Happy 4th Birthday Ben!

We now have a 4 year old in our house!  Ben wasn’t feeling well on his birthday but we still wanted to do a little celebrating so we suggested going to dinner at Rainforest cafe.  Ben loves the monkeys there and he was excited to get one of the Volcano deserts that comes with a sparkler in it.  The kids were both excited when we got there, but it turns out the idea of going to the Rainforest Cafe is a a lot cooler than actually going there.

Once the first “thunderstorm” started up, Hallie was scrambling into my lap and Ben was covering his ears and complaining it was too loud.  We spent the meal trying to convince Hallie that the monkeys were nice & the thunderstorms were pretend, and trying to convince Ben that the noise wasn’t that loud and he could uncover his ears.

Seeing that the spirit of birthday fun was in serious jeopardy, we could have (and maybe should have?) just thrown in the towel, but we plowed on and ordered a Volcano dessert hoping that it would put a good end to a not-so-great birthday dinner.  The Volcano arrived along with some Happy Birthday singing waiters but their appearance was timed perfectly with the beginning of yet another “thunderstorm” so Ben had his ears covered and barely noticed the sparkler or the chocolate covered mound it was siting on.  On top of that, he didn’t even want to eat any of the dessert so after Jeff, Hallie, and I tried to eat $14 worth of chocolate drenched brownie goodness, we called it a night, admitted defeat, and headed home!

Even though the night was pretty much a bust, I did get this cute pic of Jeff and the kids.  As you can tell by the smiles, this was when we first got there!

 
 

Luckily Ben’s bust of a 4th birthday dinner was just the first of a few things we had planned.  The next night, we headed out to dinner with Grandpa Art, Grandma Janet, Brad, Katie, Chris, Grandma Jean, and Great Uncle Jim.  There is a little buffet-style restaurant near our house that Ben really likes.  It also happens to be right next-door to Chuck-E-Cheese so it was a perfect spot for Ben's 2nd birthday celebration.  We had dinner and then headed over to Chuck-E-Cheese for games and rides.  My aunt Nancy and her kids happened to be in town that night and Ben was thrilled that his cousins Ian and Gwynie could meet us there.  He had such a blast running around with them and even though it was a “school night” we pretty much closed the place down!  

Here are a few pics from dinner and present time.

And here are some pics of the kids at Chuck-E-Cheese.

Ben had such a fun night and it was good to see him all smiles after our bummer birthday bash the night before! :)