Good Ben...

Just so it doesn't come across that I think Ben is 100% Evil, I thought I'd follow up that post with this. (for the record, I think maybe he's only about 2% Evil because frankly, I don't have people over that often) ;)

Yesterday, we went to his second cousin's 3rd birthday. He was adorable and the model of good behavior. He and his cousin Keira get along amazingly well (and I can see why, they seem to have a lot in common) and he had a blast playing with her and her other cousins and friends.

It was a Disney princess party, Ben's second in two weeks, and he was such a good sport. He played Pin the Princess on the Castle and won a princess coloring book, which he happily gave to one of the little girls at my suggestion. Then he won the other party game (Pass the Parcel... played to Princess music), and tried to give away his prize again, which was a Hershey bar. I told him he could keep that one. ;)

Afterwards, we went out to dinner and he was so excited to wear his orange sunglasses from the goody bag into the restaurant. He then proceeded to charm our waitress through the entire meal.

When we got home, he asked to snuggle. So after I put Simon to bed, I went in and he wanted to pretend we were fish. We played fish (a game that involves lots of hiding and jumping out, apparently) for awhile and then we played a game where he would announce "Let's be ominous!" (a word which Ben will tell you means "really scary!", thanks grandmom for that one) which also involved a lot of hiding and jumping out and making scary faces and then he just chatted away about various things.

Our power went out around 9:30 and the smoke alarm protested, as it always does, and woke him up. He was really upset because he hates that thing (as do we all), but perked up when we went outside. Yes, that's right, we went outside at 9:30p.m.... this is because we realized pretty quickly it was going to be a long outage and started seeing flashlights and hearing kids' voices. Sure enough, the neighbors had come out to play! He ran around with flashlights and glowsticks until 10-something. I think that fun little jaunt will probably we one of those childhood memories that will stick with him forever. It's not everyday you get to go outside at 9:30 in your pajamas and run around in the dark. ;)

Anyway, after that, he contentedly snuggled with us bed (the power was still out) and went to sleep.

I seriously had SO much fun with him yesterday, which was something that was much needed after the evilness that was the day before...