Holiday recap

I know, I know... the Christmas tree should be taken down and the decorations put away. But how? When this is happening every day after school: 

Benjamin is LOVING this train set that my grandparents let us set up under the tree. The first thing Benjamin does when he gets home from school is crawl into the living room and start clapping  for "more" train. I'm having a little trouble though... Gobah (My dad) came over the other day to play and connected all the train pieces together AND had Elmo, Ernie, Burt, Big Bird and Kelly riding in them! I can't compete! Benjamin claps and hands me train parts and Sesame street friends and looks at me like, "C'mon! Get it together mom! Gobah can do it!" 

Christmas absolutely flew by around here. We had a great time. Christmas Eve we went to my church's candle light service and it was awesome! Then we headed over to my grandparents for dinner and presents.

The following morning we had Christmas Brunch at our house. It was a blast! Ben and I love having people over (my mom is going to laugh reading this, because I may have had a small stress melt down that morning trying to get everything "just perfect") But a great, small melt down! And totally worth it! I forgot to take pics before brunch (I was having that melt down, remember?) But here's a couple shots of after:

Christmas Table - with 14 people we had to get creative... but we did it!

Drink table

So the last couple years we had a Bingo tournament. We decided to switch it up and play the Oldie-Wed Game! Ben, Hannah and I hosted it and we asked the married couple questions about each other. Let's just say they need to spend more time discussing where the wives' want to go on vacation and the husbands' favorite power tool!!! hahahhaha

Benjamin getting a foot rub from Auntie Hannah!

Winter break was great! It was so fun having "not so much" to do and having free time to make spur of the moment plans. Like... go to Wet Spot... Benjamin's fish Utopia!

Where's Benjamin?? :)

We also decided last minute to head to Cannon Beach for an overnight. And I mean last minute! This was a couple days before New Years and we were suppose to be cleaning up Christmas and we just decided we needed to get out of town. (plus it was our 6th Anniversary!)  It was so fun... cause no time to stress about packing. We threw a few things of ours, and everything of Benjamin's in the van and headed to the Wayside Inn (the cheapest hotel with a swimming pool and the last room!) Benjamin went hot tubbing and swimming with us and loved it! We watched movies and I kicked Ben's butt in Marbles and Canasta (although to be fair, I guess I should mention we found out the decks were completely screwed up so we need a re-match!) We ordered Moe's to go and had clam chowder cannon balls in our room (chowder in bread bowls).

We are so excited for 2014! Much to be thankful for and much to look forward too! 
Here's the last pic:

Benjamin's new preferred way of taking a bath... he is sooo funny!