Benjamin is 14!

Benjamin turned 14 at Young Men's camp this year, so I sent him to camp with some hastily-made (at midnight), unfrosted (at his request) cupcakes to share with his friends (as you can see his friends were super pumped about this). 

Once home, Benjamin requested that Rachel make him one last birthday cake—he requested a "nature" theme with rocks and vines. This is what Rachel came up with:

We've all been very busy around here so we were happy with anything! We had cake with/for lunch after stake conference on Sunday. 

Poor Benjamin asked if he could request his birthday dinner for Sunday evening.

"You could," I said, "But we haven't gone shopping and we have no food in the house."

"Oh, well, I was going to request Panda Express."

"It's Sunday," I pointed out (we don't do restaurants on Sundays).

"Aw, man!"

My poor kids have been lamenting the lack of food in our house. It's not that we have no food. It's just that we're running out of things that we ordinarily have, which we're then not replenishing our supply of, and have been cobbling together very random meals from the freezer and pantry. 

"We live in an ingredient house and we don't even have ingredients!" Rachel moaned the other day.

She's not wrong. Lucky for the kids, Sara Lewis brought us dinner on Monday and Andrew went shopping after dropping the kids off at swimming to grab a few staples, so we're all stocked up again.

And we did order Panda Express for dinner last night (the last time we had ordered Panda Express was 364 days ago, so I'm assuming it was once again for Benjamin's (slightly delayed) birthday dinner). 

Anyway, Benjamin's favourite part of his cake was lighting the candles.

He blew them all out in a single breath (which he was pretty proud of):

Here's everyone anxiously awaiting a slice of cake (they were all pretty hungry/hangry by the time we got home from stake conference):

Poor Benjamin also forgot that he requested no birthday presents in the United States (because whatever he got would likely end up in our shipment...which is happening in eight days...and so he wouldn't see it again for several months). Instead he asked that we do presents for him after we move, which sounded fair. 

Lucky for him, Auntie K sent him a cool fidget pen, which he opened when he came home from camp. 

And then he said, "After cake are we going to do real presents?" (meaning family presents). 

And I had to be like, "Oh, buddy...remember you said that...uh...you wanted to do presents in Qatar..."

"Oh, yeah!" he said. 

"Yeah...so there are no presents...uh...so..."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot," he said. 

I think he was a little disappointed, but it really does make good sense. Plus, he asked for Andrew to purchase some movie soundtrack (I think the Project Hail Mary one), which Andrew did (so that's like a gift) and since it's apparently The Year of the Pen, his friend Reed also gifted him a space pen (that can write in zero gravity, upside down, even under water). So he's feeling pretty okay about things.

I think the very best present of all, however, was that in the wee hours of the morning on his birthday (before leaving for camp the next morning) Miriam finally consented to stand back-to-back with him while we measured to see who was taller and...Benjamin was the clear winner.

Andrew even broke out the level for irrefutable proof.

Miriam has been avoiding this since she began to be suspicious about him overtaking her, but we were up far too late playing Hand and Foot and somehow managed to convince her to just do it and get it over with (it would soon be blatantly obvious that he had grown taller than her so denying it now wouldn't do her very much good anyway). 

Speaking of Hand and Foot, we often abbreviate it to "H and F" or, more recently, simply to "limbs." I don't know why because the younger kids don't know how to play yet, anyway. We just abbreviate a lot of things—show titles, game names, and so forth—so that it's kind of like a code. We were talking about not needing to abbreviate this, however, because it's not something that the little kids know how to play, anyway. 

"I do so know how to play Hand and Foot!" Phoebe said indignantly. 

"Oh, do you?" I asked. "How do you play?"

"Well, isn't Hand and Foot that game we play where you get the mat out with the different coloured circles and we spin the spinner and put our hands and feet on the circles?"

She was definitely describing Twister, which we only play at Halloween (and which, yes, was put in a box to come to Qatar with us so that we can continue the tradition). 

So she'll have to learn Hand and Foot later...

Happiest of birthdays to this 14-year-old boy, who has already outgrown his 16-year-old sister (and is growing in so many other wonderful ways)!