Catching up Part II

Now for the second half of catching up with our goings on.  This one is easy because, well we didn't do much for the month of June.  That would totally be my fault.  I spent the whole month out of commission.  It started out ugly as my sciatic nerve problems went wild and I was relegated to laying flat on my back for pretty much two full weeks not being able to move or do much.  Then my years of stomach problems finally came to a conclusion with getting surgery to remove my gall bladder.  Adios you evil little organ that caused me years of problems.  This last week of June has been time that I have felt like a grown up that could handle responsibility.  Yep.  That bad.  My sister came up with her adorable daughter to help nurse me back to health after surgery.  It was great!

Jared deserves an award for filling double parental rolls for three weeks while I wasn't able to. He's the best.  And I really don't think the kids would have survived if I didn't have the always capable Afton to help.  Her being on summer break from school was actually a huge blessing because she helped things run during the times Jared was at work.  It may seem unfair to put so much responsibility on a 7 year old, but she did it amazingly well.  I am so glad I have been able to spend more daytime hours with her because it has reminded me what a great kid she is.  Love my girl.
Now we did have one happy, bright spot this month: Ben had a birthday!  He turned the magic age of 5. 

I openly admit that 5 year old little boys are probably the most entertaining and cute little things ever.  Ben is in such an awesome phase where his imagination is in full drive, his ability to cope with emotions is getting much better, and he is just a nice little dude.

He wanted two things for his birthday, a bow and arrow and ninja turtles.  Can do!
We had a little Robin Hood theme for the day and he intensely practiced shooting his new bow and arrows.  Good thing the arrows wouldn't fly more than about ten feet or we might have lost every arrow in about two minutes! 

We also celebrated by going to the Zoo and seeing the cool animatronic dinosaurs they have there for the summer. I think I loved it as much as he did!  Cade makes me laugh in this photo because he got super scared at the roaring dinosaur and was booking it out of the picture.

We love our creative, musical, silly, spacey, cuddly, loving, and smart boy.  Happy 5th Ben!

The weather really warmed up just in time for my resurfacing and we have played at parks and pools and had a great time to make up for the weeks before.