Ben woke up very happy to be four. He told my sister that when he went to bed last night he was three and when he woke up this morning he was four. It was so cute.
My mom and sister came today and brought a small cake and gifts. We had a beautiful fall day here today. Very sunny and cool. So the boys were able to play outside for a while, which they love to do with my sister. She is so much fun and plays hide and seek with them, pushes them on the swings, plays in the sand box and tirelessly pitches to them and chases balls while they hit the ball over and over and over. They love playing baseball and I think, Nick especially, would bat all day long if someone would keep pitching to him.
Ben also received three phone calls, wishing him a happy birthday. Aunt D called from Arizona and two of his cousins called him from college. Every time I answered the phone and then said "Ben, it's for you", he would get the biggest smile on his face. He was very happy and excited to be receiving phone calls just for him and Nick was happy to get to talk too, although he had a hard time with going second so much. It made me see just how often he tends to push his way to be first, ahead of Ben, and he tends to get away with it often because Ben does not seem to mind most of the time. I need to start watching for that more.
So Ben had two small family parties, one with my mom and sister earlier in the day and then the other one with our immediate family this evening after dinner.
I made a cake today and put the icing on it and then the dad wrote Happy Birthday Ben on it, after which Ben and Nick put sprinkle things all over it. So it was a joint effort and the boys were happy to get to help decorate Ben's cake.
Following are a few birthday pics. I still plan to post more pics and news about the boys soon but wanted to go ahead and do the happy birthday post first.
Here is the birthday boy, playing with a birthday toy.
Brother Nick is pretty happy about having new toys to play with and he is looking forward to his birthday coming up soon.
This is the coolest toy! It snaps together pretty easily, although it will likely be a few days or so before they can do it without help. The track is very flexible so you can simply give it a little push and create a new curve just like that and there is 15 feet of track. It was very quick and easy to put together and can be reconfigured easily to make a new track design. It comes with two little cars that run by battery and they are really spunky. I can definitely see why this toy was an award winning toy. I highly recommend it, if you are looking for something to put on the Christmas list and it was only $30, which I thought was great for what you get. It is called Build-A-Road by iPlay and it got great reviews. Ben got this gift from mommy and daddy.
I missed getting a picture of the boys playing with this (below) today but they played with it for hours. I don't know what it is officially called but I call it a marble run. This is also a big winner on the cool toys front and it also got very good reviews. Ben absolutely loved this toy that my sister and her family got for him and Nick enjoyed it also. It can also be changed around to your heart's content, although they are not quite able to do it on their own yet. It is very easy to change around though so I don't mind helping out. I enjoyed playing with this today too;). I like that both of these toys are open ended and allow for a lot of creativity. I know the boys will have lots of hours of fun playing with them.
Although I didn't get pics of them, my sister also got the boys some K'NEX toys for 3+ year olds and they are also wonderful for open-ended creative play. My mom got the Cat in the Hat I Can Do That game and it is so fun and cute. I'm sure we will be playing it again tomorrow. Definitely a great game for kids and I think it won three awards, or something like that. I can see why. It was fun and easy for the boys to play and we all laughed a lot while they were playing it. Lots of good laughs with this game.
I think we had a successful 4-year-old birthday today and we have two very tired little boys. Now I have to start trying to find good, interesting gifts for the second 4 year old...and right after that is Christmas. This is going to be a challenge. If you know of any great toys that your kids have really liked when they were four, let me know!
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