Christmas 2011

We had a really great Christmas this year. We spent it in South Carolina this year. The Rogers came down and spent it with us, too!

We kicked off the festivities by making gingerbread houses! Except the Benson tradition has kicked it up a  notch, so you can't just stick to the basic house.

Here we have:

Chris's shooting range:

Jenessa's carousel:

Riley's temple:

Hunter's Mayan pyramid:

I made monkey and giraffe cages...but the giraffe didn't turn out so well...

Josh's boat was pretty epic (it was complete with gummy bears tubing off the back):

On Christmas Eve day, we started off by going swimming. This was Thomas's first swim!

Then we had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of potato soup and sandwiches, and had the Brown family Christmas cantata. Jenessa was even able to be our pianist this year!

Christmas Day began with church:

Then we opened presents:

We then enjoyed a delicious dinner and spent the rest of the day hanging out! It was a great Christmas!

The Rogers Come to South Carolina

Jenessa's husband, Chris, is in the military and recently received an assignment in Columbia! Columbia is 3 hours away from us, but that's way closer than the 36 it was before, so we'll take it! We are way excited to have some of the Benson family so close by!

At the beginning of December they came down to Myrtle Beach for their first visit. We started out by taking them to the beach; Thomas's first time seeing the ocean! Even though he slept most of the time...

 Here's everybody checking out a jellyfish that washed up on shore:

We went to the aquarium! They had Christmas trees decorated with each of the 50 states. Here's Josh with Utah:

Petting the horseshoe crabs:

Petting the stingrays:

It was a great first visit!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Giving Thanks 2011

This year was the first Thanksgiving I had back at home in I can't remember how many years! It was very exciting. We had it over at my parents with my Dad, Mom, Hunter, Halston, and Bishop and Sister Davis.

Here's the beautiful spread that took days of planning and coordinating (or 10 minutes of me and Mom running around the house seeing what we might be able to throw on there and have it look good...you decide).

And here are the boys..."watching" football...

The buffet line! It was all SO good. I was in charge of the green bean casserole, corn, strawberry pretzel salad, and no-bake cookies. There was also turkey, squash casserole, pistachio salad, three types of stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, rolls, cranberry sauce, red hot jello, scalloped potatoes, and pineapple casserole.

We couldn't even fit all of our food on one plate...

After dinner, we played Wii Pictionary. Then we ate dessert (pumpkin pie, banana pudding, no-bake cookies, and strawberry pretzel salad) while watching some Brian Regan.

It was a fabulous Thanksgiving!