My Birthday Boys

Andy's and Ben's birthdays are two days apart...therefore, they are often celebrated together by extended family.  Andy says the older he gets the less he minds sharing the attention :)

Following are many pictures from last week and the many gatherings for the purpose of celebration.

Does Andy look thrilled or what?

WARNING: CUTENESS ALERT!

The next several pictures may cause overload of the cuteness capacity portion of the brain.

Proceed with caution!

Matt handed this gift to Ben and asked him if he wanted to open his tootsie roll.  Ha!

It was a very Elmo birthday.

The birthday boys.

These pictures were all from the day in between the birthdays when Merill and Nancy came up.

The next morning...Ben's b-day, I took it upon myself to put together his new, handy dandy tricycle.  My sister in law alerted me to this wonderful product...it has a seat belt and a bar that goes across the front...perfect for Ben and his myoclonics!

After about and hour and a half of screw driving, hammering and frustration, it kind of came together (Andy had to tighten up a few screws when he came home...he also added some of the accessories that I had left off...like the bar that goes around his waist :)

Ben thought it was pretty nifty and kept trying to get on as I assembled it.

We went for a family bike rendezvous at the church that evening.

Ben is petting Abby's caterpillar.

It did my heart well to see my three oldest cruising around the parking lot at top speed.  

The last couple of years have been a struggle to try and get the boys comfortable and competent on their bikes.  I had to practically force Matt to get on his bike instead of his scooter because he still remembered a fall he experienced at the end of last year...he hadn't been on it since.

As soon as we got him going though he took off and never looked back.

I was anxious to get Josh on his bike before his next foot surgery in a few weeks.  Towards the end of last year he became much more confident and we were thrilled...I wanted his brain to remember that before he was layed up and not able to ride for so long.

It was as if he had been riding all winter long.  Not a problem!

Ben enjoyed a birthday dinner of hot dogs, but I cheated on the cake and went non-keto (I felt okay about it since we're still not really on it yet)

uhhhh...thanks for the help Matt :)

Somebody was in heaven eating sugar again!

Signing "shoes".  He had just opened a pair of Elmo sandals and we had put them on.

The last of the pictures are of the celebration with my family Sunday evening.

 

I believe Ben is saying "Mooo" because there is a cow on the card.

Ben was able to have some special keto ice cream that Grandma Jannie concocted. 

The other birthday boy didn't have anything...but that's a story for another post.

Happy birthday guys!  I love you both to pieces!

(sorry for the hundreds of pictures...there were just too many cute ones!)

one more for good measure...