Daddy's Birthday!!!

Jason had his birthday over the weekend so we ended up surprising him with a party at our house. Not a huge shindig but our immediate family, with Grandma, Papa, Aunt Amy, Uncle Jim and the cousins joining us. We decided to give him his presents at breakfast on Sunday before church so he wouldn't know that we had something else planned for him later in the day. The girls got him a new pass for the driving range that he likes to practice his golf game at and I got him the new Tony Dungy devotional book. He enjoyed his breakfast and gifts and said he was having a great birthday. Then, after church, we came home and I fixed a mexican fiesta and everyone came to surprise him with more presents and some great family time together. It was an absolutely beautiful day outside so he was able to enjoy spending time outside playing with the kids and shooting some hoops. After everyone left, I asked him if he was surprised and he said he definitely was and it actually ended up being one of his favorite birthdays! YEAH!!! : ) Here are a couple of pics from the celebration. Happy birthday to my sweet hubby....you are even cuter than the day we met! ; )

Allison Renee turns 9!!!

Holy moly! I cannot believe that our first-born has turned 9! WOW! Where does the time go???? We celebrated Allison's birthday on Saturday with a very full day. We started the day with her favorite breakfast of blueberry pancakes and bacon. She opened up her presents from us, which of course included some new High School Muscial boots, a "rock star" sweatshirt, a Hannah Montana watch, new perfume and a new computer game. Then after cleaning up from that, we hosted a "horse-themed" party for her and 9 of her friends from school during the afternoon. That was alot of fun and very busy to say the least! : ) She decided on a horse theme this year. She loves reading horse books and just decided that might be fun. So, she and I worked together on it. I ended up painting a large horse on a sign that they used to play a game at the party. And we had the girls decorate horses for a craft. They loved that. She had a horse cake and Mommy had fun and made chocolates in the shape of horses for each girl at the party. We even found horse keychains and horse stickers for the goodie bags! I think I might have enjoyed this theme more than the birthday girl! After the party, we had our families over for a birthday dinner of pizza before all heading out together for some bowling, requested by Allie! What a packed weekend and so much fun. We are so proud of our Allison and how she is growing up into such a wonderful young lady! Jason and I both commented on our drive home that night from bowling of how much fun we are having with her as she gets older and how blessed we are to have her in our family! HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET ALLIE, WE LOVE YA!!!!

A "normal" day in the Massey house....

Just a few pics of the last couple of days here in the Massey house. Lauren is discovering that she is quite the "girly" girl and loves to have Mommy do her hair. She doesn't like me picking out her outfits though and comes up with her ensembles daily, usually going thru 2 or 3 outfits in one day! Don't mind that as long as she remembers not to put each one into the laundry hamper when she takes them off. No wonder I have so much extra laundry lately! : ) Katelyn is heading everywhere in the house on her own and loves to discover all kinds of things that she really shouldn't! ; ) She is still crawling and only taken about 2 steps by herself so far. But she gets far and fast in her walker. I can't turn my back on her for a minute. Here are a few pics of what happens when I do! And, she loves to look at herself in the mirror. Must be a girl thing! (haha) I don't have any pics this week of Allie on here. She's been busy at school lately, especially learning her multiplication tables and testing over spelling words like "adolescence"....holy moly! She's been doing a great job lately and continues to be growing up so fast. She'll be celebrating her 9th birthday in less than 2 weeks and is very excited for her birthday party here with her friends from school. I've been really busy with my bookkeeping work lately (it's tax season already!) and some church stuff. All is well in the Massey house, just ready for some spring weather already!

Katie Grace's big birthday bash!

Well, although the birthday girl has been running a fever for the last couple of days (from teething!) and just not a very happy camper lately, we still went ahead with our plans of having a big family birthday party for her. After all, some sugar and presents should get her better, right??!! Actually, after a good dose of motrin, she did seem to brighten up a bit and decided opening all of the presents was pretty fun. Mommy made her a special teddy bear cake for everyone to enjoy and then she had her own baby bear cake all to herself. Great idea Mom except for the minor detail that when she decided to try her cake (and with this fever and the teething, I should mention that she didn't want to eat anything until the chocolate cake was sat in front of her...imagine that!), it just made her mad when the icing from her hands got on her face. She really showed us how mad it made her too! : ) She is still quite the cutie and seemed to have a great time celebrating her first birthday. Allison and Lauren loved every minute of her party and just couldn't get enough of their baby sister on her special day! They especially loved the shirt we picked out for her special party. It was pink (of course) and said..."Her royal highness is turning 1!!" Too cute! All in all, some more great memories of our baby girl!

Katelyn's 1st birthday!

We are having a big family party to celebrate Katelyn Grace's 1st birthday this weekend but in the mean time, we had to do something special on her actual birthday, which happened to be today. So, the girls and I sang "Happy Birthday" to her this morning (she just laughed and smiled while we sang to her!) and then spent most of the day playing with her toys and just having fun together. Allie had another 2 hour delay for school due to our recent snow so all four of us girls got to enjoy some extra special time together this morning. Then tonight, we headed to one of our favorite places to eat....Texas Roadhouse (I'm sure she will love their steaks in just a few years!) with my mom and dad to have a good dinner in her honor! : ) She got to open up one of her presents there and enjoyed her favorite to eat....vanilla pudding! Here are just a few recent pictures of her. She has been teething for what seems like an eternity so in most of the photos she has a runny nose and looks like a little "rugrat" but she's our sweet "rugrat"!!! We can't believe how quickly the time has gone this first year with her. She is so much fun and from the looks of this past year with her, she is going to be quite a character! The girls still absolutely adore her and can't wait to teach her more things this coming new year. She loves to wave but can't figure out that you wave your hand facing out instead of in so she usually ends up waving to herself! She also loves to have Daddy "fly" her in the air and she cracks up laughing at just about everything the girls do to entertain her. One of her favorite things to do while Mommy is in the kitchen is to get into the cabinets that she has access to (some are locked now because of her little fingers wanting to grab at everything!) and she loves to pull out all of the plastic cups and bowls to play with. We feel so blessed to have her join our family and thank God for her each and every day!

Snow, Snow, Snow!!!!

Lauren and Allie ready to go!

Allie and her friend Mariah

WOW...that's alot of snow! Photos of our backyard and woods

We got almost 11 inches of snow overnight and are having a blast enjoying a snow day together!!! The girls had some friends over from our neighborhood so that they could all sled down our big hill. This is the first year that Lauren has really loved this and is now an official "big girl" riding down by herself! : ) Of course, when she gets off of the sled, the snow is almost up to her knees and it takes all of her strength to climb back up but she seems to be loving every minute of it. Allie didn't want to come inside to take a break but was finally convinced to once she figured out that she could have one of her friends come over to play in her playroom! She is really enjoying having the day off from school. : ) Sounds like we might get more snow later this week, we love that idea but don't want too much as we are planning a big birthday bash here at our house with all of our family for baby Katelyn's 1st birthday! Hopefully the roads will be ok for everyone to get here, we can't wait!!!

January's here and baby it's COLD OUTSIDE!

Just updating our blog...not too much to report lately. After the hustle and bustle of the holidays, of course it's always hard getting everyone back into the swing of our schedules but I think now that we're half way thru January, we're finally getting there! : ) Mommy has had plenty of extra one-on-one time w/ little Katleyn (although not always fun times!) as she has been up thru out the nights, miserable with getting some new teeth in. Poor thing! ; ( But, she seems to be doing better now. I don't know what it is with the Massey kiddos but all three of our girls have been late bloomers on getting their teeth in and then when they decide to come in, they seem to arrive all at once....AGH! Makes for some cranky babies. But, it's worth it when they start to feel better and give you that sweet smile. Seeing that it has been extra cold around here lately, Allie has been enjoying having some play dates with friends inside. And, a great thing with that is that one of Allie's friends (and our close neighbor) has a little sister that is exactly (they are one day apart in birthdays!) her age too so they both get to play together....works out very nice. Jason and I have been trying to get our list together of some little house projects that we would like to get accomplished this year. We started the year with redoing our mirrors in our two full bathrooms and got one done last weekend. Very minor, but looks great! Funny how girls tend to notice things like that....both Allie & Lauren commented on how pretty it looked in their bathroom. Jason had to laugh at that! We are now busy planning Katelyn's 1st birthday party coming up very soon. I cannot believe that my baby will be one soon...where does the time go? I'll end this post with a recent picture of her in the bathtub....she is such a cutie and LOVES to play in the water! Take care everyone and stay warm!