New Year's Eve.

The Hannas invited us over to their home for a fun and festive New Year's Eve dinner party. They even said that we could bring Bennett. It was a good thing because we didn't have a babysitter (Gammy) until 9:30. He was such a good boy the whole time. He sat in his little chair and played with this horn.

The Hanna's ALWAYS make a gourmet meal. Nikki and Jay make pork tenderloin with a blackberry reduction sauce, green bean bundles, and cranberry wild rice. It was pretty yummy.

Here are the Lewis'. Nikki always make a pretty table scape. She always arranges flowers and has the best accessories. She makes everything festive!

Here are Neil, Nikki, Jared & Katie Beville, and Bennett. Don't they looks cute in their hats? I found the big boy top hats on clearance at Paper Shack for $1.50! They even light up!

Neil and I were responsible for an appetizer and dessert. Neil made the most delicious Oysters Rockefeller. Those things were AWESOME! Here is my talented chef:

Here's Bennett and me.

At 9, we went ahead and took Bennett home so that we could make it back to the Hanna's for their neighbor's HUGE fireworks display at midnight.

When we got back to their house, I made dessert. Banana's Foster! It was my first time to make it and I thought it turned out pretty well. I was really excited.

This is right before we lit it on fire.

Here is the blue flame!

Play Dates

Bennett has had the privilege of getting to play with all sorts of friends while I have been on Christmas Break. Last week, Monica and Caleb came over for a visit. They are in town for Christmas from Memphis and stopped by to see us. We were so excited to see them because the last time they really didn't notice each other. They didn't play that much but it was still fun! Caleb is 2 days older than Bennett.

On Christmas Eve, Yitin and Garrett came over to play. They were in town from Houston and we were so glad they could visit us!

Lynsie and John came over to play a few days ago. They even rode Bennett's 4-wheeler together!

On Wednesday, we went to Ruston to see the Mulhearn family. Neil's cousin Rob and his family were in town. This is sweet Elliott. He is 6 months old. He was so cuddly and sweet. Bennett was almost too busy to notice Elliott. He loves to get in to EVERYTHING at Nana's house!

Christmas-Lewis Family

We hopped in the car and headed to Ruston for the Lewis Family Christmas at Neil's parents. We just turned Bennett's car seat around so of course I had to get a picture of him looking around!

We got to Ruston and I immediately started getting some pictures of people for the Lewis Family calendar I have been making for the past couple years. I usually have them ready to hand out at Christmas, but this year I didn't quite make it. Mainly because of the lack of photos. Believe me, I have PLENTY of our family but I don't think everyone would want a Bennett Lewis calendar hanging on their wall. I needed to take lots of pictures of people together who have the same birthdays and such. There are about 5 days in the year that we have "doubled-up" birthdays! Crazy huh?

Here are all the girls. Top Row: Catherine, Gigi, Missy, Elizabeth, Virginia, me.

Bottom Row: Emily, Elizabeth, Rebecca, Clara, Carolyn, Amanda, & Janine.

We also took a guys picture. I wanted to set the self-timer and get everyone in 1 photo, but no one really thought that was as wonderful idea as I did. Maybe next year.

Top Row: Matt, Billy, Neil, Bennett, Grim, David, Richard, & Green.

Bottom Row: Robbie, Cameron, Chad, Connor, Scott, & William.

Bennett loves to get in the tupperware drawer at Nana's house! Here he is with Grand-Machine.

Bennett loves to stare at Gigi! Neil's grandmother has 9 Great-grandchildren and Bennett is the only "Lewis" great. The reason for this is because Neil has 5 cousins older than him that are all girls!

We had the privilege of getting to see Baby Clara. She is the cutest tiniest thing. She was born on 12/4.

Rebecca said that she now knew what it must be like to be an only child. Since Andrew is in New Zealand until March and we didn't make it to Ruston until 11:45am...she was alone the whole morning. She didn't get to open a single gift or her stocking. I felt really bad for her so I insisted that she open one of the gifts that we got for her.

I think she loved her Snuggie! Too bad the thing smelled like cardboard and was a little itchy. I'm just glad that she "won't have to raise her heating bill!"

After we ate, Emily and her Grand-mommy showed us some of their cheerleading moves.

After everyone went home, we had just our immediate family Christmas. Richard hands out the gifts by saying "Ho Ho Ho (insert name here)!" It is a lot of fun. We started off with our stockings. We get to dig through $2 bills to find out who is Santa's favorite. Whomever has a $1 in the midst of all the $2 bills is Santa's favorite. It turned out that Neil was Santa's least favorite because he had the $1 but was missing a $2! It was pretty funny and hope not too confusing as you read this!

Bennett loved opening presents!

Nana loved her "best grandparents" ornament from Bennett.

Rebecca loved her new Kitchen Aid mixer. She is a great baker so this will really come in handy for her.

These were some really cool gifts from Richard and Janine.

One is this cute lime green tray. Love it! I also got the most amazing house shoes. They are the softest furriest comfy shoes ever.

Richard says that he is now "inVESTed." He loves fleece vests so we gave him his 3rd. He wore this the rest of the day!

Neil was thrilled about his new cajun fryer. He has been wanting one of these for about 3-4 years now.

Rebecca gave Neil a smoker for Christmas. I am guessing that Neil is going to be doing a lot of cooking! Doesn't Neil look cute in this picture?

After a ton of fun, we ate left overs and went to bed.

Neil and Richard went hunting in Tensas and we got to eat lunch with Janine, Rebecca, and Matthew at the Bistro. It was a good time!

All that fun seems to wear this boy out!

All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas. Now I guess it's time to take down the tree and get busy doing some school work.

Christmas-Jones Family

On Christmas Eve we went to our church for a wonderful Christmas service. It was so nice because we sang carols and everyone lit a candle at the end while singing "Silent Night." It was just what we needed. After church, we got home and started cooking. We had my parents and brother over for dinner and presents.

We even got to see the Doughty family. They stopped by and gave Bennett a sweet birthday gift. Isn't Garrett the cutest little thing?

Bennett was so intrigued by all of the gifts. His favorite part was playing in the tissue paper.

Here is my attempt at a family photo. We used the self timer and put the camera on the coffee table. Maybe we will do better with this next year!

After dinner, we started opening gifts. Bennett got the first one!

Look what Neil got! A leather overnight bag with initials on it!

This picture is hideous but funny. I always call my dad to ask him how to spell words so he gave me this "Spell Check" book. He is hilarious.

My dad also gave me this really awesome gift. He gave me his dad's bronze star from WW2 on a chain. He had it made in gold for my grandmother and my dad gave it to me! I was so excited. I love family heirlooms.

My brother, Michael received some lottery tickets from Bennett. My brother LOVES scratch off lottery tickets. He even won $4!

Mom received Shalimar perfume. She loves it and so do we. Anytime I smell it, it makes me think of my grandmother and my mom!

We bought my dad 2 sweaters. We thought they were sweaters and we thought we wrapped sweaters but they turned out to be sweater vests. He is not a fan of the sweater vest but he tried on anyway.

In the midst of all the chaos, I broke Santa's cookie plate. I glued it back together so that Santa would have something nice to eat off of.

Here is Bennett in his Christmas pj's getting the cookies all ready for Santa. He liked sticking his fingers in the cookies too.


Christmas Morning!!!!! My parents and brother came over for a small breakfast and to watch Bennett get his Santa gift.

What did Santa bring? A Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 4-wheeler!

This is fun!

He was so excited! He would get really happy when he would push the "gas" button and it would go.

What did you get in your stocking? An Elmo shapes and colors DVD and some mittens and hat.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We are a blessed family. We know how blessed we are because of the miracle of our Savior's birth. Happy Birthday Jesus.