Benji's Birthday, part 1: The cake

This may be a whole week of birthday boy.  Since his party was at a cupcake shop, we decided to bake a cake for his class instead.  Benji decided that he wanted a lego cake.  He also decided that he wanted to help with every step of the process, so it was not a piece of art:

 

He really enjoyed sharing it with his classmates (and blowing out the candles at school):

 

Amazement Square

Spring Break day trip #2:

Kids can crawl up and down between floors (no stairs!)

Abby as Cleopatra

Benji goes down the Nile

Controlling the dams

Playing with the green screen (and the Daly boys)

City Clay

On Monday, we took our girl scouts to City Clay studio to earn their pottery badge.  I think this one one of their favorite trips ever:

Squeezing clay coils out of the extractor

 

Making coil pots

Watching a wheel demonstration

 

Painting with under-glaze

 

Benji gets his own piece of clay

A look through the birthdays....

First Birthday

Second Birthday

3rd Birthday

Fourth Birthday

Happy 5th Birthday Benji!

From a recent trip to Tonsler Park.  This expression is so him.

Easter Clean-up

Time to take the decorations down. The kids "helped":

Luray Caverns

To start off our spring break (and before our friends left), we decided to take a day trip to Luray Caverns.  We opted for the slow, scenic route along Skyline Drive.  

We stopped to picnic, and the kids were pleased to find that there was still snow up in the mountains

At an overlook

It was VERY windy

The caverns were very interesting:

Not great attempt at a group shot

The caverns area has been built-up quite a bit since our last visit, and we took the opportunity to see the other attractions:

Car museum

Maze

Ropes course

We also saw the Valley Heritage Museum and stayed until almost closing - an exhausting but fun start to break!