Very Far behind....Ben's birthday

Way back in April we celebrated Ben's fourth birthday.  We began our celebrations early by taking Ben to our local bike store where we have purchased several bikes for the family and let Ben pick out a new "big boy bike."  He had a glide bike for the several months before and had learned to balance very well.  We decided to go with the logic that to learn to ride a bike you need to learn balance rather than how to pedal and asked the guys at the bike shop to assemble his new bike without the training wheels.  A couple days after ordering it we got a phone call that the bike was ready to be picked up.  Unfortunately, the day the bike was ready we were experiencing a spring snow storm so when we brought the bike home in the morning we had to park it in the garage and wait for the driveway to melt off.  By the afternoon all was well and we bundled up and went out to try the bike....success!  Ben needed a little help getting settled on the seat but as soon as I let go he was off!!!  Riding a two-wheeled bike before his 4th birthday was such a big deal for Ben!!

Ben's actual birthday, April 28th, was a Wednesday so Ben got to be the birthday boy at preschool and share blueberry muffins with his class for snack.  We also were lucky to have our neighbors in town from southern California so we all went out to dinner at Ben's favorite pizzeria here in town.  He asked to have a vanilla-strawberry cake so we whipped one up for him.  Though it was late April it is Tahoe afterall and when we emerged after dinner we found our cars buried under at least 8 inches of fresh snow. 

A few days later we had four of his buddies over for a Lego-themed birthday party.  My only comment to that is that six little boys ages 2 to 4 in our condo was a challenge!  They were all very well-behaved but it was just SO MUCH ENERGY!!!  I made another cake for Ben and experienced some slight issues upon icing it when the waxed paper I had put under the edges of the cake on my cake stand stuck and pulled out a huge chunk of cake.  A little extra frosting and everything was patched up.  And as Brian put it, they're four-year old boys....it's cake, they won't notice.  Everyone had a great time and Ben was thrilled with all of the fun.