Happy Benny Day!!!

today is our little man's 4th birthday.

although, when i asked him how being 4 felt this morning, he informed me that he was not, in fact, 4 yet.

because there has not been cake yet today.

(i could argue that he was, technically, 4 as of the wee hours of this morning, but that seemed like a poor use of my time.)

so, sometime this evening, benny will officially consider himself 4-years-old.

this weekend, anth played his last basketball game.

this is relevant to benny's birthday, i promise.

mainly because i uploaded the photos on my camera so that i had enough room on the card to document his last game.

and as pictures of valentine's and christmas trees flashed by the screen, i realized that i had not done this since last November.

this forced me to acknowledge how truly chaotic the last few months have been.

i used to do this every weekend, if not every time i took photos i was excited to put on the blog.

this then resulted in another problem.

i now have 800 photos i am excited about, but they are mostly dated.

(sadly, i have no qualms offering you our "all about Christmas" post in April. ho ho ho.)

so, benny's birthday seemed like the perfect day to share an excessive amount of absolutely random photos of our favorite 4-year old.

here is what ben has been up to the last 4 months.

in no particular order. . .

benny discovered he loves wearing mommy's hoodie.

while baking.



but was upset to find that we had let him traipse around the house all day in one sock.
benny was VERY excited to receive his Darth Vader christmas tree ornament.
sadly, it was this same excitement that quickly resulted in sadness, as he dropped it and shattered it while putting it on the tree.

making this much more sturdy ornament a new favorite. :)

benny has spent much time snuggling on the couch with anth.
and even more time telling his big brother to stop putting his feet on his head while snuggling on the couch.

for the first time, benny wrote his own Valentine's.
his was, truly, a labor of love.

benny loves to help me in the kitchen.

though it is sometimes a struggle.

he has recently been obsessed with watching Lady & The Tramp, A Bug's Life, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Madagascar.

he loves his new Darth Vader jammies.
though he struggled to look as tough as Mr. Vader in this picture.

he has been a lovely ear muff model.
(check out my dad trying to figure out why his 30-something daughter wanted these.)

he has spent a good deal of time wielding the powers of the Sword of Omens.
ThunderCats - HO!

he has enjoyed playing Jillian Michaels.

to Anthony's Bob Harper.
(no, they have not actually used the treadmill.)
(no, the treadmill is no longer floating in the middle of the room.)
(yes, we have since cleaned the basement.)

benny has gone to 6 of anthony's basketball games.
here he has spent the bulk of his time playing with mommy's phone.
and making repeated visits to the water fountain.
as such, mommy has not seen very much of said 6 basketball games.

he has continued his love of chapstick.
which i will never again let him get his hands on in the back seat of the car.

and, finally,  benny has made his way through approximately 3 boxes of Band-Aids. 

often applied to various parts of his face. 

now that it is Cake Official...here's to a very Happy Birthday to our sweet 4-year-old!!!!

what the kel?

i often mention my old pal kelly. 
she and i worked together in residence life at OSU for almost a decade. 
and she moved up to Wisconsin. 
this classifies her as a buttface now. 
but we're working through that. 


kelly was the one who came into town and helped me with my wine cork wreath. 
ahem. 
wine cork bagel. 
she was also here to celebrate her birthday. 


her mom was concerned that she would receive the proper birthday cake. 
thought i would be happy to eat a variety of things other than cake on my birthday, bern is actually a firm believer in the necessity of cake on one's day of birth. 

i wanted to share this photo as clear and convincing evidence that kelly did, in fact, have a cake. 
the boys and i even sang. 
then bern and ben stopped to do...

...this.

anth snuck in for a more traditional photo than the one bern and ben opted for. 

ben followed suit. 

but not before serenading kelly with a rather sweet rendition of Firework by Katy Perry. 

currently, kelly and i are both at a conference in New Orleans. 

we are here to learn fun new things about our field and reconnect with colleagues. 

mostly we are sweating. 

because it is new orleans. 

in july. 

i probably should not have just posted a bunch of pictures of her on the internet while she is here to kick me in the shin in person.

i'm a risk-taker like that. 

(almost) exactly alike

the boys LOVE PillowPets.
not sure what those are?
(this would mean that you have not entered a mall anywhere in America in the last 6 months or so.)
they are these lovely creatures.
as their jingle that elaborates on the name explains: "it's a pillow. it's a pet. it's a PillowPet."


our friend the Easter bunny granted the boys their utmost PillowPet desires.
anth now has a horse.
benny has a lion.
they are pretty excited about these, and ben's wanders about the house with him right now.

here they are.   

ben was a little too excited to pose properly with his new friend.  

but eventually, he calmed down. 

while putting anth to bed the other night, he asked me if i would like a PillowPet.
he informed me that he could maybe get me one for my birthday.
or something.
(his words.)
he then asked me to pull up their website on my phone so i could tell him which ones were my favorite.
we did this.
(the giraffe and brown bear were the clear front runners, in case you were wondering about my stance on the cuteness of specific PillowPets.)
we then moved on to other topics like baseball and how many days is it until the weekend...

while i was doing my makeup before work the next day, anth came in to tell me he had come up with a new idea for my PillowPet.
he had decided that we should have matching PillowPets.
so, he said, he was going to get me the Unicorn.
"because, mom, a unicorn is really just a horse with a horn, so then we can match. only yours will look a lot more magical than mine. but i'm okay with that."

some points you just can't argue.

check-ups and other legal forms of torture

with birthday season comes the annual trip to the pediatrician.
i told anth that i had called his doctor and scheduled him for a visit.

anth is old enough to know that, as much as he loves his pediatrician, visiting him goes hand in hand with getting jabbed in the arm/thigh with a needle.
this part of the visit trumps the fun of showing his doctor how much taller he is, or what random bit of info he has learned recently.

this has clearly been on anth's mind, as he approached me in the kitchen recently to ask, "hey mom? you know why i don't like to get shots?"

the sudden burst of pain?
i mean, let's be real, that's why i don't like them...

but, not anth.
"i don't like them becuase my arm gets all sore and then it's hard to get good rest at night."

who is this kid?
i am torn between this being,
   a. evidence of his sheer endearingness/desire to be his best, or
   b. a quite masterful attempt at getting out of a shot for a quality reason.

i can go either way, really.

now we are six

ok...so this is pretty much a week late.
and i'm perfectly happy with that fact.


why?
because it means the gents and i have been hanging out and having fun and getting in some good quality time in our post-MBA life.
so here's to more sporadic posts due to extra time with all of my boys.


but...as promised...here are a few photos from anth's bday.

for a variety of reasons this year, we chose to forgo the "friends" birthday party for one year. 
bern and i took the day off of work to spend it with anth. 
i forgot my camera...
imagine lovely pictures of the following: 
he choose McDonald's for breakfast, and to see the movie Hop after that. 
(if you like...plots...not high on my list of recommendations.)
he then wanted honey chicken for lunch (no idea) so we went to Pei Wei. 
where he officially declared honey chicken to be gross. 
we also hit the LEGO store for some Star Wars and Harry Potter fun, as well as Target. 
then it was time to pick up benny and do the rest of the festivities at home. 

one must always decorate for a birthday party in the savvy abode. 

little man did his very best to only help open the presents with his eyes. 

sometimes the presents were really exciting...

sometimes, not so much...

anth chose a "funfetti" cake. 


we asked him what the best part of being 6 was...
his sentiments? 
"i finally get to do all those things i couldn't when i was younger." 


ah. 
yes. 
when you were young...

anth: a pictorial review

eek!

these are a day late!

here is bern with our not-so-little 8 pound nugget!

here are anth and daddy one year later...looking notably more tired...
(this was actually taken after his first birthday party and little man was completely wiped out.)
(also, i have no explanation for his hair.)

anth was officially the Baker Hall West mascot that year. 
here we are in my office with the cake that my partner in crime, kelly jo, made for anth. 

flash forward to 2007 and here are those same two gents on anth's 2nd birthday!

by the time we got around to his 3rd birthday, anth had another adoring fan. :)

but he still had those pinchable cheeks!
this was his party at Grandpa Savarese's house.  

and here we are back at Grandpa Savarese's for birthday number 4. 
mom and anth snuck off to do our own little photo shoot. 
this was the "best" one. 

part two of his 4th birthday happened back out our house. 
(the berber carpet still makes me twitch when i see it. yuck-o.) 
this year, benny was old enough to "assist." 
(and yes, for those who are really observant, there is a gift in christmas wrap. oops.)

benny's version of "assistance" was questionable. 

with little brothers comes great jealousy.

it can be traumatic when you are 13 months old and realize it's not YOUR birthday. 

this was a ridiculously intense year of Star Wars. 
no, those aren't all from us. 
yes, it is excessive. 
4 was a good year. 

year 5 brought anth's first "friends" birthday party. 
he opted for The Little Gym. 
precious.

jealously part 2. 

and this was the worst. 
here benny is watching his big brother get...

his first bike! 

from Grandma and Grandpa Welch. 

and, here is my wonderful little man at the age of 6!

(there are currently a variety of cooties attacking my person, so i'll post photos from the actual birthday festivities in a few days!)