All I Want for Christmas (is my two front teeth)

I'm not sure what you were doing yesterday, but we certainly spent our time wisely.

Here is the product of our efforts, for your viewing pleasure:



All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth) from Ben and Jenn on Vimeo.

Thanksgiving Road Trip

 This year we spent Thanksgiving in Virginia with the Bairds and Ludlows, which meant a 12+ hour drive.  You can tell things started getting a little hairy by the end of the drive!  

 Ben and I chose to make the drive even longer by stopping through North Carolina and Southern Virginia.  We wanted to drive through the areas around Duke and University of Virginia, which were very lovely and in the midst of perfect fall splendor.  BUT we paid the price!  Archer was not very pleased with the extra 6 hours of driving!  He looks happy here, but it was actually a very low moment, in which the only thing we could figure to do was to get donuts.  

 And the only place we could find donuts was this place called Donut Connection, which wasn't the most desirable place to eat donuts and chocolate milk for dinner.  And the donuts were crappy.  You can see that the other three boys were about done with driving too.  They got their wiggles out by grabbing each other and wrestling in a little swarm that circled around the store.  

And then this sign provided way too many giggles for the over-tired boys in our group!

 Finally!  Cousin time!  Cousin time = heaven!  This is a huge bunch of them at Kara's house playing the candy bar game, which is a childhood memory that Ben loves to recall and was happy to relive.  Dave Ludlow wryly identified the game as the game that makes everyone hate each other and create discord in the home, because everyone steals each other's candy bars and gets really, really angry.

And the real reason we came: THANKSGIVING!!!  I had to snap a picture of 16-year-old Nate's dinner plate.  Monochromatic starch and protein, and lots of it.  I marked it down in my brain as a foreshadowing of my future (teenage boys!).  My plate turned out to be a little more colorful, but every bit as delicious.  

 Look at all these future teenage boys!  Give us 5 years, and we will have to double the amount of food we prepared for the same number of people.  Being with the Baird and Ludlow cousins is true Heaven for my boys!

 And Archer was in heaven being with cousins too.  The teenage girls absolutely loved him and pampered him.  I thought this was adorable when he fell asleep in Megan's arms.

And here is cute Brooke with Archer.  Jessica was super adoring with him as well!

 Henry lucked out by having a birthday on Thanksgiving weekend.  He was more than happy to have a cousin party, and he chose bowling as his special outing!  

 Can't remember why Sam was feeling this way, but everyone else had a great time!  The cousins typed in Henry's name as "HENRY B-DAY MAN" on the bowling screen.

And because he is awesome, Henry chose a donut cake!  These were delicious Duck Donuts - yummy - and the easiest birthday cake I've ever had to make. Donut redemption that erased all of our Donut Connection memories!

My instagram caption: I could not be more thankful to have had this boy in my life for the past 10 years. He is kind, patient, loving, flexible, clever, creative, witty, and fun. He brings so much joy and peace to our home! #happybirthdayhenry#thebigten

 These cousins were super sweet with Henry all day and tried to make his day special.  I found out later that Caleb had made a special breakfast in bed for Henry that included pancakes, bacon, and hot chocolate.

Megan and Jess had a fun time playing Cursed Pyramids with Henry!  

We did a lot more fun things together, all of which were not documented with photos.  :(

 And...the dreaded drive home.  Some people enjoyed it more than others.

There were highs and lows.  Sam certainly got to rock out to his tunes late into the night.  I predict that one possible future career for Sam is D.J.