Christmas, Malone's birthday and New Years

On the 5th of December we went to a community nativity our stake puts on every year. I was expecting a regular live nativity or something, but this was so amazing! Our stake gets together with other churches in the area to exhibit people's nativities they have. There were literally thousands of nativities of every kind and made of everything from glass to metal to wood, even legos. They were traditional to some not so traditional, nativities from all over the world. The entire gym at our stake center was filled. There was also a small live nativity. And while you are walking around looking at these thousands of nativities, in the chapel they had entertainment. Many people from all different churches including ours performed in choirs, duets, played musical instruments, you name it. Every half hour they had a performance of some kind and this went on for three days from morning to late in the evening. There were so many people involved in organizing this and it brought the whole community together. It was amazing! We loved it and can't wait to go back next year. 

Lego Nativity

The next day we attended a tree lighting ceremony in Flower Mound. It was a really cold and windy night! We had to park a couple blocks away and take a bus to the park where the happenings were.  We ended up having to walk the last block because the parade route blocked the street. We missed the parade, but we were able to see all sorts of things at the park. We got to go on a hay ride, visit Santa Claus, and pet animals at the petting zoo. The hay ride was fun, but as I said before it was cold! And when we visited Santa Claus, Mason was a little uncomfortable on Santa's lap, but he didn't cry. Because Malone swept him up and sat on Santa's lap with Mason, which was funny. After we wandered around looking at things and watching shows on the stage, we went to the petting zoo. We all enjoyed petting all the goats, donkey, chickens, pigs, sheep, calf, and even a baby deer! Finally around 8 they did the tree lighting, which was somewhat a bummer because the tree wasn't even a Christmas tree. It was just a regular tree with blue lights which was weird. Anyway, by the time we got done we were all half frozen. So we caught the bus back to our car. We all had a great time! 

 For Christmas my parents came and visited! They drove all the way through Phoenix to visit my brother and ended up here Christmas Eve. It was such a long drive and we were so thankful for their sacrifice to come be with us. We played games and ate food, and watched movies all Christmas Eve. We celebrated Christmas and opened gifts and had a really yummy dinner. We played some new games that my parents got for Christmas and hung out most of the day. Mason had a great time with his new toys. He got a bouncy dragon to ride on, a walker toy, blocks, 3 outfits, toy trucks, and a few puzzles. I got Malone some replacement parts for his little race car set he's been wanting forever, a movie, and a knife sharpener. And Malone got me a new sketchbook and some much needed bread pans and baking dishes. We also received some nice clothes and toys from Chris and Natalie. My parents got us a new waffle iron. Malone's parents gave Mason a really cute outfit.

this is how we protected our gifts and tree from Mason

Mason's Christmas jammies

Malone made a beautiful turkey and it was sooo yummy!

The next day we visited the Dallas Temple and drove around to see the Dallas skyline. Mom and I went antiquing at a nearby antique store till we were both exhausted! 

Dallas Texas Temple

 It was a really fun Christmas. The best Christmas gift though was just having my family here to celebrate with us and for Mason to get to spend quality time with his grandparents. 

Malone's birthday was a week long celebration. On the 23rd we spent the evening at our friends house in Denton. We had dinner and played minute to win it for a few hours. It was so much fun! We had cake and blew out candles. We also celebrated Malone's birthday on the 26th before my parents left. They had bought him an outfit from his favorite store, which he loved! And I bought him a Roku for his birthday. On Saturday the 27th, we went out to Malone's favorite Tex-Mex restaurant Chuy's in Denton. Then on his actual birthday, Sunday the 28th, it was pretty laid back. We went to church, had leftovers and hung out and played games. It had been a big week and it was actually nice to have a quiet evening to ourselves. 

For New Years we stayed up and watched the new X-men movie Malone got for Christmas. On New Years day we went bowling with some friends. Malone and I haven't bowled in a couple years so we were rusty! But we had a lot of fun. Afterwards we went to Red Robin for dinner. We are so lucky to have such good friends here to spend time with. 

Overall December was a little crazy as it usually is, but it was so extra special spending so much time with the people we love and that's all that really matters to me this time of year anyway. 

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we went to San Antonio and spent it with my cousins Abby and Amy and their families and my Aunt Shelda and Uncle Cory. We had a blast and it was so nice to spend the holiday with family. It took us about 7 1/2 hours to get there thanks to holiday traffic and construction. Mason did pretty well traveling considering how long it was! He struggled the last hour or so, and ended up dozing off the last 20 minutes of the drive.

We enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner and had a relaxing day playing games, including the traditional Bennett family game, Nertz.The little kids really got into it!

Madison, Amy, and Abby preparing Thanksgiving

Izzy, Abby, Preston, Shelda, Bryce, Garrett, and Amy digging in!

Mason had fun crawling around Abby's house

Melanie and Mason

Izzy and Malone

Mason, Melanie, and Garrett

 Friday we went out to lunch and went to see the Alamo. It was so interesting and it was such a beautiful day!

The Alamo!

 Saturday we went to Abby's daughter's baptism. Abby had asked me to play piano for the program and I was very happy to do it! The baptism went great, right after Amy accidentally took a spill in the baptismal font. I wish I had a picture of that! Izzy is so adorable and sweet and such a tender hearted girl. It was a very special day for her and we were honored to get to spend the day with her.

  Afterwards we had lunch and visited a little longer before Malone, Mason and I had to go home.
We had such a great time and can't wait to come back to visit again!

Abby, Wesley, Corey, Garrett, Jackson, Izzy, Shelda, Melanie, Preston, Madison, Bryce, Malie,
Danielle, Malone and Mason

September and October fun

Since our trip back home in August things have been pretty quiet around here. In October we attended a picnic with all of the people Malone works with at Parkway. It was a lot of fun and it was neat to meet some of his coworkers. The food was good, there were games for the kids and pumpkin chuckin'. It was a fun day but it was so cold and windy outside!

We also had the opportunity to attend a ward party trunk or treat and chili cookoff the week of Halloween. So we decided we needed to dress up! Mason and Malone were lumberjacks and I was a tree! 

We didn't do much for Halloween since Mason is  a little young for candy still. But we did end up at the dr's office on Halloween night because Malone had some kind of bug bite that got infected pretty bad. So over the next week he was in and out of the dr's office getting prescriptions for antibiotics and shots and such. It got a little scary because the infection was really red, had spread and was probably the size of a baseball on his leg. Poor guy! Luckily it is clearing up now. 

The weather here in Texas has finally started to cool off. Over the last week or so it's been down into the 40's during the day. I had to turn on the heater in Masons room a couple nights because it got down to like 65 in his room. It's nice to finally start to feel like it's fall though. It makes me want to bake and nest. I've made 4 loaves of bread, 2 different batches of cookies, and a pan of brownies in the last 3 weeks. 

I had a chance to have some fun at a Super Saturday activity for the Relief Society. We signed up for certain crafts we wanted to do and had all morning Saturday to work on them. I never get to craft and I had a great time socializing. It was a blast! I got to know a few more people in the ward which was nice. I made these really cute decorations for the house too. 

Malone is still doing great at work. He is definitely keeping busy with his bids. We are hoping for a bonus here in the next couple months and possibly a raise which will be nice. I am at home with Mason most of the time and we are always trying to get things done around the house. Lately I have been working on getting family pictures up on the walls and update our photo albums from the summer. I have also been working on writing some family history of my grandparents which has been very educational. It's always nice to learn more about family. 

Family Pictures 2014

We have a 1 year old!!

We celebrated Mason's first birthday last week. I can't believe it's been a year since we became parents. Mason has brought such joy to our lives. While this year has been one of the toughest we've had, it has also been the happiest.

For Mason's birthday we invited a few friends over to celebrate with us. We had dinner, opened presents from us and all his grandparents, and then had cupcakes. Mason was a bit grouchy by the time we got to the cupcakes because he was tired so he didn't enjoy his cupcake like we had hoped he would. Mason got a toy truck with cars from Grandma and Grandpa Snedaker, a few outfits from Grandma and Grandpa Yarger, a card with money from Papa Bullock, a basketball toy for the tub from our friends the Tyler's, a ball and a book from our friends the Mabes, and a whole bunch of clothes, an elephant toy with shapes, a mini basketball, another ball toy, and a ring stacker toy from me and Malone. He was a bit spoiled for his birthday but he is the firstborn in our little family after all. Mason loves his toys and they really keep him occupied.

Mason has finally started to four point crawl! It isn't his main mode of transportation yet, but he is doing it more and more often now. He still continues to pull himself up to things and likes to stand. He has become pretty picky about eating lately but has enjoyed drinking whole milk now that he can drink it. Mason loves playing with other kids when he gets the opportunity. The other day at church he was playing with the little boys behind us and started to make so much noise I had to intervene!

This month Mason had a few doctor visits. The first one was an MRI at Children's Hospital in Dallas and a visit with his Neurologist. It wasn't until the day before the MRI that I found out it was going to be a 3 minute MRI instead of a long one that requires him to be sedated. That was a relief! We waited for a long time to get into the MRI just to get bumped by an incoming emergency, which was frustrating. But we were able to get his MRI a the outpatient clinic within a few minutes after all. Mason had to be strapped down so he couldn't move during the MRI and he absolutely had a cow about it. I was able to be in the room with him and hold his hand, but that didn't help him much. He just cried the entire time and it was hard for me to be there and not be able to comfort him. Luckily it was short and I was able to hold him in my arms and calm him down. Unfortunately we had to go straight to his next appointment to see his neurologist, so Mason had to endure a little longer. What we thought would be a short wait, turned into an hour long wait in the waiting room to see the doctor. I was so close to telling them to have the doc call us with the mri results because this wait was ridiculous! But we were finally able to get in. The neurologist said that according to the MRI Mason is doing great. His ventricles in his brain (that produce the fluid) have not grown and have actually shrunk a little, so his shunt is doing its job well which is great. The MRI only covered the brain and not his spine, so next time we will be doing a sedated MRI so we can get a bigger picture of what's going on in his spine, which will be in about 6 months. The neurologist said from what he could see of the spine there is a little fluid stuck in the spinal cord that could pose a potential problem later on, so we will be keeping an eye on it.

The following week Mason had a renal ultrasound and a visit with his urologist at Scottish Rite. We had to pin Mason down so the ultrasound tech could do her job, and he really hated that so he squirmed and cried the entire time. I don't think the MRI experience helped with this at all. We had an hour and a half wait until we could get in to see the urologist so Mason had lunch and a quick nap. When we finally got in there it was a quick visit. He said the ultrasound looked great and we won't need another scan for 6 months. However, since we haven't had a checkup on Mason's bladder pressures since January we will probably be due for another look sooner than the 6 month ultrasound, perhaps in December.

The next week, the day after Mason's birthday, Mason had his 1 year checkup. Since he had not so good experiences earlier this month this appointment was difficult for him. The second we got in the room and the nurse walked in he burst into tears and didn't stop the entire time we were there. I just felt so bad for him! I'm sure he is so sick of doctors and nurses trying to poke, prod, and examine him. I can't really blame him and his hysterics. The doctor said Mason is looking good as well. Looking at his head measurements, it looks like he is growing into his head finally. The graph went up and now it's coming back down. His measurements at 1 year old are: 19.9 lbs, (22%)  27 1/2 inches long (1%) , and his OC is 48.1cm (94%).  I guess he is a little short for his age, but I'm never sure how accurate those measurements are especially when he was hysterical laying there when they were trying to measure. But he did get a lollipop after the appointment and he really enjoyed that!

We are so proud of Mason and how much he has accomplished during his short time here so far. He has been here for a year and he's had 3 surgeries, two of them on his brain. I've lost count how many doctor appointments and therapy visits he's had. And yet through it all, he is such a happy good natured little boy. He works so hard to reach his milestones and has surprised us all with how well he is doing despite his challenges. Mason makes me laugh all the time with his sweet and lovable personality. It was a year ago that Mason made me a mother and the experiences I have had this year have changed me forever. I will never be the girl I was before he came along, and I wouldn't have it any other way. He has helped me become a better person. I have learned to have more empathy and love towards others. He teaches me to exercise patience everyday and to laugh off the things that would normally make me angry or frustrated.

11 Months

Mason is 11 months! He has had a big month. Recently Mason has learned how to army crawl and is a professional now. He loves his new found freedom and getting his hands on whatever he can, especially Altivo's dog dishes. Mason likes to chase after his little plastic balls and play with his trucks. We keep his toys on the bottom shelf of our TV stand in the living room, and he likes to crawl up in there and play with his toys. He says words that sound like "Hi" or "Hey", and "Daddy". Whether he knows what he's saying or not I'm not sure. But I swear when Malone came home today he said "Hey Daddy!" He is such a talkative one, always gabbing. He has such a sense of humor, he laughs all the time and thinks he's so funny.

Mason only wakes up once at night if at all now and it doesn't take long for me to nurse him back to sleep. He loves to self feed and gets frustrated when Malone and I try to spoon feed him sometimes. He seems to like to be independent, but at the same time likes having me nearby also. Mason loves when we get out of the house and go places. People are always complimenting on how cute he is and what a good happy baby he is. And I have to say, he really is such an adorable happy baby. He is an angel!