Happy Happy Birthday Bentley & Great Grandma!

Today was a big birthday day at our place.  Bentley turned 6 (I can't believe it)! and Great Grandma turned 82 (she can't believe it!).  In honor of the big day, Bentley sat down a few days ahead of time and came up with a list of proposed activities and foods to celebrate:

He has lovely handwriting, doesn't he?! I like how the title of the list is "Bentley's & Johanna's desires".  Very cute.  And quite the list, given that there are only so many hours in a day.  Even one as special as this one was!

So we headed out after breakfast to get some racquetball in (Jake & Bentley & I).  We had fun!  Afterwards we stopped at a local bakery to pick up some cake pops and cupcakes to go with the chocolate cake I'd made at home.  The boys got some extra free chocolate cake pops from the owner while we were there, they thought that was pretty cool.

We zoomed home to pick up Great-Grandma, Uncle Jimmy, and Viva.  We then headed out across town to our state's first (and just opened) Olive Garden.  Bentley had heard about the endless breadsticks and thought it sounded like a great place to check out.  Daddy was able to join us there for lunch which was a fun surprise for the kids.

The wait was a bit long, but the kids were pretty well behaved.  The food was good and Bentley got to cross breadsticks off of his list of desired foods for the day.  :)  The wait and the food took a little while, so at that point Matt decided he'd head home with us instead of going back into the office.  Score for the birthday boy!

Back home it was time for the games part of the day's "requirements".  That was followed by dinner (yes, more food!).  Bentley wanted pizza bread and egg noodles, but I figured Great-Grandma might appreciate more than white carbs for her meal - so I made a beef stew.  It was delicious, if I do say so myself.

Grandpa Tim was able to join us (Grandma Karen is traveling), and that was very fun, too.

After dinner we had cake:

And next up was the exciting part for a 6 year old -  presents:

To be fair, he didn't really bring up the presents at all during the day.  He looked at the pile once or twice, but he was very patient which may have been easier because he had so many activities booked.  There were books, clothes, games, and, of course, legos.

Last, but not least, we set up a fort in our family room and had some movie time before reading.  Then the kids all slept in their fort together.

The verdict?  A delightful day with a delightful six year old who was quite charming all day.  We couldn't fit in the ice skating or music on the day's calendar.  But Grandma did take the kids ice skating the next day, and we're going to get the music in this week too!  As for the food list, we hit everything except the pretzels.  Which I made him for lunch the next day.

And we all lived happily ever after.  (Or, at least, we plan to!)

Happy Birthday, Bentley!  We love you so much.  I can't believe you're six, but that's what the calendar says. I can't wait to see what fun things we get to discover and do together this next year.