Benjamin is 7!

Ben turned 7 years old on July 5^th 2012.  We had a big birthday party for him at our house, complete with games (including the wrapped-up candybar passing game that my Mom did for us at our parties growing up), a piñata, and cake & icecream!  Unfortunately, my camera battery was dead when I tried to take pictures at the party.  After putting in a new battery and seeing that it also needed to be charged, I had to give up.  After all, I was entertaining 13 kids – my own one-woman show – and I had to get back to the party. :)  Luckily my video camera lasted for a few minutes before its battery also died on me. (I know, I was cursed!)  But at least I have some footage of the piñata.

Ben, Eliza, and I had been working on our piñata almost every day for the past week. We made it out of paper maché.

Here we are creating our masterpiece piñata. It was the first experience I have had with paper maché, and it was fun! :)  We decorated it with tissue paper the morning of the party, and since we didn’t have time for a lot of glue to dry, we had to be stingy with the glue… which led to our decorative scrunched-up tissue paper pieces falling off as we were trying to put them on… which led to frustration… which led to abandoning trying to make our piñata cute and just calling it good. Hence our ‘unique’ piñata! But hey, the kids could care less what it looks like as long as it’s got the goods inside. :)
Earlier in the week Ben had promised Eliza that she could go first to hit the piñata. But when everyone laughed when she missed the first swing, I think she felt foolish, so she didn’t really want to do it again. Since I had already done some coaxing to get her to put the blindfold on, I let her go to the back of the line so she could get comfortable with it before her next turn- and realize that everyone laughs when we miss the piñata, including the swinger! She had fun watching everyone, and felt perfectly ready to participate on her next turn. :) I had to limit it to three swings so all the kids could have at least two turns. :)



We had lost our electricity that morning from 5am until 11:30am, so we were *this* close to having to forgo a birthday cake and just having icecream. But luckily the power came back on at 11:30am, just in time for me to pop a cake into the oven. Alas, there was no time to frost it, but again, the kids didn’t notice the difference: “Cake with frosting, cake without – no diff. I’ll take it.”
That evening, once Jed got home from work, we opened up presents from his Grandma Walker and Grammy Sterzer, some of which were a chessboard, a compartmentalized piggy bank, and a rash guard (swim shirt).  Then Jed and I gave him our present – a brand new bike!  The one we presented to him turned out to be a bit too big, so he and Jed went back and switched it for one that fit him better, and viola!  He's got a sweet new ride!
We had a fun day, and Ben enjoyed every bit of it. Happy Birthday Ben! We love you!