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!!!!!

Catching up and a great weekend getaway to Cincy!!

It has been waaaaayy too long since I've been on here but hey, I'm a busy working mama of three and a wifey to my hubby so cut me some slack! heehee! ; ) We have been busy enjoying family time, cranking away at school work and putting in some good hours at our jobs as well. Allie has been loving 4th grade and has already completed a wonderful project on an Indiana native animal, the fox squirrel, as well as qualifying for a "wogger" (what her p.e. teacher calls walking/jogging) award for these first few weeks of school! Lauren is still also enjoying her pre-K class at school, learning lots of new spanish words and singing all sorts of new tunes for us! Katie is hanging in there, getting over a cold, but doing great! She loves to spend time running around the house (and outside!) w/ her sisters and seems to be going a good job of getting caught up w/ them on being a "Dennis the Menace"! ; ) Jason has been really busy at his job but given that his job is sales, that is a really good thing!!!!! He is getting ready to travel for a trade show to Florida but unfortunately we can't tag along on this trip...oh well, maybe next time! I've been busy w/ the start of a new MOPS year at church as well as lots of bookkeeping business for my work. Jason and I got to go this past weekend away (by ourselves!!!) to King's Island and had a ball! Thank God for family that takes care of our little ones and for good friends to go away for a good time with!!! Not alot of pics of the kiddos lately...have to get back to work on that! All in all, a wonderful fall season is being enjoyed here at the Massey house!

A night with our older girls!

Allie and Lauren completed the reading program this summer at our local library and part of their rewards were free tickets to an Indiana Fever WNBA basketball game! FUN! They were both very excited to go. We decided that Katelyn probably wouldn't find it as fun as they would so we had family babysit her while Jason and I took the two older girls out for a night of fun! Allie knew what to expect as she has watched plenty of professional basketball games on tv with her dad but Lauren wasn't too sure....she kept asking when we were going to see baseball at the park???!! Anyway, we treated them to dinner at the game, their pick of what they wanted....we ended up with chicken & fries and an order of supreme nachos! YUM-O! They both loved cheering the team on and getting into the music and fun all around. Lauren wasn't crazy about the mascot but luckily he didn't get too near our seats! What a great night out and Dad finally got to enjoy some sports watching with his girlies! ; )

Lauren's first day of "pre-k" and the start of her last year of preschool!

Lauren started her "pre-k" class today, officially beginning the start of her last year of preschool! And, Katelyn began her first day of one time per week "parents day out" program this year. Whew, the house sure was quiet this morning and I have to admit I was a bit sad when Katie wasn't thrilled I was leaving her there at school for a bit but she got over it quickly, they both had a great time and I got most of my bookkeeping work for the day done...yeah! : ) Here are a couple of photos from the start of our day!

Happy 5th Birthday Lauren Elizabeth!!!

Hard for us to believe, but our little Lauren hit the big "5" mark on Sunday celebrating her 5th birthday! Woohoo! We had a big weekend to help her ring in another year. Saturday she had her first "official" friends party at the grand party place of Chuck E. Cheese....what a better way to spend a Saturday than eating lots of good cheesy pizza and running around playing arcade games...does it get any better???!!!! ; ) She had a ball and loved every minute of it....well, actually she wasn't crazy about the Chuckster coming real close to her. Which was funny because she usually doesn't mind him at all but for some reason during her party, she decided to get freaky with it and demanded that he not come close to her....lovely! : ) Oh well, I'm sure that mouse is used to kiddos doing that! Anyway, all in all, a great party was had that day. And then we couldn't just end the fun there, we decided to head down to the lake on Sunday afternoon to celebrate some more with family! What a fun weekend! She woke up on Monday morning and asked me...."Mommy, you mean since I had a birthday yesterday, that means I'm still 5 today? I didn't go back to being 4 again?? That's cool".... ; )

Fun at the State Fair!

We took advantage of the free admission coupons that the Indy Star always runs each year and headed to the state fair this week. Yep, it was a school night since Allie started school that day but hey, you can't miss a good deal and fun at the fair, right???!! We had a great time. The girls and I especially enjoy seeing all of the neat cakes in the 4H exhibit and Allie liked the artwork there as well. She is an aspiring artist so seeing all of the creations really excited her! They loved seeing all of the various animals, especially the baby ones. Although, you can definitely tell that even though we live in Mooresville and have cows behind our house, our girls are still very "city" and complained the whole time about the smell! : ) We let them choose a couple of games to play and a couple of rides to do. By the time it was done, they each had a stuffed animal to bring home and were pretty tired! Last but not least, on our way out, we had to get in on some of the yummy fair food so we each got to choose our own treats....Lauren of course wanted cotton candy (sugar queen!), Allie wanted one of the HUGE snowcones, Jason went for a milkshake from the dairy barn and some kettle corn on the side (to share with Katie!) and I went all out and grabbed a corn dog....YUM! What a great way to spend an evening together...SO MUCH FUN!!!