Ben's Birthday

What a great day! A group of us including Grandpa's Kelley, Sullivan and Tobin, along with Jonah and cousins Justin and Austin went to Grand Blanc for the opening round of the Buick Open on Bennie's birthday. We were there for about 30 minutes and Ben told me it wasn't very fun. Then Jason Gore's caddy flipped Austin a golf ball and it was on. The kids lined up behind greens waiting for players to come by and give them high-fives and hopefully a ball. John Daly gave Ben one of his. By the end of the day, Ben had 5 balls, a tee, and a bottle of water from golfers, Austin had 4 balls, Jonah had 2 and Justin had 1.

An Actual Conversation with Ben

"Ben what do you want for lunch?"





"Chicken sandwich."





"What kind" (we have grilled and rotissere in the fridge).





"Ham."





"I thought you said you wanted chicken."





"You said, "What kind? I'll have ham."

Homeschooling is working out well.

We had fun with Justin!

My brother Paul sent his boy up to us for a week recently and we had a great time. On Father's Day we vistied Grace Adventure's Camp for church and listened to NY Yankees great Bobbie Richardson. The kid's were very impressed, loved hearing stories about Yogi Berra and how Bobbie led Mickle Mantle to Jesus a few weeks before he died. From there we had ALL YOU CAN EAT Chinese and then the Amber Elk Ranch in Ludington.

A couple of days later it was Silver Lake and the Mac Woods Dune Rides. Great fun. Then I humbled the boys in Mini Golf. Justin was the winner between those under 37 years old!















After that Justin played a game of baseball on Jonah's team and recored the first out of the game.


That's a great boy you got there Paul! You should be very proud.

A few words about Ben

None of our kids are alike. Jonah is more sensitive, caring and thoughtful in a bull in a china shop sort of way. Andrew is, well, Andrew, and that means busy. Elijah is still too new to figure out, but eating, sleeping and pooing seem to sum him up right now. All our boys are special in their own way, but this month is June and is Ben's birthday month (June 26 to be exact), so I want to focus on him.

He is our only kid to be born "the right way." He is our biggest risk taker. The only kid of ours to have stitches and a broken bone already. He is not a leader at this point. He is more of a follower, but willing to give you his suggestions (commands) as how it should be done. He is competetive, but hangs out on the fringe of his sports ("Ben go get the ball" "Ben go with your team" "Ben be aggressive" are some of the things you may hear me yell at a soccer game). Sometimes during soccer he gets so excited he forgets to run and actually skips during games.

He is also smarter than I thought. At AWANA this year he memorized almost 2 books of verses and in Sunday school he memorized the ABC's of scritpure (26 verses/sayings) and received a trophy for which he is extremely proud.

He loves his brothers, Jonah is his best friend and I think he has taken a special liking to Eli. Where Jonah helps us alot with Andrew (mainly because he is older), I think Ben and Eli will be very close.

Ben is as close to a middle child as we will get. He is between an older brother with special needs and a newborn. I regret to say, that sometimes I feel like I have slighted him in the attention category. Thankfully he is resilient.

Anyway, here are a few more pics of Ben, pray for him this month when you think about him. He is a special boy.

ELI

He just turned 4 months old. Here's some newer pics.