Ryan & Ben

Ashley and Ryan came over to visit tonight. We enjoyed catching up with Ashley and holding Ryan - he is so adorable!

Ben was a little ambivalent to Ryan, although when he did express interest, he didn't really like being pulled away from him and being told to "be gentle". I pulled out Ben's old play gym for Ryan to play in and Ben decided that he could still play in it even though he doesn't fit at all! I don't know why this picture is loading vertical, but it's cute nonetheless.

Such A Night As This

Tonight I had the pleasure of cooking a meal for 117 people. Grace Lutheran Church in Destin, along with members of a few other churches, put on a dinner theater every year at Christmas time called "Such A Night As This." It is set at the inn-where-there-was-no-room on the night Jesus is born. They do an AMAZING job making you feel as if you were there and experiencing what it would have been like and felt like on that night that our Savior was born. My parents have helped with the play for 3 years, Dad working in the kitchen and Mom playing a "traveler." Dad needed a little help in the kitchen this year, so I chipped in on making a delicious meal.

They do the performance for three nights every year in the first weekend of December. If you're in the area next year, I highly recommend you go - it's an experience you won't forget.

Ben's new buddy: Scout

My son now has a talking dog who knows his name. It's pretty awesome, and he loves it.

Ben isn't giving up without a fight!

There is a lot of hype about one particular new grandson in the Cook family, and Ben would like you to know that he is quite serious about establishing himself as the cutest and bestest grandbaby in the history of the known universe.

First up is a slideshow of our pictures covering the weeks we celebrated Ben's birthday... I mean seriously folks, the kid's so awesome he got like 300 birthday parties under his belt already. I think the pictures go up to and around Thanksgiving, but our camera was out of juice for a lot of stuff, so this batch will just have to do...



Ben also decided to go crazy and splash all over the tub the other day. He looked like he was having such a good time that I decided to sneak up and take a short video: