Christmas Day!

I can't believe Christmas has already come and gone. With our focus being so much on Ben's graduation and the baby, I feel like we really didn't have time to enjoy the season as much as we usually do!

It just means I'll leave my Christmas tree up a little longer this year...

We started last week by going to Jackson for a few days. I don't have any pictures of that, but we had a blast with Ben's dad, Robbie, Will, and the rest of the family. We went to a Mississippi State basketball game one night and we were able to see *most* of the family before we left.

When we got back into town on Friday, Mom met us in Birmingham, and we headed over to Ms. Brenda's for Christmas with her. She was going to Jackson the next day, so we did our Christmas a little early.

Ms. Brenda gave me this beautiful bird house that matches the colors of the nursery. I can't wait to find the perfect place for it! She also gifted us a drawing of our house. Since it is our first house, I will always treasure that special gift! We ate a yummy dinner and enjoyed each other's company!

Mom and I were able to play on Christmas Eve. We worked a little in Brooke Allen's room by hanging up all her clothes and throwing out some more junk hiding in the room. We went to the grocery store to prepare for the week and waited for Ben to come home from work. Once he was home, we went to dinner, and then Mom and I set out for Huntsville.

Wes and Dervon's flight came in at 8:53pm on Christmas Eve. We were so excited to see them!!!!!

Christmas morning came, and Ben was at work. So we decided to go to church on Christmas morning. It was pretty awesome to worship our Savior's birth actually on Christmas Day.

After church, we headed home for lunch and played a game of Uno to kill the time before Ben got home from work. When he finally did get home, we pretended it was Christmas morning - complete with pajamas!

No, these weren't all for me. Most were actually for Brooke Allen...

Charlotte started out the gift opening with a rubber chicken from her MamaSyl. It squeaked REALLY loudly and she REALLY liked it...

...and it was subsequently accidentally kicked under the chair by her Uncle Wesley until gift opening was over.

Brooke Allen got more presents than anyone on Christmas morning. Her dad just so happened to open the Bama gift...haha...a Bama onesie and some Bama hairbows. PERFECT! Roll Tide, Daddy!

She also got her very own Polar Express book and bell to read every Christmas. It just so happens to be her Mom's favorite Christmas story also... Her other presents included a piggy that vibrates, and some cute little sleeper outfits from the Florida Thorntons.

My sweet husband bought me a new watch. I was easy to shop for since we picked it out together...

Mom gave me a sewing machine to make Brooke Allen all those cute little outfits! Wes and Dervon gave me a sewing accessory kit with lots of thread, scissors, measuring tape and lots more.

Ben got a new Garmin from me, a History DVD from Wes and Dervon, and a new video camera from Mom so he can record all the cute things his baby will do in the next year.

Wes got a DVD and book from me and Ben, a book about India from Mom (they're going on vacation there this spring), and a Florida Gator duffle bag from Dervon.

Dervon got a Hello Kitty makeup brush set from us, diving lessons from Wes, and a spice rack from Mom for their new apartment they are moving into next month!

Wes gave Mom a Willow Tree statue with a folded flag in honor of Granddaddy, and I painted an old window with an American flag. Mom is very patriotic. :)

Next, it was time for stockings!

These goobers bought each other the same card...meant to be? I think so! :)

And then the guys modeled some goodies from their stockings, as they usually do...while actually wearing the stockings...They both received claws and spy glasses.

But the best gift of Christmas is spending time with family.

After gifts, we had breakfast...for dinner. French toast, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, fruit and yogurt. It was quite yummy!

Then we gathered around the table to play Apples to Apples. Lots of laughs with this game!

It is so hard to believe that this is our last Christmas as a family of two and a dog. Next year, sweet little girl will be joining us. As much as I love the way things are now, I can't wait to share Christmas with my children - buying gifts, watching their excitement on Christmas mornings, taking lots of pictures and videos, having our very own family traditions, and most importantly, sharing the REAL meaning of Christmas with them - the birth of Jesus and how He changed everything.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This is the time that I look forward to every year.

The National Peanut Festival.

And it was just as glorious as usual.

Ben's mom, Ms. Brenda, had never been to the Peanut Festival before, so she joined us on Saturday for our favorite day of the year! She was shocked that there were free peanuts everywhere!

We taught her that the first stop is always the line to the Corndog Man. Those are the most delicious corn dogs in the whole entire world. They hand dip them in their sweet and buttery batter right there in their little trailer. Usually the line for corn dogs is longer than the lines for rides on the midway.

After corn dogs, Ben and I got kettle corn and Mom and Ms. Brenda got roasted ear of corn. This is what we eat when we walk through the exhibits. We always make a stop at the tractors so Ben can dream about our little farm in the country...or at least a yard big enough to use a riding lawnmower.

Then we headed down the midway. It isn't so much fun to watch the rides when you're not planning to ride any...I think my OB would discourage riding the Himalaya at 5 months pregnant.

I could ride the big ferris wheel though! We always ride this ride. Ben is slightly scared of heights, so it's not his favorite, but I love to go all the way to the top where you can see the whole fair down below!

When we got off the ferris wheel, we found the National Peanut Festival queens! This was a treat for two reasons:

1. Over my entire life, I can never remember actually running into the queens!

2. Little Miss NPF was our Little Miss Houston County! It's fun to say you know Little Miss Peanut! She is absolutely precious, and so is her family. We are proud of Jules!

And of course, we always end our fair day by getting a funnel cake. All that fried dough and powdered sugar...YUM!

I love the Peanut Festival and I'm sad that I only get to go once a year now. When I was little, I was there 4 or 5 times each year.

Of course that was back when Mom paid for me to go, I lived there, and I had 4 or 5 different groups of friends I would go with. I always went once with Jayla, once or twice with school friends, and once or twice with church friends, and with whoever else wanted to go!

It's a big social event.

But it's so much fun. I can't wait to take Brooke Allen next year!

Blessed Assurance

Heaven gained another hero a few months ago.

My Granddaddy.

Hero is not a word that my Granddaddy took lightly. In fact, he hated being called a hero. Granddaddy, known to others as William (Bill) Leon Benson, Sr., dropped out of high school to be drafted into the United States Navy in World War II. He served in the European theatre in several major battles. Two of those were Operation Tiger and D-Day.

You all know what D-Day is, but you've probably never heard of Operation Tiger. That's because it was classified for many years. It was a practice drill for D-Day, and it took place on Slapton Sands off the coast of England. During this drill, they were attacked by German U-Boats. All the deaths of that day are attributed to D-Day, in fear that D-Day would fail if information was released.

Granddaddy survived both.

We knew nothing of his time at war for years. All we knew was that he was a cook in the Navy somewhere in Europe. He never spoke about what he experienced, until the movie Saving Private Ryan came out. That's when he told us, "I was there."

His job with the Navy was the drive the landing craft onto the beach to release the soldiers.

He only had to make one pass onto Omaha Beach.

He said the movie depicted it perfectly. Men lying motionless in the water, clogging the beach to where the landing crafts couldn't even reach the shore. Soldiers having to jump out of the boat in hopes to reach the shore, but being dragged under because of the weight of their packs and the tide. The first line of men never making it off the boat because they were mowed down by German machine gun fire after the doors were let down.

Granddaddy always said, "The water was red. Red with American blood."

Granddaddy saw this with his own eyes. Even until his last days, he would have nightmares about these experiences - hearing the men screaming, seeing them in the water, and he was helpless to save them.

It is because of these men that Granddaddy did not like to be called a hero. He said those who died on those days, and all throughout the war, were the heroes. He was just another man, doing his duty to his country.

We, of course, feel differently.

Granddaddy is a hero because he came back. He lived to tell the stories of these thousands of men whose lives are often forgotten from a war that is often forgotten. He wept every time the National Anthem was played or he saw the flag raised. He believed in that flag and in those words and he had lived it out. He is a hero because he spent many sleepless nights weeping for their pain and praying for their families.

And thanking God that he was fortunate enough to return to build a life for his family in the country he loved so much.

After the war, he married my Grandmother, who he had fussed and fought with through the mail the entire time he was gone. They met before he was drafted at a scrap metal drive at the local high school. He liked to tell people "she was the best piece of scrap I found all day."

Somehow or another, she got mad at him while he was gone, and burned all his letters from war. We will never know why they were fussing, or the sweet things that he said to make up for it in those letters.

They married quickly, and then had babies quickly. My Aunt Pug (Sharon) came just a little over 9 months after their wedding day, and my Uncle Billy, just a little over a year later. It was nine more years until my mom came along.

Grandmother told me last week nobody told her how to prevent things. All three babies were accidental blessings.

Their children blessed them with six grandchildren, five grandchildren-in-laws, seven great-grandchildren, two great-great granchildren, one great-grandchild with him in Heaven, and our sweet little girl on the way.

Granddaddy told my husband before we got married that we didn't have in-laws in this family. We are all family. Once you're in, you're in.

Then he told Ben in a very quiet voice, "And if you hurt my grandbaby, you'll have to answer to Granddaddy." Even though he was quite feeble at the time, I think he meant it.

We all had a different relationship with Granddaddy, but ours was extra special. It's probably because I'm the favorite. :) I am the youngest grandchild. For a very long time, I was the baby in the family.

I spent countless hours on Granddaddy's "good" knee (the other had shrapnel in it from the war) while he told me stories, played Ride a Little Horsey, and singing his favorite song, Little Boy Blue.

Little Boy Blue was a song I'm pretty sure he made up and it had eleventy billion verses that were different every time. I was not allowed to get up until he decided he was finished.

His chair was always in the same place, and he was guaranteed to be there working crossword puzzles, reading the paper, or watching the Braves. Every time I walked behind his chair, I would mess up his hair (what little was there) or give him a kiss on the top of his head. It always made him grin and say, "I love you, baby."
I am going to miss him now every time I walk by that chair. I will miss going to their house and getting a big bear hug from him as a greeting. I will miss the way he picked at Grandmother until she got so frustrated with him that she threw up her hands. Then he would grin at us like a little boy. I will miss the way his voice got low when the conversation turned to something serious. I will miss the way he beamed when watching his grandchildren play or holding a new grandbaby for the first time. I will miss hearing him get choked up while saying the prayer before meals at family gatherings as he spoke of the loved ones who aren't here with us.

But praise God for blessed assurance. I know without a shadow of a doubt where my Granddaddy's faith stood. He spoke of the love of his Savior often. He was the faith leader of our family. He attended his church every Sunday, and when his body would no longer allow him to, he would listen to church on the radio, or watch it on his little TV that sat by his chair. When my mother was little, he would have her bring a hymnal to him, and she would sit on the arm of his chair, and he would sing her hymn after hymn.

I know today he is where he longed to be for several years since his health began to deteriorate. He is with his Savior. He is singing those hymns with the angels. He is having long conversations with my Dad. He is playing with our sweet Allie. He is walking on able legs, seeing with able eyes, and breathing with able lungs.

And he is waiting on the rest of us to join him.

Welcome to Atlanta

Last Friday afternoon, I took a partial day at work so Mom and I could go to Atlanta for our annual Mom-Daughter time.

We went here...

...to see this...

...which was unbelievably amazing.

Afterwards, we had dessert here, where Mom left her souvenir program book underneath the seat and we're positive somebody kept it.

Then, on Saturday, we went here. I bought a frying pan and cinnamon rolls, and found the bookcase for Baby P's nursery, that Ben and I will go back and get some other Saturday. Big box.

Then we went here, to Atlantic Station. We did some fun shopping and saw the new Sarah Jessica Parker movie...

...and ate at Rosa Mexicano, which has the best guacamole in the world. Made tableside. And I don't even like guacamole.
On Sunday, we headed back to Birmingham. We stopped at The Shops of Grand River in Leeds (shameless plug: my company owns this) to look for Baby P some things...
to which she/he got some simple white onesies, some gender neutral sleepers, and a sweet little t-shirt that says "I love my daddy." Don't worry, it can work for a boy or a girl!

Mom and I had a wonderful time in Atlanta! We can't wait til next year when we will have a new little traveler with us!

Information Overload

Good gracious, time has flown by since my last post.

I will give you a run down from where I left off and then I PROMISE, I will never wait this long to post again. I have no dates because I can't remember them, but I'm pretty sure this is in chronological order. Logical order, at best.

Warning: Picture and information overload.

1. We threw my sweet friend, Mandi, a fun bridal luncheon at Calvary's parlor. Mandi loves bright colors, so the theme was orange, pink, and lime green. Yummy food and sweet, Godly, encouraging women, celebrating the marriage of Mandi and Mark.

2. We headed to Destin for Mandi's Bachelorette party! I love girl time!

Ben also went on the Mark's Bachelor party, but there are no pictures of that because...well...they're guys.

3. We had a blast of a weekend for Mark and Mandi's wedding! These are some of my bestest friends in the whole wide world! YAY Mandi and Mark!

4. Charlotte got big.

5. After the tragic tornadoes of April 27th, which PGFWABF, we were not affected at our house, we bought tickets to Bama Rising and watched some amazing country acts - David Nail being my personal favorite!

No, I will not put my pictures of the actual concert on there. My camera SUCKS, and we were behind a speaker set that ruined all my pictures.

6. We spent a week in DC over the Independence Day holiday with these wonderful people.

7. Found out we're pregnant.

8. Ben started Birmingham Police Academy.

9. Ben's cousin Andrew got married in Starkville.

10. We started leaving Charlotte out of her crate while we're at work.

That would be a paycheck and a power bill. She's also found a Publix bag, a cheeseburger, a Taco Bell bag, and a bag of barbecue chips.
11. Our friend, Blake, got married outside of Atlanta, so we spent the weekend with some friends and at the Aquarium on Sunday.
12. We had our THIRD anniversary! We spent the night at the Wynfrey last weekend and had a spa day, and then went to dinner at Brio (our FAVORITE) on our actual anniversary.
Wait...hold the phone...did you say pregnant?

I sure did.

We are PREGNANT!!!!!!

Hehe...stay tuned...