Party On!

We decided for birthdays this year that we would take them to Disney in lieu of big parties.  So, we will be doing that in November.   But, for this weekend before Ben's birthday, we took him and Luke to the H&R Train show Saturday after another party we attended in St. Pete.  Ben was like a regular-going around talking to all of the old guys (and young) that he met at the March train show.  He also fell in love with an Alaska Railroad train (with Mt. McKinley passenger cars).  He is working on his Alaska design for his train table and just fell in love with this!  He happened to receive enought birthday money and gift card, and the price just happened to have recently dropped on the set, to buy it for himself on his birthday day today!  He was jumping for joy!

On Sunday, we had a family bbq and just celebrated at home.  Matt and I attempted making our first ice cream cake.  As I thought, you can never go wrong with the taste, even if it doesn't turn out to look professionally made!  Yummy brownie, fudge, ice cream and oreo layers!  yum in our tums!  We had leftover cake tonight for his birthday day.  On Sunday, we got the kids some water balloons, which they thought was really fun to get the grown-ups!  I think we ended up more soaked than the kids! 

As part of the gifts from the grandparents, the kids got cowboy hats and Park Ranger hats.  The boys have been rotating between both in the house.  The funniest is the cowboy hats while they ride their horses (horse on a stick) around the house!  To explain about these hats, Ben and Luke are constantly planning the farm they will run someday.  Ben's horse will be named "Lucky" and Luke's will be "Estrella" (spanish for Star).  As for the park ranger hat, Largo has a program where kids can become Junior Park Rangers.  Ben has been working toward it.  He had to complete some worksheets, which included researching what types of plants and animals were native and exotic, and how to take care of our environment.  Then, we had to go on a scavenger hunt at a park.  At the nature park, we found a tortoise, a hawks feather, and then a decaying alligator tail (no idea where the rest of the gator went).  Exciting scavenger hunt.  He has two more things he has to do, and then he can get his badge.  He also wants to dress as a Park Ranger for Halloween.  Luke plans to be  a baseball player for Halloween.

As you can see, Luke is still not too old to be amused by the gift packaging!