Ben Turns 11 and It Snows in Belgium

For Bennett's ELEVENTH birthday, one of his gifts was a trip with his father to Paris. That sounds so funny to me, that my kid got to go to Paris for his birthday. What is even more ridiculus is the fact that this is not strange to him. They spent the day at the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and eating at FOUR different restaurants. Oh, and they saw a rat on the street and took a picture of it and said that it was Ratatouille!

We thought for a moment the other day that we were living in Alaska once again. It snowed and snowed and snowed! So much so that Nora & Bennett got to build a snowperson. They had a ton of fun and stayed outside until it got dark. By the way, it gets dark here very early...around 4 in the afternoon and stays that way until about 730 a.m. ... hmmm, maybe I am in Alaska?!?! No, wait, Paris is only two hours away and there is a lovely Christmas Market in my town square this weekend with GLOG...warm wine in ceramic cups!

Building her first snowperson!

The walkway in our side yard that leads to the backyard.

Bennett clowning around on his birthday. He had a sleep over with a bunch of friends and they threw streamers at him. He made his own wig.

Bennett is really in to camping, survival, boy scouts, knives...anything that has to do with the out- of- doors. Sadly, he has yet to go camping, but Chad WILL remedy this in the spring. So, his cake this year was a camping theme. He LOVED it! Nora, of course, wanted to eat one of the "boys" off of the cake, as did all the other kids at the party. So, we broke off pieces and everyone enjoyed. My friend Tina made the cake...didn't she do a great job???

This is a photo of one of the many survival kits in a can that Bennett has been making...so creative!

This is one of my new favorite photos...my three angels.