The Massey Girls "Annual" Gingerbread house....

The girls in the family (well, not all of us...we figured Katelyn was still a bit young to join in on the fun yet!) took a few hours before Christmas to put together our annual gingerbread house. Once again, Allie and Lauren did a great job and had so much fun decorating it. Allie is very particular about how things should go (wonder where she gets that???!!) so it is always somewhat of a battle of wills when the two of them do this activity together but each year seems to be getting a bit better! It looks like in all of our pics over the last month, Lauren has the same outfit on (oh so pretty pink and black princess dress!)...as you can tell, she loves that thing and wears it 24 hours a day...no joke, she sleeps in it! As for the gingerbread house making, Lauren just loves to lick as much of the icing as possible while putting it together and then stands and teases for atleast the first thirty minutes after it is completed for a piece of the candy off of it! What a fun tradition....

Allison's starring role in her school play....

I'm a bit behind on my blogging but still wanted to include a few pictures and words about Allison's big acting debut! She got one of the lead roles in her class play recently and did a great job when the play took place before the holidays. She was "Auntie Clause", who happens to be based off a character (Santa's sister!) in a children's book. She memorized all of her lines and never missed a beat during the production...we were so very proud! Of course, Lauren couldn't wait to go and see the play....had to get dressed up and have her nails painted for the big event! And she was thrilled to cheer her big sister on! Here a few pics of her big day!

Family bowling fun over Christmas Break!

Recently before school let out for Christmas Break, Allie was able to go bowling as a reward trip given by her principal of her elementary school for perfect attendance this semester. She came home raving about how much fun she had and we haven't been bowling in FOREVER, so we decided to have a family fun night over the Christmas break and go bowling. The kids were very excited! Of course, Lauren has never gone so she had no idea what it was but was still very excited to go! : ) They all did great and even little Katelyn enjoyed cheering us on from her seat. Allie is very competitive so she of course got a bit mad when Daddy helped Lauren get a strike and she didn't get one but she quickly got over it after she realized that she still beat her little sister....haha! Lauren is probably the only girl that insists on carrying her purse, even when she bowls. Too funny! We had a great time and vowed to go back again really soon for some more family fun together!

Merry Christmas!

We had an absolutely wonderful Christmas! We spent Christmas Eve morning doing our annual outing at The Childrens Museum w/ some friends and their kiddos. We always have fun running around there, going down the slide and seeing Santa one last time before he heads our way that night! Then, that afternoon, we headed down to the Pizza King w/ the "choo choo" (as Lauren likes to call it!) to eat pizza w/ Grandma & Papa. We spent Christmas Eve night making cookies for Santa and watching the Polar Express before heading to bed to dream about goodies and toys! Christmas morning we spent opening up presents (and reading a note that Santa left for us after he ate his cookies and drank his milk!), reading the Christmas scriptures in our Bible, eating yummy cinnamon rolls and getting ready to head to Louisville to spend more time w/ family. We spent that day and the next w/ Nana and Papa and loved every minute of it. Then, we headed back here for one more Christmas celebration w/ the rest of the family and Gma and Papa. Whew....lots of running around but so much fun! Wouldn't trade a minute for anything! The girls enjoyed everything they received and Allie really loved giving the presents this year which just made our hearts swell with pride! : ) Merry Christmas to everyone and God bless 2009!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful and very busy Thanksgiving and once again have so much to thank God for this year! We hosted my side of the family on Turkey day and had lots of good food and wonderful fellowship. Then, we kept up the tradition of having my sister and I go shopping on Black Friday (started at 6:30!) while Jason and my brother-in-law stayed at home with the kiddos. After a long day of shopping, we got ready and headed down to Louisville to spend a couple of days with Jason's side of the family. We had nice and sunny weather while we were there so we took advantage of it and attempted to get a family picture on some of the acreage at the Massey farm. We were able to enjoy another huge meal with all of the fixins' on Saturday night before heading home w/ full bellies and a very tired family! We spent Sunday catching up and getting out all of our Christmas decorations! Woohoo! I absolutely love this time of year so I'm busy making treats, singing to all of my Christmas CDs and planning for fun Christmas parties! It's beginning to look alot like Christmas.....

Tampa Bay Getaway!

Jason and I were able to get away for a few days of fun without the kiddos last week. It was great! He had a trade show for work that he needed to attend In Tampa, FL so we decided to make it a trip for just Mommy & Daddy. What a great idea that was! : ) We left Sat. morning before anyone was even thinking about waking up around here and were in sunny FL by mid morning. Nana and Papaw watched the kiddos during the weekend and then Grandma took over for Monday and Tuesday. Jason surprised me with an upgrade to our rental car and we had a nice new convertible to drive around. We stayed at a very nice Marriott right on the bay....absolutely gorgeous! The service was beyond nice, I could get used to mints on my bed at night and valet service when I walk out the door! : ) We started off the vacation with a day at Busch Gardens, spent another day exploring Honeymoon Island (love that name!), had lots of great food and had a fun night in Ybor City after riding their trolley system. All in all, it was a wonderful time together and the kids did great without us. Of course, they were (and so were we!) very excited to see us get back and now we were having fun getting back into the swing of things!

Halloween fun and a great weekend too!

We have had a very busy few days recently! Thursday night, we had our annual "Massey Family Fun Night" of pumpkin carving and making and eating (the best part of the evening!) caramel apples! The girls were very excited to carve their pumpkins.....or atleast, help mom and dad decorate them. Lauren REALLY got into the process of cleaning hers out this year and spent alot of time with just a small kitchen spoon digging out all of the yuk and seeds! Of course, she wanted to wear plastic gloves while doing it (as well as Allison!) but she worked on it for a lot longer than her older sister and really enjoyed it. She did tell us at the end of the night that "it is hard working with pumpkins like that and it makes me tired!" ; ) Katelyn didn't seem to interested in her little pumpkin but enjoyed "running" around the garage in her walker! Lauren also liked making silly faces for the camera that night since Daddy was carving a silly face on his pumpkin and she wanted to show him what it should look like! Friday night, we did a bit of trick-or-treating to family members' houses and then headed to our church's annual "Harvest Bash", which is always a big hit with our kiddos. They have several bounce houses, games of all kinds and of course...tons and tons of candy! This year, Jason and I volunteered to help with one of the games which means that we dressed up in costumes (hubby had to have a bit of encouragment for that!) as a 50's couple. I wore my mom's letter sweater and he wore his varisty jacket. It was fun! Allie thought we were weird parents because we dressed up and Jason, of course, got a kick out of embarassing her! : ) Because we helped with one of the games that also meant that we also got to hand out candy. Lauren ended up loving that because she thought that the GIANT bag of candy at our game "station" was just for her to enjoy and eat on all night long! Mommy quickly set her straight on that one! This year, Allie dressed up as Hannah Montana, with a beautiful blonde wig I might add...., Lauren was Minnie Mouse and Katelyn was our little yellow duck! They all had a great time and little Katie did great for her 1st Halloween. She got a bit tired by the end of the night as you will see from her yawning in one of the pics and she was beginning to pull Lauren's hair before we left that night (one of her favorite things to do while in the double stroller now!). Last but not least, tonight (Saturday night), Jason and I got a night out w/out the kiddos to attend our cousin's wedding. It was nice to just attend and not have to worry about chasing after the kids -- and we were treated to a great dinner as well so that was a bonus! : ) My sister and her hubby, my parents, aunt, cousins and their family also went so we had a great time with all of the family together. I'm including some pics from it as it seems that we usually put photos out there of our little ones so much and neglect the oldies but goodies! haha : ) What a great but very busy weekend!

Trying out the halloween costumes....

The girls wanted to try out their halloween costumes tonight. We were heading to a costume and dinner party for our small group at church so they wanted to dress up and have some fun. Lauren has a few to choose from all of our dress-up clothes in the playroom so tonight she decided to do the Thomas the Train thing. Then, of course because she is a girl and we "girls" like to do this, she decided at the very last minute, when we are getting ready to walk out the door, that she doesn't like that outfit and that she would rather be in her Minnie Mouse costume for tonight's party! AGH! I just had to grin and bear it as I so remember doing the very same thing when I was young! ; ) Allie went has Hannah Montana (as if she would want to go as anyone else!) and loved having such long hair for the night!

Fall Break for the Massey Family!

Last week was fall break from Allie's school so we decided to keep up our family tradition and head down to Gatlinburg, TN for a few days! We love that area during the fall season. It is absolutely beautiful with the leaves changing and the Smokey Mountains all around you. And, it has great shopping and restaurants too so who could ask for anything better??!! We spent a few days having all kinds of fun. Got to see a dinner show at the Dixie Stampede...if you've never done that with your family, I highly recommend it. It's not cheap but totally worth it...the girls absolutely loved it! They bring out longhorn cattle, horses of all kinds with trick riders, stage coaches, etc.. And, they serve the food family style with no utensils...it's that good kind of southern cooking that you eat with your hands...yum! : ) We also spent part of a day going up the mountain via the Sky Tram and spent some time going thru the bear exhibit up there and having the kiddos ride down the Alpine slide...lots of fun! We let the girls each pick out one special "prize" to take home with them from our trip....Lauren of course chose a small "Dora & Boots" car and Allison decided on a "super balloon" rocket. Daddy was very excited about her choice....sounded like some good fun to him! They both ended up loving that prize and played with it nonstop outside! Definitely getting our moneys worth out of that one! On our way home, we decided to meet up with Jason's parents at a campground in eastern KY to get one more fun day out of the vacation. The girls love spending time camping with Nana and Papa. We also had a family friend that was staying at a cabin close to the campground and they have a granddaughter that is Allison's age and they have become good friends over the past few years so we were able to meet up with them at their cabin for a few hours. The girls enjoyed playing together and we loved hanging out at their big campfire that night and eating lots of yummy s'mores! Lauren enjoyed spending time wandering around the creek and woods close to our campsite and she really liked playing hide & go seek w/ Daddy behind the trees! Allison collects rocks of all kinds so we couldn't keep her out of the little creek this time. For a fabulous end to our trip, we camped near a place called "Natural Bridge", KY and we got to go up a chair lift about 400 feet and view and walk on the actual Natural Bridge (it's made out of sandstone and just naturally formed into a bridge after years of erosion)...absolutely gorgeous views from up there....made you remember how awesome God is having created all that you see! All in all, a great few days of vacation just spent w/ family having fun!