Benny's Birthday Weekend

Last Thursday was Benny's 5th Birthday! I can hardly believe it, the time just seems to be flying by. We had a bit of a bumpy start on his birthday, but the end of the day, Benny stated that it was his 'best day ever'! Late Wednesday, he complained that his eye was bothering him. On his birthday, he awoke with it almost completely swollen closed. I was pretty sure it wasn't pink eye but I still kept a close eye on it. By mid-morning, I had to make the call that he couldn't go to school and have his birthday celebration as planned. Instead, we headed to the doctor. Poor kid, he took it like a trooper. Nick met us at the hospital, and it was a good thing, because we were there nearly four hours. The family doc decided that it looked like a scratch and not an infection. So, they irrigated his eye, and then put in glow in the dark drops to look for damage to the cornea. In case you were wondering, this did not go well! Eventually, we ended up with an eye patch and instructions to go see the eye doctor upstairs right away. The process was pretty much repeated upstairs with much better success this time. The eye doc decided that he really only had a small scratch, but was having some type of allergic reaction to something. We still don't know what caused it, but his eye is pretty much back to normal now. After an afternoon at the hospital, we headed home, ordered pizza (Ben's favorite!) and opened presents.

Here is Ben holding up both hands, showing he is the big 5! This year he is really into 'boy' things. He loves action figures, Star Wars, super heroes, and is still really into Playmobiles and Legos.


The next day we were able to celebrate his birthday with him at preschool. He had a Spiderman cupcake cake that the bakery graciously held for us an extra day. The cake was a hit, as the kids loved the black frosting (I swear it was red in the picture). Sophie had a great time at preschool too!

This year instead of having a big birthday party we decided to take a family trip. We tossed around a few options and ended up heading to Kansas City for a Renaissance Festival that we read about on the internet. It was supposed to be a beautiful weekend-80 and sunny. It turned out to be about 65 and slightly rainy instead. We had a good time though. It was a huge festival, and seemed to go on forever. There were so many cool costumes (and weird ones too), and much to see and do. We actually ran into some neighbors from Germany in the parking lot-the Army is so small!

Here is Ben posing as St. George, one of his favorite knights!

Nick and Ben decided to try out a little archery. Benny had so much fun shooting the arrows. I think he could have done that all day. First he needed a little instruction from Daddy.

Now, he was ready to try it out himself!

After we had enough of the dreary weather at the Festival we headed to our hotel for the night. We stopped and had dinner at the outdoor mall first. We ate at the Saddle Ranch Chop House, which is a Hollywood take on an old western restaurant. The portions were huge. I think we probably could have shared two dinners instead of the four we ordered. In the middle of the restaurant there is a huge bull ring with a mechanical bull. Benny got a huge kick out of watching a group of middle aged men (and one woman) try to ride the bull. All but the woman were thrown off eventually. It was great entertainment! After dinner, we headed to the hotel and finished the night off swimming in the pool. The next day we did some much needed shopping for fall clothes for the kids and then headed home.

Benny had a great birthday weekend. It's just so hard to believe that 5 years have gone by since he came into the world! I think tomorrow I will do another post recapping his first 5 years! I have to get caught up, because Nick is having hip surgery on Wednesday and I know I will be busy taking care of him!