Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck Celebrate Son Samuel's Birthday

A day to remember! Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck reunited on Thursday, February 27, to celebrate their son Samuel‘s eighth birthday. The little guy looked so happy as his parents took him to Brentwood, California, to hang out with his closest friends. While Samuel ran around with his buddies, the amicable exes watched him to make sure he was alright.

Jen and Ben, both 47, share Samuel and his siblings — Violet, 14, and Seraphina, 11. “The kids are their number one priority, and they’re both amazing, hands-on parents,” an insider told Closer Weekly on Wednesday, February 19. “They’re getting a lot better these days and are in a great place, which makes coparenting so much easier. They even go to each other’s houses and catch up over coffee.”

For the sake of the kids, there’s no bad blood between these two. The Town star even told Diane Sawyer during a February 20 interview on Good Morning America that he “took the last half of the year off” to be a more hands-on dad.

“Drive them to school, pick them up, go to the swim meet — that is where parenting happens,” Ben explained. “It’s in the moments — you just take them back from soccer, they talk about something really profound, how they are feeling about something, and it’s like, that is where you get to be the parent.”

The last thing the Batman actor wants to do is mirror his father’s parenting. Ben admits he saw his dad “drunk every day” and it really changed the way he takes care of Samuel, Seraphina and Violet.

“I always said that would never be me,” he confessed. “I am never going to do that. I wish [my father] had been sober during those formative years but what he has taught me is how important it is for me to be sober now during these formative years for my kids.”

Scroll below to see pics of Ben and Jen taking their son Samuel to his birthday party!