Happy Birthday, Benjamin!

Today is Ben's 3rd birthday and we had a great time as a family celebrating with him. He climbed into bed with us this morning so we gave him his birthday spankings, nose picking, tickles, etc. and then went downstairs to make his favorite breakfast: pancakes and sausage. I made his card last night and that's pretty much the only tangible thing he got today since his party was last week and we gave him the kitchen set on Wednesday. (Took the two of us two hours to put together, and that's with a professional assembler working on it!)

After getting ready, we headed off to the Children's Museum in Madison. The boys had both been there before, but it's been awhile. Anna took a nap on the way and I'm so glad she did because she was ready to take the place on when we got there! We opted to buy a membership at the level where we can use it at other museums (like in Normal!!). We're calling it an educational expense. :)

The boys took off right away and explored every inch of the museum. Ben usually played near us but we had to go looking for Matthew several times. Thankfully the museum is pretty small and we knew he wouldn't leave, but it was rather packed. Matthew's favorites included the clothes line where he and Rob stood on opposing platforms and sent things back and forth, the crane where he could lift small metal buildings, dressing up in every area (his farmer outfit was the best) and the Dream Machine, a ship. He kept pretending to be a pirate and told everyone in there to walk the plank. Benjamin, the birthday boy, found most of the things Matthew liked to be exciting, but he also liked the area with the pretend market and garden. Anna was the most fun to watch since she's never been there. They have a crawling area for the babies and she played with a couple of toys, found herself in the mirror, then crawled over the barricade and headed off to find the boys. It was pretty humorous. She liked the drums, a puzzle in the upstairs toddler area (she could bang the pieces together and make noise!), and especially the rocks in the construction area. She loved touching them and scattering them everywhere. She was so fun!

When it got almost too crowded to move, we left for lunch at Ella's Deli. Talk about a feast for little eyes! It's a Jewish deli that has all kinds of mechanical things on the ceiling, in the tables (ours was a nautical theme), on the walls and had pool balls running all over the ceiling in chutes in some kind of elaborate maze. The kids ate more than usual because they were so distracted watching everything. Anna even had food of her own. They have a baby plate with small amounts of different finger foods. She loved the cheese, turkey, and mandarin oranges best. Ben traded her some fries and pickles for her applesauce. She LOVES pickles! I had printed off a coupon for a free birthday sundae for Ben and it came with a balloon and candy buttons. He shared with Matthew. It's a neat place, but definitely for treats only b/c it was expensive! We figured the price of the meal was half for the food and half for the electrical cost for all those mechanicals. It was a great place to go.

Needless to say, all three of them slept hard on the way home :)