches Ben all sorts of things. They play so well together, it is such a great thing to witness.

So on J's actual Birthday, which was the day after the big party, we decided we had to do something special, but low key. We had saved the gifts from Michael and me to give him on the actual day. His first bike, which J asked for and his first guitar, he asked for that too!
Later we took the boys to Rainforest Cafe for dinner. It has become kind of a tradition...see the last pictures!
It was a fun day, we were happy to celebrate our sweet little/big guy!

His first bike!!



He is having a ball riding his first bike around!



Jonathan also asked for a guitar - "a REAL one". So we got him a Jr Guitar. We thought that Ben would want one too, so we got him this 3-in-1 Keyboard, Drum and Guitar! They are so cute with them!



Yay! We are at the Rainforest Cafe!

Looking at the fishes!

Me and an elephant!



A balloon lady made Jonathan a parrot for his shoulder! It was do funny! He was so excited about it!

We ordered Jonathan the Special Volcano Desert. It is chocolate cake cut into 4 long pieces and shaped like a big volcano. They pour chocolate syrup on top and ice cream is in the middle. Basically, Jonathan's dream come true, as far as desserts! He loved it! All the waiters came and sang to him! He loved that too!!

Happy, silly boy with the tigers!



Keeping with our family tradition...We ate dinner at Rainforest Cafe and then went to the Photo Booth for a picture! The top pic was taken that night, 4/21/13. The second picture, with just Jonathan, Michael and me was taken 4/21/11, just a week before Ben was born!

 

This picture was taken on our first date! Back in Dec 1999!!! We were babies back then!!! We had eaten at the Rainforest Cafe, then we took this picture, then we went to see "The Sixth Sense" at the movie theater! (if you are thinking that you have seen this before, we using it on our 'save the date' cards before our wedding!
 I love and treasure these photo booth photos! They have documented my adult life!