On the Saturday before Ben's birthday we

had a family birthday party for him.

Here are a few pictures from the day.

Ben with his cousins and Grandma and Grandpa.

Great Grandma Frances with her grandkids and great grandkids.

Happy Birthday Ben

Ben turned 1 on Tuesday August 24th. We celebrated with our families over the weekend and had a little dinner with him on his birthday. It is amazing that it has already been a year. It seems not long ago that we were taking parenting and childbirth classes. The last few days, we have been remembering what we did exactly one year ago on that day. We are so happy that Ben is in our lives and has blessed our family.

Here are some pictures of Ben over the last year.

Walking/Running

Suddenly, Ben has gone from only crawling to sprinting.

At the Chief's game

Saturday night we went to the Peoria Chief's game with Grandpa Van Hise, Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Danielle, and "Uncle" Luke. We brought Ben's booster seat and attached it to one of the stadium chairs. Even though it was a night game, it was very warm. Ben started out looking like this:

But soon looked like this:

Playing

Here are some recent pictures.

And one from Ben's rash on the 4th of July.

Ben's First Cub Game

We took Ben to his first Cubs game this Saturday.

We all had a lot of fun and even though it was a little

cool outside Ben was excited to be there!

Ben got his free Build-A-Bear at the game, it was

a give away to the first 5000 kids.

Ben with his Grandma and Grandpa at the game.

Go Cubbies!!!!!!!!!

Marshall Pose

For any fans of How I Met Your Mother, here is Ben's immitation of one of the characters. A few episodes back, there was a montage of photos in which Marshall, played by Jason Segel, had the same funny look in each shot. Ben took this picture while eating dinner tonight.