Ben's Birthday Party - Finally!!...etc.

Well, take two of scheduling Ben's birthday party went without interruption by sickness. Yay!!!
And, I'm up to date enough on my blogging to be posting about something that happened just yesterday. Yay!!!
And . . . I bought new jeans yesterday in a size I haven't bought in a really long time. Yay!!!
But, this isn't about me - - so, back to Ben's birthday party. Yay!!!
(Sorry, the over-excitement tends to take on a life of its own...)

That morning, Ben preps for the busy hours ahead with his usual morning smoothie.
These have become a daily standard around here.
We've all developed a love affair with these.

We had a normal day-of-party morning...JC running around town (and by "town" I mean the square mile surrounding our home...I love our location.) getting stuff prepped, me running around the house (and by "house" I mean...well...our house...) getting stuff and children and maybe myself prepped. I had been feeling sick the night before and not wanting to do much but lay on the couch and watch my recorded episode of Oprah interviewing Whitney Houston.
I'm sorry, but I find it fascinating.
I've had it recorded for like, two weeks and watched like, ten minutes total. I think maybe my brain tricked me into feeling sick just so I could justify watching it for a few minutes.
Anyway, again, this is not about me . . .
Mid-morning, family and friends started to trickle in and the fun began...Bethany wasn't around the first part of the party because she had a Primary Program Practice (try typing that three times fast). Her first Primary Program! So fun!

The "fruit cake"
(that title implies a completely different kind of dessert but I can't think of a better name...)
I found this idea in 'The Friend' magazine, August's edition.
Perfect birthday cake, right?
(At least while he's still too young to get upset about the lack of chocolate...
by the way, I am officially old enough to get upset about a lack of chocolate on my birthday...)

While everyone was having a blast in the other room, this is what Ben did:
pushed up a chair

shimmied on up

beheld the bounty

and dug in.

Within a few minutes, he had a red red watermelon face and a soaking wet shirt from all the drizzling fruit juice. We pulled him away before he could do too much damage to his already-smoothie-packed-tummy. Got a new shirt...got him back to the fun!

We had pulled the ball pit upstairs and stationed some good ol' bubble machines up high in the playroom, which made for a good culmination of all things loved by Ben.
Here, we have some friends enjoying these just as much as he is:
the back of James' head, little Rowdy White, Birthday Boy Ben, Teagan and Maylee Lunt in the background, good ol' Heidi and Braydon White on the couch, and Little Livia (also a Lunt).

By the way, I'm going to get really obnoxious with my blog here for a while...or always...we had this really great lesson in Relief Society today about family history. Someone made a great point about how we can't all be elbows-deep in geneology during every phase of our life (i.e. when having small children), but that there are always things we can do. For example, we can all keep a journal, a scrapbook, some sort of personal history since "we are all somebody's ancestor." (Someone said that in class and I thought it was very profound.) Anyway, so I feel eager to do a better job at really using my blogging as a family record-keeping tool. So, I may do more labeling of pictures and more silly story-telling than I have been lately...at least until I get it out of my system and get lazy again. :)
Really, though, I am so glad I have this way to document our family goings-on, keep in touch with friends and family, and record my thoughts and feelings along the way. We live in an amazing time.
Um...really...not about me...moving on...

Ben gets some cuddles from Grandma Trudie (my mom), while Cousin Carrigan looks on.

Little Livia again.
I love how sweet and cute and unassuming she is.
And I love to call her Little Livia.
She is being sweet and cute and unassuming as always, waiting for bubbles to fall into her little hands. I think I heard her say "Yes!" one time when one did. Too cute.
Livia is just about six months younger than James. But since she is more like Ben's size, Bethany has assigned her the role of "Ben's best friend."

...but notice how they play with the bubbles separately...
It's a very casual best friends relationship.

Maylee takes her bubble playing very seriously.
It is not to be taken lightly.

When Bethany arrived, she made her presence known.

James and company (Teagan and Carrigan) enjoy their food at "The Little Table" in the kitchen.

Brittney opts for table-side snacking.

When it came present time, Ben was delighted (Bethany's new favorite word...as in "Mommy, don't you think Daddy will be delighted we put his clothes away for him?"...yeah, I have no idea where this stuff comes from...).
Here he shows off some new tub toys!

and bubbles!

And, from his siblings...

his very own Woody doll. I mean, action figure.

Conversation just now - -
Me (to JC): Would you call Woody an action figure?
JC: Yes. (in a voice that clearly indicates his frustration of my non-understanding for boy playthings.)

Back to the party:

My family taking their spot on the red couch laughing at something. I don't know what was going on but Katie's facial expression clearly indicates she just got done making some clever comment.
It's nice to have Katie back.
But now we miss Monica.
This day we missed Laura too. She was sick. But at least she didn't leave us for college. :)

Back to the Woody Action Figure.
WAF.
I'm going to call it WAF.
Katie demonstrates how to remove WAF's hat.
This skill has proved quite disastrous in our cluttered playroom.
Ben is always walking around "Oystry's hat? Oystry's hat?" (Oystry is his version of Toy Story which is what he calls Woody. I mean WAF. Okay, forget it.
I tried it, it doesn't appear to flow effortlessly as all nicknames should.
We'll stick with Oystry.

Hugs.

Kisses.

Classic pull-string action. So cute.

I think he loves it.
As he did his party and all his guests.
And, the fact that he got to celebrate his birthday again three weeks after the fact.

So, it was all good. Party, guests, new Oystry, a laid back afternoon playing in all the wrapping paper, enjoying the ball pit out of place, having rest time with Daddy while mommy goes shopping...
Yeah, about that...

So, my ward had an activity that evening. Really cute little theme...County Fair. With displays of homemade goods, baked goods, booths of face painting, ladder golf, etc., fair food (corn dogs, caramel apples, fry bread), and live entertainment. Such a cute and well-executed program. Props to the people in charge, for sure.
Not so much to the people doing the live entertainment. Well...they were all actually really good. Except the first number.
Haha, I'm so funny.
Yeah, I sang and played my guitar (actually my sister's guitar because mine has been around small children so long it will not hold a tune once it is tuned). It was terrifying. But I figured it's about time I start doing things like this again or I never ever will.

So, a couple weeks ago, I gave my sister, Katie-of-the-guitar, the assignment of finding me the perfect song. So, she helped me and coached me a little, then turned me loose to practice. Which I hardly did. Small children that are either awake and wanting to bang on your guitar/shove small plastic animals past the strings so they clank around inside or cry about you doing something other than stare at them, OR asleep and requiring semi-quiet made this thing difficult. But anyway, it's all okay because I did it. It was okay. People clapped for me and JC was proud of me. And I can say that I did it.
AND, I have developed calluses on my fingers from playing again. Hopefully I can keep them there. :)

Oh, also, back to the original lead into this one-sided conversation, as confidence builders, I got new jeans. And maybe a top, bracelet, and shoes as well.
Katie-of-the-guitar, my coach and JC-of-the-bank-account, my husband both gave me permission.
The end result was some kind of embellished hippie look that made me feel like a rock star. Or the older sister on The Wonder Years. So, I owe any success of my not-so-important-to-be-talking-about-it-this-long "debut" as Katie called it.

Anyway, I think I'm starting to get my groove back.


My last topic of the evening...

Awesome family vacation.
No, I'm not referring to the time we shall spend in Huntingon Beach coming up, nor the brave trip to Pennsylvania next year to grace Sesame Place with our eager presence.
I'm talking about something that will be years in the planning and more awesome than all other family vacays put together.
I'm talking about something inspired by our callings as Sunday School teachers, our rich heritage, and the way our sweet four-year-old's eyes light up whenever we tell stories from the scriptures and church history. (This is where JC gets really nervous about what kind of crummy vacation I'm going to be dragging him into.)

Oh, but it will be awesome.

We're going to have a Ballard Family Trek.
I've always wanted to do both a trip to Central America and tour around the Book of Mormon lands where my brother served his mission. (want to be our tour guide, Uncle Andrew?) :)
And I've always wanted to do a church history tour.
I've always wanted to do both while our kids were remotely young so they still had that insatiable appetite for these stories and the spirit that accompanies them. So they had these memories to build on and remember as they moved through their adolescent years. So we could just have a darn good time as a family.
Anyway, all the details are still in the making but all I know for sure is we ARE doing this. Maybe all in one summer.
Maybe with a trek west following (but in our mini van and not handcarts or covered wagons) to bring us back home. Where we can stop along the way at historical sites...for either our family specifically or just many of those heart-touching stories we all hear over and over. Sweetwater River, anybody? (And by the way, I will take the fact that JC fought emotion when telling this story in our class today to mean that he secretly cares for this stuff as much as I do and does not mind being dragged on a crummy vacation.)

So, anyway, I just had to share.
It's going to be awesome.
I'm going to start planning...NOW!

Goodnight. :)