the best week of the year

My absolute favorite week of the year is the week in between Christmas and New Year's. A couple of years ago we just started taking the whole week off. It's the only week of the year that Ben will really rest and relax without worrying or stressing about what he needs to be doing. His phone doesn't ring and he barely gets an email. We play lots of games and with the kid's new Christmas toys. Stay up late. Sleep in. Stay in pj's all day if we want to. It's great! This year Sophie joined us in the game playing and Ben and I had a week long competition of a card game we like to play. We burned lots of cookie/scotch-a-roo calories by playing Just Dance 3. 

Christmas on Sunday was kind of weird. But New Year's on Sunday is awesome. All day Sunday we got to watch NFL games. Then Monday it was another day of Bowl Games. Ben had the tv from our bedroom, the main tv, the projector hooked to the xbox for espn 3 and his ipad going with his ESPN app. He started this little tradition a couple of years ago when the WVU played a bowl game and a basketball game on the same day. Four football games going at the same time in your own living room - pretty heavenly in Ben's world. Two whole entire days of football - glorious!

Thursday we took the kids the Cabella's and to see the Christmas Lights at Oglebay.

Cabella's is a zoo all on it's own.

Dinner at Quaker Steak & Lube

We stopped at the Oglebay Good Zoo to see the laser show, trains and indoor animals. Not really all that exciting. But fun to do it once.

The other night we had to dress up to play Just Dance. I also had on a tiger tail. Sophie took this picture.

This is Sophie's "princess dress." Really it's a High School Musical dress we got in a bag of hand-me-downs. Not sure if it's supposed to be a real dress or not. But it's in our dress up box right now and a huge hit! Ben killed us in Just Dance - which is pretty darn unusual. She doesn't like Just Dance very much . . . yet.

We played LOTS of games this week. And Ted wore shorts all week. He's a happy camper!

We also cut Ted's hair this week. His bald spots are growing back WAY, way slower than I anticipated. So we buzzed his hair and it looks MUCH better. His hair is lighter underneath. Which I think makes the grow back phase seem much slower. The clippers didn't bother him at all, thankfully. So we're back to home haircuts.

Back to the "real world" today.