Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Merry Christmas!!!!
















Hard to believe that another Christmas has come and gone....where does the time go? Jason and I were just talking about how it must be true what we have been told for so many years growing up....time does indeed go by quicker the older you get.....not that we are getting any older....HA!!! We did have a wonderful Christmas and my most favorite times are the few days leading up to Christmas as well! We try and do several fun and memorable activities with the girls each year right before Christmas. This year, that included......making gingerbread houses (this year we decided to do a Christmas "village" that consisted of 5 small houses so that we each had our own to decorate....a bit more work for mom and dad to put together, but much better during the decorating time!), we went to see a movie together (all of us at the actual movie theater AND get snacks....yes, that is a very BIG deal for us!), we drove around one night and looked at all of the Christmas light displays, which included going downtown Indy this year (done this year with Grammies and Papa in the van with us!), we enjoyed finding Elf on the Shelf (named Buddy in our house!) around the house each morning, we had fun getting "video emails" from Santa online (Mommy especially loves that and has a secret way of reaching Santa in his North Pole workshop email system!), we read "What God Wants for Christmas" and the girls put together the nativity with that story, we took our annual trip to the Childrens Museum on Christmas Eve morning to see Santa, ride the slide and enjoy spending some fun time together and lastly....and the girls don't know this yet, but for the 2nd year in a row, we are surprising them with a little overnight getaway to a hotel later this week to enjoy swimming indoors, hanging out and relaxing a bit! : ) Christmas break is absolutely one of my favorite times of the year....nothing better than spending time with family and remembering how blessed we are!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

November and Thanksgiving has come and gone....now on to Christmas! :)






Hard to believe that Thanksgiving, which happens to be my all-time favorite holiday of the entire year...has come and gone. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, especially what it truly means to me as a believer in Jesus, but there is something about the day of Thanksgiving....all about being thankful, eating tons of awesome food, fellowshipping with lots of family and no stress of mall shopping yet! : ) We hosted again this year for my side of the family...then continued our tradition of my sister and I (joined by my oldest niece this year!) heading out to join the craziness of the Black Friday shopping deals! We also decorated our house to the brim with Christmas beauty, then headed to Louisville for the remainder of the weekend to spend time with the rest of our family down there. Another wonderful year of being thankful and celebrating all that we have been blessed with together! I'm including a few pics of Allie's most recent choir performance (and Lauren sang a song with her class as well!), which took place in early November. As well as a quick photo of Katie having fun around here..... : )



Now on to Allie's Christmas choir program, our small group party, our annual CCG Ladies Tables of Christmas event, our church's parents' night out to go Christmas shopping, our ladies family Christmas tea here at our house, our trip to Nashville, TN for J's office Christmas party and all of the other fun events to round out the holidays this year! Lots going on but lovin' every minute of it! It's definitely beginning to look like Christmas around here! : )