Happy 14th, Benjamin!

Benjamin will be celebrating his 14th Birthday on the 14th of January.  Although I hadn't heard this lately, this used to be called a "grand birthday," when your age matches the day of the month that your birthday falls on.  Since both Laura Lee and Russ will be back at college on the 14th, we wanted to be able to celebrate together as a family, so we had an early celebratory meal and baked Benjamin's favorite cake - A Marble Chocolate Swirl cake with pecans!  It was really no hard feat to convince Benjamin to celebrate his birthday a little early.

We'll there was one little bit of convincing that had to be done.  Rules are rules - even on your birthday.  You must eat your vegetables BEFORE you eat dessert.  I wrestle with this rule a bit as I tend to ascribe to the "Life is short, eat dessert first" mentality, but okay.  Here is Laura helping encourage Benjamin to eat his broccoli so that both he and the rest of the family could enjoy some cake.

Eat your veggies, young man!

At last Benjamin ate his veggies and we all got ready to sing, light the candles, and cut the cake. Here is the birthday boy complete with his loving family, a party hat, his cake on the Special Day Red plate, and a bottle of Black Currant Sparkling juice to celebrate Benjamin's big day.

Happy 14th Birthday, Benjamin!  We Love You!

It is really amazing how fast time flies.  Our BABY is 14.  Oh my!  Happy Birthday, Benjamin!  We love you!!