More Christmas photos!

One of my favorite Christmas gifts that we received this year has to be the new digital camera from Nana & Papa...LOVE IT! I am still learning about all that it does so it is taking me some time to get things downloaded but here are a few photos from our Christmas celebrations! I love to capture memories in photos so I know that this awesome camera will get plenty of use for our girls over the next many years! ; ) We are gearing up for tomorrow (New Year's Eve) as we are hosting our annual "Family Party" here at our house. We have Grandma, Papa, Aunt Amy, Uncle Jim, Abby and Shelby all come over and usually Jason is elected the Grill King as he slaves away in the garage (atleast we don't make him stand outside in the cold!) cooking us steaks for our New Years Eve dinner! We then spend until atleast midnight playing games...our all-time favorite is Tripoley, so much fun! We will take time to ring in the new year at midnight and then the Gordon family spends the night so we can all sleep in on New Years Day and celebrate that morning with a huge brunch! Can't wait!!!!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2009 has come and gone....can not believe that it is already over and makes me sad to think it's another year until we celebrate it again! But, we can rejoice in the wonderful memories made, the awesome time spent w/ our families and the true reason of the season, the birth of Jesus! Great news to know that we can actually and should actually celebrate this season every day of our lives!

We spent Christmas Eve evening at our church for a wonderful family service, complete w/ a live nativity, including camels, donkeys, baby Jesus, Christmas carols, hot chocolate, etc... The girls had a great time and really enjoyed it. We loved worshipping God and spending time together at church doing that as a family. Following the service, we headed to my parents' house for an extended family Christmas get-together w/ my cousins, aunt, etc.... That was the beginning of the Christmas fun and craziness! ; ) Allie was able to read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to all of us that night, that was really neat to hear her do that. And, I read one of my grandma's stories that she wrote many, many years ago called "Jamie's Miracle". I think we might have started another family tradition with both of those! Christmas morning we had our own family time together at our house. The girls were overwhelmed w/ the wonderful presents, both from Mommy & Daddy and Santa Claus! They put cookies/milk and even gifts (Allison & Lauren both insisted that they give one of their toys to both Santa and Mrs. Clause as a "thank-you"....they are so sweet!) out for Santa. He was nice enough to stop his busy schedule that night to leave them a note as well! ; ) After we had our Christmas here, we headed to Jason's side of the family (which I count as my side as well!) to spend Christmas afternoon together in Louisville, and then as if that wasn't enough, we drove back that night for another Christmas celebration w/ my immediate side of the family, including parents, sister, brother-in-law, cousins,etc... Once we arrived home that night (very late!) we realized that within 24 hours, we had enjoyed 4 Christmas celebrations.....whew! What remained was a history of tons of fun, laughs, food, sweet memories made and 3 very tired but very happy little girls as well one set of worn out but very content parents!

Lots of photos to come but for now, wanted to download our picture from our Christmas Eve services at church....enjoy! And hope you and your family enjoy your holidays and have a very Happy New Year!

Baking cookies for Santa!

We spent some time today making and decorating our Christmas cookies for Santa. It was lots of fun and they sure taste good but as it happens every year, I think more of the sprinkles landed on the kitchen floor or in their little mouths, than ended up on the cookies! It was Katelyn's first year to try and help....she seemed to like it, especially when she realized that she could eat all of the icing and decorations she wanted without Mom or Dad saying much! ; ) Here are just a few photos of the fun......Christmas Eve arrives tomorrow and we can't wait!!!!!

Christmas is coming!

The most wonderful time of the year is here and the big day has almost arrived........Merry Christmas and 'tis the season! We are having so much fun and enjoying every minute of our Christmas vacation together. Daddy is still working a bit this week but mama is enjoying taking some time off from her bookkeeping job from her home office and the girls are out of school and loving it! Funny how since the summer, they have seemed to have forgotten how to get along in the playroom (haha!) but after a day of adjustment yesterday, they are now all on a roll of playing together and enjoying each others' company! : ) Allie finished up her first semester of 4th grade with a wonderful Christmas program at her school. It had a western theme and she of course looked pretty darn cute in her western vest and boots! The girls are getting into our annual tradition of "The Elf on the Shelf" here at home....if you aren't familiar with the book and the Elf, I highly recommend it....lots of fun for the kiddos! We are also all looking forward to spending time with all of our family, both here and in KY later in the week to help celebrate the holiday! We are so thankful to be able to get together with most of our family members during this time of the year.

It sure is nice to have these couple of weeks without homework, deadlines, practices, and the other craziness of the year. I'm still working on getting the Christmas shopping done and have been busy completing our Christmas cards and making lots of goodies to go around but I'm learning a bit each year to just go with the flow and to try not to stress about getting all of these "good" things done....there are enough things in life to stress about anyway (which we shouldn't stress at all regardless! -- I'm working on that one!) so to waste precious moments during the most wonderful time of the year worrying about how to get it all done is absolutely CRAZY! I vow to enjoy these moments and spend my time praising God for what this season is truly about, the birth of my Savior! Craziness and the hustle and bustle of the year just means one thing, I am beyond blessed and should be falling to my knees thanking Him for it all! Merry Christmas to each of you....take time to enjoy this season!!!!!!

Late on getting this out as I want to say Happy Thanksgiving but good grief, we're less than 3 weeks until Christmas! Where does the time go??? Seems to speed by quicker the older I get...go figure! We are doing well and had a wonderful Thanksgiving, we hosted it here and I think we had close to 30, including a few kiddos! I seem to enjoy this holiday the most, lots of good food, time to visit with family and no stress about buying the presents! ; ) I cooked a few dishes but my mom and dad brought a turkey as well as my cousin and her husband brought along the real star of the show for the day.....a deep-fried turkey...yum!

We have been busy as usual.....I helped with both older girls with Thanksgiving activities. Allison had a big "pow-wow" for their social studies unit this year at school and I went in and helped with it. They had a big traditional turkey dinner for lunch that the teacher prepared and then we made all kinds of Indian crafts, etc..in the afternoon. It was alot of fun, for both the kiddos and the moms that helped! Thursday night after our big dinner here, it's been a tradition over the past couple of years that my sister and her husband and her girls spend the night here and then Amy and I go out early early to start Christmas shopping on Friday morning. Jason stayed here with the kids to watch football and play games....always fun! Then on Saturday foll0wing Turkey day, we headed down to Louisville, KY to spend some time with Jason's family for their Thanksgiving get-together. Busy times but so much fun and wouldn't trade it for anything! Now we're ready for Christmas....well, not really ready for it yet but loving this time of the year. Allie has her school program this Thursday. She's excited as she has a speaking part...not huge but she's been really practicing her one line....Go Allie! Keeping busy here and celebrating each day as it comes.....can't complain one bit....life is good!

Halloween and celebrating Mama's birthday!

I've been lagging a bit in posting but trying to get back to things here! ; ) All three of our girls came thru the H1N1 virus lately, so we like to tease at the Massey house that we survived the "hini" sickness! : ) Actually, Lauren thought it was called "H1, 2 thumbs"...we have no idea where she came up with that one! In all seriousness, the girls did all three come down with this nasty thing all at once and of course, they picked the week that Daddy was out of town for business (in sunny Florida no less!) so Mama handled the fort here by myself and I was proud to say....I did it! And didn't get too many more gray hairs added to my head! I honestly had to thank God many times that week for giving me extra doses of patience with my sickly bunch and for keeping my girls ok during that time and getting them better so quickly. This virus can be pretty scary! Thankfully, by the time Halloween week rolled around, they were all better and we were able to enjoy the many fun festivities! We carved pumpkins one evening and enjoyed caramel apples for dessert. Then, the Friday before Halloween, Mommy was able to help out Lauren's preschool for her party as well as Allie's school for her afternoon party. Busy day was had but lots of fun! Then Friday night, we spent at our Harvest Bash at church (with of course Daddy and Mommy dressed up too.....Dad as a basketball jock (big stretch for him...haha!) and Mom as a cheerleader....reliving my high school days!!!). We also enjoyed taking the girls trick-or-treating around our neighborhood on Halloween night. Allie went as "Taylor Swift" the country singer, Lauren went at her school party as a kitty cat and then during trick-or-treating as a pom pom / cheerleader girl and Katelyn went as a leopard....all were of course very cute! And, to round out our fun weekend, we celebrated Mommy's birthday (woohoo....turned 29 again!) on Sunday after church with a nice lunch and family time at Grandma and Papa's lake house. Another fun weekend was had! Now on to preparing for some fun events counting down to Thanksgiving! Can't wait.....

Fall Break and a little time away!

We celebrated a couple of days off from school for the girlies with a short trip to Chicago this week. It was our fall break and our "normal" tradition of heading to Gatlinburg, TN got changed up a bit this year. Jason had a meeting for work in Chicago on Friday morning so we decided to head there with him and turn his business trip for the day into an overnight trip for the family. We were able to enjoy a very nice hotel with a great indoor heated pool (AHHHH!!!!) and of course had to sneak in a trip to the American Girl store downtown too! Allie and Mommy have been there before but this was Lauren and Katelyn's first time to go and oh my, they were overwhelmed at just the sight of all of the girl dolls and baby dolls to see! I wish we could have captured a photo of their eyes when we walked into the store.....Lauren's eyes were huge with excitement and she told me it was unbelieveable! ; ) Kate loved the Bitty Baby area and did not want to leave the stroller that she was having so much fun with while we were there. I have a feeling that we've started something.....it appears she's also already crazy about these dolls! Since we have friends from our college days at Ball State that live just outside of Chicago, we were also able to spend a bit of time catching up with them and their two little boys as well. We had a great time together and returned home with some fond memories and tired little ones!

Fall fun at the pumpkin patch and apple orchard....

We had a great weekend here at the Massey house, full of fun fall activities and lots of just spending time together! We started the weekend out on Friday night with pizza and a movie....just can't go wrong with spending a rainy night hibernating in the basement w/ pizza, a Disney flick and popcorn afterwards! ; ) Saturday the rain ended (thank you God...we weren't prepared to build an ark!) and we headed out for an afternoon trip to Appleworks, a local apple orchard and pumpkin patch. The girls always love going there as they not only have delicious apples, huge pumpkins and a play area but also a great petting zoo and a couple of fun trails to walk along. We headed on down to Grandma and Papa's lake house after that to spend some time with them and enjoy dinner together. The girls love going to their Grandma and Papa's house and never want to go home when it's time to leave! Sunday we spend heading to church and then Allie had a birthday party to go to at the roller skating rink. We spent the afternoon doing some yard work, enjoying that fall sunshine! Then we grilled out steaks (even though it was a bit chilly!) and enjoyed another Colts victory!!! Woohoo...what a great weekend and another reminder to me to praise God from whom all blessings flow!!!!!