The Circle of Life!

Frances has been really interested in science lately and Ken and I are excited to encourage that love in her. For her birthday last year she got a butterfly kit, but the caterpillars can't be shipped until the weather warms up, so we waited.  It was early April when the caterpillars arrived in their little jar of food.  The live in there for a while and then make their chrysalises at the top of the jar on a piece of tissue paper.  You take the tissue paper out, attach it to the inside of the butterfly habitat and wait some more.  Frances' caterpillars decided to come out of their chrysalises the week of Benjamin's birthday, so we let them out at the end of his party.  

 They were actually willing to walk around on a few people before they took off, so the kids all got to see them close up.  As each butterfly flew away, they kids all shouted "Goodbye! Goodbye!"  It was cute!

Happy Birthday Benjamin!!

My littlest one turned one!!  What a big boy he is getting to be!  I love this shirt I bought for him, but for the life of me I could not get a full picture of the words on it!

 We had family over to celebrate the big day. Three grandparents, three uncles, two aunts, two godparents, two siblings, one cousin and a few others.  The party was on Saturday morning at 11.  Apparently, 11 must be nap time because despite a large number of people in our house to celebrate, this little guy didn't make it through lunch!

Here is his tractor cake that I decorated.  Cake and I had some issues, but we worked them out and in the end we became friends.

Can you tell we woke Benjamin up for his cake?  He was having NONE.OF.THAT!

He got some frosting, but was too cranky to eat much of anything.  And he wouldn't even stick his fingers in it.  What's the fun of a smash cake if you don't smash it!?!

After removing the gobs of frosting from behind his ears, we got down to the business of opening presents. Big brother helped.

So did his sister and cousin.

And then he played with some of them. The ball popper was definitely a hit!  Fun music, bright lights and plastic balls popping everywhere! What's not to love?

One of the other big hits was a sandbox!  Benjamin LOVES just sitting in it and kicking the sand with his feet.  He also likes to scoop it up with a shovel and dump it behind him.  His brother and sister love playing in the sand as well.  It is nice to have someplace to occupy Benjamin while Frances and Henry play outside now.

Happy birthday big boy!!

Happy Easter!