Happy Birthday, Dear Bentley!

Today is Bentley's 2nd birthday. It's hard to believe we've had him here with us for 2 years. Or, as I think of it sometimes, 11% of his childhood. Yikes. It's incredible how quickly babies learn and grow and get bigger (although not hugely bigger in Bentley's case!!). It's been a wonderful, exciting, happy, and all too fast couple of years with our awesome little man. We can't wait to see how he grows and learns this next year!

How did we spend the birthday day?

We crawled out of bed this morning and made it out to Great-Grandma Hill's house to have a joint birthday luncheon for the little guy and the Great Grandma. We made it there by 11:30 thanks to some help from Grandma getting us out the door at our place. It can be impossible to get moving with these children some days...

Bentley declined to join in the lunch eating, despite the lovely offering I provided (Great Harvest bread, salad, rasberry sparkling cider, and fettucine alfredo!). Oh well - Grandma and Aunt Jean ate with me! We did manage to get a picture of the birthday guy and gal (I had too much fun with the photo effects in Picasa, sometimes I can't stop myself):

After lunch Bentley and I left the twins in the care of Grandma (thank you!) and we headed out for fun at the toy store. We visited Over the Rainbow toys and spent a couple of hours playing with trains, trucks, airplanes, and other fun toys. I had a hard time convincing Bentley we needed to head home, but he did eventually give in with good grace! We made it out without too much damage to the bank account. :-)

While we were out playing apparently Great-Grandpa was wondering where Bentley had gone off to - he asked my Mom "where is no way?". A new nick name for the dear child, and an appropriate one! No way is, in fact, his favorite statement. He's been trying to internalize the toddler motto.

Bentley napped once we made it home and I made the cake. We went for a double layer brownie cake with (of course) chocolate frosting. I offered Bentley some sprinkles to decorate the top, but he wasn't really interested so the cake ended up with just a slight hint of color:

About this time Matt made it home from work, and Grandma and Opa showed up for some birthday fun. Bentley isn't a huge eater (as I've mentioned before!), so I didn't really know what to make for a special birthday dinner. I settled on pasta for him and soup for us (figuring with two choices he might eat one!), but he decided to start out with a pre dinner brownie heart snack - one for each hand, in fact.

Isn't the birthday crown great? He wasn't too thrilled about it but since both hands were full of brownie he "couldn't" get it off. I had my picture taken with the king:

After the dessert appetizer we ate dinner. And, surprisingly enough, Bentley had a nice size portion of noodles! Maybe he thinks that being 2 means you need to eat twice as much? I can only hope.

Next up - present time!

Genevieve is looking forward to a birthday and presents of her own:

Next up? Cake time!!

Here's Jackson waiting for the birthday boy to drag himself to the table. He was excited about the cake:

Bentley, on the other hand, wasn't quite ready for more dessert. He needed some time to look at his gifts before considering cake:

Cool vacumn, isn't it? I was the giver of that lovely present. It's a chargeable floor sweeper - works on carpet AND hardwood! I figured why buy a toy vacumn when for just a little more money he can have a real one? He screamed when I turned it on, for the time being he prefers to use it with the power in the off position. Perhaps I'll be waiting a little while for my helper to actually clean floors while playing, but that's ok - I'm patient!

After a play break Bentley was ready for the cake:

Almost looks like he's trying to blow out the candles, doesn't it??!

Once the festivities died down Matt and Bentley spent some time vying for use of the new Wedgits building toys. Matt was having a little too much fun apparently - Bentley wanted 100% use of the Wedgits for himself. He would let Matt build up a tower, and then knock it down and steal pieces. :-)

We closed the day out with a chapter from our current bed time story book (The Mouse and the Motorcycle) and Bentley chose to end the day with a sippy cup instead of a bottle. This is a new development! Perhaps he's eager to be older? I'm not sure I'm ready for it though... they grow too quickly.

We'll close with a family shot. Well, two shots. Together they're a complete family grouping!

We're looking forward to the next year of adventure with this awesome little boy we are lucky enough to live with. We are blessed!