Birthday party rundown...

OK folks, I'm finally getting down to posting about Ben's birthday party. We decided to take everyone bowling, and then back to our house for lunch/cake/presents. The bowling alley does glow-bowling so I had given all the kids some glow bracelets to wear, and with all the black lights and glowy stuff, it was pretty cool!

I think everyone had a good time, except for Ella, who decided that no matter what I did, she was going to be grouchy. I wish she'd sent me a memo on that so that I could have stayed home! About 10 minutes before we were all done, she finally fell asleep in my arms. So I guess she was tired.

Ben had a good time, until Grandpa hit him in the mouth with a bowling ball. Don't worry...it was an accident, and it wasn't very hard. Ben was leaning over the ball dispenser (table? Wherever the balls sit waiting to be used.) and Dad grabbed a ball and sorta bonked it into Ben's lips. There was a teeny amount of blood, but Ben survived the physical trauma. The emotional trauma...we're not sure yet.

So we all came back here for lunch and then cake. Check out the birthday cake this year:



Gord thinks the VOLCANO looks like a BOOB. I think he's the BOOB.

Of course, we get around to doing the cake thing, and I realize that we don't have a lot of candles. As in, we only have 1. So Gord, the wonderful husband and dad he is, ran up to the dollar store to buy some. So we're set for, oh, 16 years now.

Presents...holy. It was an experience. Ben wanted to play with whatever he just unwrapped. So we had to talk him into unwrapping the next thing, and it ended up that he then migrated all over the living room. So there was wrapping paper all over the place. I would rather he have sat in one place and made a mess, but no, it was shredded EVERYWHERE. But he had fun and he got some great gifts. We gave him the Leap Frog ClickStart computer, and he loves to work on "his computer". Which is nice, 'cause now he's not bugging us to "do typing" on the laptop.

OK, here are some more pictures!

Ben showing his love for his little sister. You can see that she's enjoying it.


Getting ready to blow out the candles!


Mmmmmm...cake and ice cream!

All the kids, except for one who doesn't like cake and/or ice cream. (I KNOW! What is UP with that?


Opening his computer:


Ella's creation:


We had birthday cupcakes on his actual birthday...nice candle-blowing action shot here!