Ben | 4-Years-Old

Ben's actual birthday took place on May 10th on our final morning in San Diego. Grandma had sent along a present for him to open that morning. He got to see the anatomical dinosaurs at the natural history museum again and he got a train ride on a miniature train in Balboa Park. And he got a frosty that evening as we traveled home.

But he didn't get a cake.

He was disappointed about that for sure. When we arrived home the following evening, he begged me to make a cake. Um, no. Not after riding in a car for two days and not when we had church the next morning. The next day he begged again, but I was busy unpacking and just wasn't up for making a cake and throwing a party. So, we compromised by going to Red Robin for dinner for his free birthday meal, with promises of a cake later that week. It was a date - just Ben and me - and we had sooo much fun together. He is really a very sweet boy, and I treasure these rare moments of one-on-one with him.

Free birthday sundae at Red Robin! (he didn't even share one bite!) :)

His party finally came - a very simple, scaled-back one. But he didn't mind, because he LOVED the cake that he requested I make: a rocket!

Several weeks went by until I decided we finally took his 4-year-old pictures. No outfit changes, no cool location (just the high school down the block from my parents)...but I finally took them! And, rather than put off writing a detailed birthday post as I usually do (because as you can tell from my sporadic blogging - there just doesn't seem to be time lately!), I'm just going to post the pictures now and then add the more time-consuming details about my fun-loving, adventurous, active 4-year-old boy later!