Happy Birthday Ben!

My sweet Benjamin has turned 7 today!

Here are a few pictures of him throughout his life:

Today I asked Ben what a few of his favorite things are:

Favorite food: spaghetti and breadsticks
Favorite dessert: chocolate cheesecake pie
Favorite book: Season of the Sandstorm (Magic Treehouse)
Favorite thing to play: Wii
Favorite game: Sleeping Queens
Favorite color: orange
Best friends: Brady, James and Ryan
What do you want to be when you grow up: Fire Fighter

Favorite Sport: basketball
Favorite Movie/TV show: Tom & Jerry
Favorite Toy: Legos

We love our Benjamin! Happy Birthday!

The Arts Exhibition

Every year my kids' elementary school has an arts exhibition. Children can enter artwork to display as well as perform music, drama or other type of acts. It is a wonderful event that my kids look forward to every year. A lot of thought goes into deciding which piece of art created throughout the year will be entered into the art exhibition.

This year Ben chose his "Halloween Cat."

Rachel entered her Macaw painting.

They were both excited to see their pieces on display. In addition to viewing the live entertainment and seeing the art, there is a scavenger hunt, which I did with both Ben and Kate, and several different hands-on stations. This year there were stations on Georges Seurat and Pointillism, Mondrian's straight line art, sunset painting and metallic engraving.

Here Ben and Kate are working on their sunsets.

We also were able to view some of the projects the children had created in their art classes throughout the year. This is Rachel's shading study.

It was a fun night. Sarah brought one of her friends along and they were glad to be back at their old stomping grounds. They bemoaned that "middle school doesn't do anything fun like this." It made me laugh since Sarah is busy with all sorts of activities at the middle school--she is in the spring musical, and is taking both an improv class and a magic class. She also took a robotics class and another drama class in the fall and has more fun ones coming up in the spring. But yeah...middle school NEVER has anything fun. Kids are so funny.

The last few weeks

We've had a busy last few weeks, but unfortunately, I haven't been doing a good job of posting. Here is a quick catch-up of our activities.

Rachel's Play: Romeo and Juliet

Rachel's 4th grade class did the play Romeo and Juliet on Valentine's Day. It was a fun version with the actual Shakespearean language. It was big on sword fighting and low on romance, so it was perfect for kids this age.

Rachel played the part of Friar Lawrence, seen here in her long black robe surveying the scene after Juliet wakes up in the tomb and finds Paris and Romeo dead. We had been working with Rachel to memorize her lines prior to the play and she always said them in such a monotone that I was worried about the actual performance. But when it came down to it, she said her lines beautifully with a lot more acting skill than I was expecting, so I was pleasantly surprised. The whole play was wonderful--her teacher is incredible and really brings out the best in her students. It was so fun to watch.

Valentine's Day

Ben, Rachel and Kate had class parties to celebrate Valentine's Day. (Sarah was sad that middle school doesn't have parties on Valentine's day anymore, although she still had fun making some cute valentines for her friends). We spent several evenings prior to Valentine's day making valentines and Kate even insisted upon writing "Happy Valentine's Day! To: ____ From: Kate" on each Valentine. It was a project that kept her busy for quite a while. We later found out that she was not supposed to individually address her valentines for preschool, but just sign her name. (What is up with that? How can you make a valentine if you don't know who it is for?) Anyway, since she had put so much time into them, her teacher let her use them after all. I also made fun heart sugar cookies for Rachel's party that said R&J on each one (for Romeo and Juliet). Sarah and Rachel helped make them and they turned out so cute, but I forgot to take a picture of them.

David sent me beautiful flowers and I found these cute mailboxes for the kids. I had fun making little cards to put inside each one. It was a good chance for me to reflect on my kids individually and tell them each why I love them.

Then that afternoon we all went bowling.

I hate it how the kids use the bumpers and beat me. Of course, they love it. Rachel was our queen bowler. She got several spares by bouncing the ball back and forth off the bumpers all the way down the lane and then knocking the pins down like crazy. It was unbelievable!

Then there is this handy rack that Kate uses to bowl. All she has to do is put the ball up on the rack and then push it. It definitely makes it a more successful experience for the little ones.

President's Day

On President's Day we decided to celebrate by going to the American History Musuem. It opened a few months ago after being closed for several years for renovation. We've been wanting to go and actually tried over Christmas break, but the line extended out the door, so we opted to pass. President's day was almost as busy--it seems that all the other families in the area decided to go there as well. The line to see the Lincoln Exhibit and the Star Spangled Banner were so long, we decided not to wait. We'll go back another day when it isn't so crowded. That is the joy of living close to all these great museums.

We did wait in line to see the ruby slippers, Kermit and Frog and the puffy shirt from Seinfeld in the Entertainment section. We also went to the transportation area, which had lots of fun trains.

Basketball

Ben has been playing basketball this winter. Since David is the assistant coach, he has taken Ben to all his games and practices while I've stayed home with the other kids. Well, this last weekend David was out of town so we all went to Ben's game. It was a pleasant surprise! Keep in mind that his team consists of 12 first grade boys. The season consists of 4 practices and then 4 scrimmages. It is pretty low-key. This was his second scrimmage. I honestly didn't have that high of expectations that they could even keep a scrimmage flowing. But WOW! These kids could play basketball. They understood the game and it flowed well. The referee was fantastic and since it was all about learning, if there was some kind of violation (traveling, double dribble, etc) she would stop the game, explain what they had done wrong, and give the ball back to the child who had been guilty of the violation and let them try again. It was wonderful! I was amazed at their ball handling skills and understanding of the game at such a young age.

And of course, I was totally impressed with Ben. He played point guard for much of the game and did a great job. Way to go Ben! I love to see him play his heart out!