Ben's 11th Birthday!

Ben was blessed with a few different celebrations! 

The first one was on the Saturday night before his actual birthday! 

We were able to have the Carter's and Caroline and Joseph here for dinner and cake! 

Brother Tim blessed him with the gift in the "Amazon" bag!  The orange tissue paper/camo bag is from the Carter's and then Caroline and Joseph gave him one that will be pictured later. 

Tim's gift was an air-soft pistol that Ben was hoping for!  He goes to the air-soft battles with the brothers! 

A lego set and some camo pants from the Carter's!  Woo hoo!  Definitely some more things from his wish list! 

Caroline and Joseph gave him the Mandelorian set of DVD's that he had been wanting.

On his actual birthday morning, he went along with me to town for my dental check-up, and picked him up a "big breakfast" from McDonald's for him to enjoy while I was in getting my teeth cleaned! :-) (We were parked here in the parking lot.)

Then, upon our return home, we let him open a combo gift from us and Meemom and PapaBob!  

A very large Lego set that he has been wanting! 

And another cake!!!! 

Then, on Wednesday, (after his Monday actual birthday) we brought pizzas and more cake to our homeschool soccer/volleyball get-together!  We didn't announce that it was going to be a birthday celebration so that folks didn't feel the need to bring a gift.  (But the Johnson family brought some anyway!)

 

A Few of My Favorite Summer Things!

A couple of my "pets" hanging out on our festive light strand! 

My very favorite of all . . . the beautiful hydrangeas just outside our front door! 

I've become a big fan of dahlia's this year! 

Love my shady-spot-on-the-porch impatiens! 

These are dahlias that I planted as tubers in the spring, and have watched them grow and bloom! 

My patriotic corner of the house! 

Love smelling the sweet peas!  Love this picture with the sweet peas, gladiolas in bloom and ripe blackberries!

These are definitely my new favorite petunia!  They were given to me by a friend who grows them from seed. 

Planted Morning Glory for the first time ever from seed this year!  Love them! 

The gladiolas always impress me with their vibrant colors!  Just love the full assortment of colors too! 

Sunflowers from the same friend that planted the petunia seeds!

This rose bush is so beautiful!  Victoria gave it to me for Valentine's Day! 

All berries from our garden! 

Sweet peas and gladiolas sharing the same fence.

We planted fruit trees for each of our grandkids this late spring.  This is Liliah's peach tree!  It produced 3 peaches already!  

These dahlias were given to me by the friend that planted the beautiful petunias and the sunflowers. They were very small and hadn't bloomed yet when I put the in the ground.  So I didn't know what colors they would be until they bloomed!  So pretty!