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