Jumping for Joy

Whew, the Birthday marathon has finally come to an end and here are the highlights. Most importantly, Simon turned 4! It began a week early with a surprise trip to a model train show in St. Charles. Simon was speechless. So many electric trains in one spot, he was even given a chance to use the remote control for the model Thomas train. He saw Lego model trains for the first time and now we are in trouble because he is wanting to collect and build them and they are out of production. We splurged and bought him an early gift, a new wooden diesle train, Santa Fe, who goes everywhere with him. He is so fond of his trains that he calls them his brothers or his kids, there are now 12 brothers in the house and yes, he claims Ben as one of the 12.

The celebration continued with a visit from Grandma Vicky and Grandpa Walt. We visited the newly expanded Magic House and had a blast climbing beanstalks, standing in and making giant bubbles, watching the Rube Goldberg device and splashing at the water table with Ben. There was much to do in creating the Polar Express birthday cake and a fun Scavenger Hunt using a book made by Grandma and Grandpa called Simon's Secret Birthday Message. We've been recreating the hunt every day since. On Tuesday, his actual birthday, we met several friends at a bouncy house store called Monkey Joe's. The kids jumped, ran and slid to their hearts content and it really made me wish I was under 12, why didn't we have these when we were little? I guess Chuck E Cheese was a good alternative. The festivities finally ended with a small school celebration where his classmates decorated a crown with nice thoughts about Simon and he wore it proudly all day.

Other photos in the sequence include Ben's first trip to the barber, it took a little convincing but after seeing big brother Simon take his turn Ben was on board. We also finally had his first snow day. Ben was not as thrilled with the snow as I was to get a picture of him in the snow. Simon, on the other hand had a blast building colored ice sculptures, spray painting the snow, sledding with friends and drinking hot chocolate afterwards.