The Peine Family: Ben’s Fifth Birthday

After counting down for months, Ben’s fifth birthday arrived yesterday. He was beyond excited. Rosemary apparently woke him up around six so that he could fully enjoy his day. I believe they played Go Fish! until 7am when they could get up.

As soon as he saw his gifts on the floor in the living room, he was ready to tear into them. Thankfully, he was patient and waited until both Jonathan and I were out there with him.

A small LEGO set

Jonathan picked out this bizarre dancing chicken music card. He loved it.

It did not take Ben long to delve into building his LEGO jet.

The birthday boy and his sisters

We’re still in swim lessons this week so even though it was his birthday, we went to lessons. Not that he at all minded getting to be in the pool a bit.

Practicing frog kicks

After that, we headed home for a quick bite to eat then loaded up for Orlando.This was a family event year for Ben (we alternate between parties and events) and Jonathan had the inspiration to take Ben to the Downtown Disney LEGO store. Then we decided to do dinner at T-Rex and invite our parents to join us. My parents were able to make it, but Jonathan’s sister just had twin baby boys two days earlier (so exciting!) so Janice and Richard were helping them.

Ben was one happy guy!

I thought Ben would go for the wall of LEGOs and just mix and match, but he decided he wanted a set. Rosemary did too. They both wanted the instructions and to know what they were making.

Charlotte took a few breaks from the LEGO store and checked out the water and the ducks.

Soon, we met up with my parents and headed to T-Rex!

We sat right in the middle of all the dinosaurs. Every 20 minutes or so there’s a meteor shower. The rooms get dark, lights flash, and the dinosaurs roar. About a minute into the first meteor shower I heard whimpering beside me and saw Charlotte starting to cry. I put my arm around her and after that she would not let me let her go. I ended up moving her to my lap and she hid inside my cardigan. Ben was so brave though and thought it was awesome!

Poor thing was fine until it got dark and noisy! After that, she was done.

Ben ordered dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets cinnamon apples. He polished off every single bite, plus two of Charlotte’s pieces of pizza which she didn’t touch because she spent the entire meal under my sweater on Jonathan’s lap.

So scared. I’d ask her every few minutes if she was okay and she would nod her assent. We could see it through the layers.

To celebrate Ben’s birthday, the staff brought out a Chocolate Extinction complete with dry ice.

Whoa!

At the end of their song, the staff roared.

Coolest dessert ever. He even got to make a wish and blow out a candle.

Look who emerged for dessert…

Once we were out, Charlotte was fine. At first she said that she liked it there, then she said it was scary. Poor thing. Whatever happened though stayed at the restaurant and we have not had to deal with any residual fears.

Ben thought it was great. Totally worth it for him.