Happy 10th Birthday Allison Renee!

Hard to believe but our baby (Allison Renee...aka "Allie"!) turned 10 yesterday....man, the time sure does fly the older you get! ; ) We had a grand celebration this weekend, including hosting 10 little girls from her school for a slumber party (whew, that was fun and crazy!) on Friday night and then had a family party for her on Saturday. Needless to say, we were all a little tired by Sunday! Boy did we have fun though. She and her friends had a ball at their slumber party....complete with decorating purses, playing "spa/salon" with hair braiding, massages, manicures, etc, pizza, movies & popcorn and homemade blueberry pancakes when they woke up Saturday! Allie requested a guitar cake for her bday party....Mama had never made one of those and decided to take a try at it and couldn't find a pan shaped like a guitar so I improvised....didn't turn out too bad, the girls loved it so that made it worth it! Aunt Amy, Uncle Jim and the girls were so kind to host Lauren and Katelyn on Friday night so that Allie was able to really enjoy her party with her friends w/out her little sisters getting too involved! ; ) And of course, the two little ones had a great time at their house! Amy helped them bake a cake for Allie to surprise her, what a wonderful Aunt my girlies have! ; ) We all really enjoyed the weekend celebration and thank God for giving us Allie in our family....we are so blessed!

Valentine's surprise for the girls....

Jason and I decided to surprise the girls for Valentines weekend by using up some of our "points" Jason has earned from his traveling for work and getting a free night at the Holidome in Terre Haute, IN. It was so much fun! I loved being able to surprise them. I packed without them knowing on Friday and then late Friday afternoon, we told them we were heading over to Plainfield to shop and eat out for dinner. The two younger ones fell asleep on the way and didn't realize where we were but almost to Terre Haute, Allie began to wonder where we were headed. Once we arrived there, we joked w/ her about how much fun it would be to just spend the night somewhere there and then when Daddy pulled into the hotel and went inside, she was really questioning me! ; ) When he got back in the van, the other 2 girls were awake and we proceeded to tell them that we were staying the night there for swimming and fun! They of course responded in the Massey girl fashion and SCREAMED for joy! ; ) We had a great time swimming in their heated indoor pool, relaxing in the hot tub, eating pizza in bed, staying up late to watch some of the Olympic opening ceremonies and then capped off our night watching the Disney movie "Princess and the Frog". We woke up Sat. to more swimming, a huge breakfast buffet (yum-o!) and then finally headed home....what a wonderful way to spend Valentines Weekend....I love our family! ; )

Allie's 4th grade Abraham Lincoln Day!

Every year, our elementary school (Waverly) holds a very fun day for the 4th graders called "Abraham Lincoln Day". Since the 4th grade classes spend a lot of time studying Indiana History, they love this day and are so excited when it rolls around. Well, this year was Allie's year for this. Before the actual day, their teacher requires them to complete a very extensive research project about Lincoln. They have to do a written report during classtime and then on their own at home, they must complete atleast four different activities of their choice, approved by Mrs. Cooper. Allie decided to do a drawing of Lincoln, a Venn diagram (comparing and contrasting herself to Abe), a replica of his family and home made out of playing cards (her idea, it was so neat!) and a box display (made from a unused pizza box, very cool!) featuring articles and photos of the new Lincoln exhibit taking place currently at the Indiana State Museum. Once they complete their activities, then the day of "Abe Lincoln Day", they are able to wear costumes (Allie dressed up as Mary Todd Lincoln) and then other classes and parents come to the classroom to view all of the various projects. It was so neat to see her proudly display her work, we were very impressed. And, we have to say that from all of her hard work, she really did learn alot about Lincoln! Way to go Allie! ; )

Katelyn Grace turns 2!!!!

It is hard to believe but our baby turned 2 this week.....where has the time gone??? I am always happy and excited for our kids when they celebrate birthdays but I have to admit that w/ this little one, I am a bit bittersweet as she is our last baby and it gives Mama a twinge of sadness to see her growing up so quickly! Of course, given the cold/flu season this year, she ended up getting something late in the week so she spent most of the time during her party on Saturday being cuddled up on someone's lap and just hanging out. She has run a fever the last couple of days so needless to say, she didn't feel much like partying! ; ( But after the Tylenol kicked in, she did perk up some and by the time we had cake/ice cream, she seemed to be having fun! We are always so thankful and amazed by all of our family who take the time to come over and help celebrate with us for our family birthday parties. If you ask me, there is just nothing better than getting together to eat some good food and spend time together to celebrate! Now, if we can just get this sweet one to get back to "normal", that's what this week will be about....recuperating ; ) from the party and getting our sweet 2 year old back on track! Ready for the "awesome two's" to begin.....not to be confused with the "terrible two's"! ; )

The day off and a trip full of fun!

The girls had the day off on MLK day and so did Mommy from her home bookkeeping job so we decided to spend it having some fun! Call me crazy (as so many have done before!) but Mommy decided that since The Childrens' Museum was free on that day, we would go. Now the really crazy part of this is that we still have a yearly membership there but I wanted to take advantage of the free day since ours had just recently expired and I hadn't renewed it yet. Hey, why not take advantage of something free while you can, right?? The only problem was the insane and absolutely extreme crowds...HOLY COW! Unbelieveable how many people will take their kiddos to a museum when you mention the word FREE! But we still made the best of it and had a ball. And, since Mommy was on her own w/ all of the girls since Daddy had to work, I was a bit nervous as to how everyone would do w/ it being so crowded but after a quick "pep talk" in the van before going in, they all did fabulous and stuck close together just like we talked about before hand....way to go Team Massey! They really enjoyed the new Barbie exhibit (even Katelyn got into that one!) and we also liked the Egypt exhibit that we have seen before but still enjoy time after time! This day we were able to enjoy that exhibit with a special musical concert and all three girls loved that part. After our museum excursion, I got really goofy and decided one bargain was not enough for our fun day so we called Daddy and talked him into meeting us for lunch at The Incredible Pizza Place since they were running a 1/2 price special for lunch. He was able to do that so we all enjoyed a delicious pizza buffet before he had to head back to work. Which left Mama w/ the 3 girlies again for the really fun part of this excursion....playing all of the games at this fun place! Once again, our girls did a great job and showed me why I wanted to take them for this fun day in the first place, they really behaved well! We had a great day off and talked that night after bedtime prayers about how fun it was to spend time together just being silly and enjoying ourselves! Ahhhh, life is so sweet!

Kicking off the new year with a bit of snow fun!

Well, the new year has begun....let's hear it for 2010! We have put away the Christmas decorations (sniff, sniff....I always hate this part!) and are back to our "normal" routine around here. One great way to begin the new year was being able to have a couple of days of "2 hour delays" for school and some good snow to play in! We live on a big hill, which comes in great use when we get snow, makes for an excellent sledding hill! The girls usually end up having atleast one friend come over to enjoy it with them. This year, Lauren wanted to go down by herself, which is a milestone for her. And Katelyn was very eager to just get outside and play in the snow since last year she wasn't too much into it. And, boy did she love it this year! She cried when we told her it was time to go inside. Daddy pulled her down the hill or she went with one of her sisters and she screamed (in a good way!) and squealed the whole time! Think we have another daredevil on our hands! ; ) All in all, we've had a great start to our year and have been enjoying spending time together after playing outside....we get snuggling and toast with hot chocolate and marshmallows......NICE!

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!!!!