The Jennings Four: Fork stealing Ninja's on the loose!

Now, there's a title that would catch anyone's attention! I guess I might as well tell the story behind it too... Ben was asking us one night when he's going to be able to get a dog. Jason and I looked at each other and responded with, "Well, it might be awhile. Do you want a dog?" Ben's reply was, "We might need a dog one day. It would be nice to have one." Then he lowered his voice and said, "And we could use a dog for when Ninja's come to our house to steal our forks!" I have no idea where that came from, it's not even in left field!

We had a really nice Christmas holiday. We managed to get in three other Christmas's outside our own personal celebration. We had a blast at Travis and Carolyn's. It was a lot quieter this year, missing Grandma and Grandpa. Ben helped Aunt Nelda decorate some sweets and Andrew had a blast playing with their dog, Ginger. Unwrapping presents was terribly crazy. Andrew really got into it this year, and Ben was a little to eager to open all of his, and then help everyone else open theirs! We went to my mom's house on Christmas eve. It was a house-full over there! We prepared Ben this time for taking turns and saying his 'thank you's'. They both did a great job! My dad made it down this year for Christmas with the family. It was a very nice weekend. It's nice having two homes to split the time between! When they pulled in the driveway from a six hour drive, we thought we had a crisis on our hands with Ben. He had gone down for some quiet time, and when he came out of his room he looked a little panicked when he asked for a drink. Later that afternoon he asked, "What happens when you swallow a coin?" Not a good question right before the weekend. So I made a few frantic phone calls and luckily some of our best friends have an X-ray machine. So, when my dad pulled in the driveway, the boys all piled back into the car to find out what kind of coin it was. It ends up that there wasn't any coin in him. To this day he is still sure that he swallowed a coin, but it would have been on the X-ray. (Thanks, Daren and Holly! We love you guys!)

This year Ben asked for a robot for Christmas. He came into our room as soon as he woke up and he was very happy that Santa had come. He had noticed that Santa ate the cookies and cake balls, and drank the milk. He even noticed that the carrots had been gnawed on. But he didn't notice the presents. We told him to go back and see what he got. He came in screaming, "I GOT A ROBOT!" He was very happy! We had a blast opening gifts and playing with all the toys! One of our family presents was Mario Kart for the Wii. Ben was very excited to open that. He'd play all day if I let him. In no time at all he's unlocked more games and won more races than anyone else. He came in one morning at 4:30am and shut our bedroom door. We called him back in and asked, "What are you doing?" He said he wasn't tired anymore, and he wanted to play the Wii. We had to march him back to bed and put him back down. He truly seems to hate sleeping because, "it takes too long." He's always been a get up and go boy, but I think it's taking it a little too far! Consequently through all of this Andrew's new favorite word is "wii".

Andrew is starting to talk more. He always babbles, now it's making a little more sense. He has a bad habit of coming up and saying, "Mommy, I want this." While pointing in a vague direction. "What do you want," I ask. He points vaguelly again and says, "This." I have learned that 'this' could be anything. So I usually end up saying, "Show me." Andrew is my quiet kid. We can get him playing with a toy in his room, and walk away and he'll peacefully play for a half hour to an hour. (We could never do that with Ben.) Andrew was playing quietly in his room the other day when Ben walked in and said, "Andrew, can I play with you?" And Andrew said, "yeah." All of a sudden there are noises coming from the room. Building noises, and beeping noises, and vrooming noises, then came displeased noises, and "no" noises, and "SHARE!" noises, and then crying noises. Ben came out with an armful of toys telling me that Andrew won't share, and Andrew trailed after him with his arms reaching for his toys. We don't have the combined peaceful play down yet!

I've held on to this post for a few days now, because it wouldn't let me add photos. And I was sure there would be a mutiny without family photos! Anyways, yesterday morning Ben asked me where we were going today (a daily question). I told him he was going to school (yay!). He screwed up his face and said, "I do NOT want to go to school." I asked him why and he said, "It takes too long." I told him that was a bummer, because next year he'll be going 5 days a week instead of three. That didn't make him happy. Then he asked, "How long will I have to keep going to school." I told him he should be done in about 17 years. He started gagging on his words before he could finally spew out, "But that's a really long time. I'll be really old!"

Anyways, here are some photos! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and I hope that 2009 is a blessed year for you and your family!