Its Birthday Time!!!!!

I know most blog backgrounds (if they change) will be changed to St. Patty's tomorrow. But not at the Benton house!! Tomorrow starts Birthday Month. I never knew a family that loved their birthdays so much until I started hanging with these crazy's. However it didn't take me long to figure out why. They never get hung up on age, even though none of us are young any longer, the real dilemma comes from what to have for Birthday Dinner. The Sunday of our birthday we get to choose what is for dinner (we could choose to go out, but none of us ever do) and we are exempt from kitchen duty. (this is the only week that Burk is LEGITIMATELY excused from kitchen duty, strange, as we are all painfully aware that somehow he always gets out of it) Burk and Tata learned early on to "get together" and plan their meals so they could have two really good meals and have twice the choices because there were two birthdays one week apart. Originally they were excited when I joined the mix because that made a third week in a row meal. They quickly got frustrated and" kicked me out" of birthday meal negotiation club because I would always choose spaghetti a meal that we often have for Sunday dinner anyway. They said the point was to pick something that we have only on special occasions because it is hard to make, such as Chinese food, it literally takes Boggy an entire day to do. Further down the road when I understood the process better I started picking Hawaiian Chicken, it was not an easy one to serve but they did not "enjoy" it as much as I. And even later in the process I was pregnant twice and picked weird stuff. So here we are again in March leaving me only 21 days to decipher the toughest decision ever. (Not really, anyone who knows me knows I will pick eclair cake for dessert and my meal choice will be hash, or spaghetti) Although I may throw them for a loop this year and pick chicken enchiladas). At any rate it will be a GOOD month for food in the Benton family, stretching actually to Cody's birthday in the first week of April.

Valentines Day

I have never been big on Valentines Day. I mean, I love chocolate and flowers as much as the next guy but it has just never been a big deal to me. Maybe its because all through the year Burk does nice things to show me he loves me like leaving me notes, gassing my car ect. or maybe one day long ago he did something so great I told him he was off the Valentines hook for life. Who knows but whatever the reason we have never really liked to stand outside freezing, waiting ten hours for food we can wait ten minutes for next weekend or pay $8.00 for a sappy card that says some cheesy crap we didn't even think of ourselves. This weekend we cleaned our garage and hung up blinds. That is what real love is, not getting divorced over blind hanging. (Those things were buggers) But I do want to publicly say that I appreciate being in a marriage with real life crap. Working hard, worrying about money, raising two snot nosed boys doing laundry and dishes for the men I love and at the end of the day there is truly no other way I would want to spend life. So, on this Valentines day and every day feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have these three Valentines. Love You Guys.

sUpErBoWl

wE HAD A LITTLE sUPERBOWL PARTY AT BOGGY'S. iT WAS PRETTY fUN. jOErOB AND HIS FAMILY CAME OVER AND WE WERE SO GLAD, (IT HAD BEEN MUCH TO LONG SINCE WE HAD SEEN THEM) AND gRAMPA gREAT AND aRDIS CAME TOO. tHERE WAS LOTS OF GOOD FOOD INCLUDING MY very very favorite SUPERBOWL CANDY. pORTER WAS ALL DECKED OUT IN HIS cOLLIE JERSY, AND cOLTS TATOOS. hE EVEN SPORTED BLUE HAIR. iN THE END WE WISH #17 WOULD HAVE HAD A VICTORY BUT OH WELL. aS ALWAYS i MANAGED TO EAT AS MUCH JUNK AS ONE PERSON CAN TAKE. iT WAS A GOOD GAME.

pORTER AND pAPA

gRAMPA gREAT AND aRDIS

aLL THE yummy FOOD

tHE KID TABLE

rEBB LOVES FOOTBALL

SLEDDING

No matter how much I grumble and grown at the first flake of a huge snow storm Porter rejoices! We always know in the next day or two there will be a "sledding event". For Porter sledding is not to be taken lightly. It is serious business, complete with a Papa Joe's portable heater. Everyone is required to take a turn. ONLY Tata is excused "on account of she has a baby in her belly" (Porter's words). Porter has us all trained and we have the process down. Someone stands at the top to push him and help with the loading, someone at the bottom to catch him, and keep him from shooting into the road, a camera man on the way down, and someone to carry the sled back up. While I am not a fan of the snow and hate being cold I do enjoy the laughter, and love the memories we have made as a family on Boggi's front hill.


On one of many of Burk's turns Porter went backwards.

Porter got going so fast we were sure he was going to go back up the hill and into the road on the other side of the sidewalk.

Here is Cody, with Tata huddled by the heater.

Even Rebby, bundled up and came out to see the fun.

Papa's turn.

And now Mom.

A little to quick for the Bog.

the famous break and heating station

WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!

Another snow storm, another sledding event gone by with a happy little man and no injuries.