It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Here a just a few pictures from our recent Christmas fun.

Getting ready to head to church with Christmas dresses on!

Visiting Santa!

Here is our beautiful Christmas tree we went to cut down, of course it was the coldest day of the year so far and so, so windy! It was the quickest we have ever found our tree and it is a great one :)

One of the pictures from our 'at home' Christmas picture photoshoot!

A few pretty cute girls in their Merry Christmas shirts!

Have a blessed holiday season celebrating Jesus and His birth!

Grandparents are Grand!

I know I am way behind on any blog postings and since I never really did anything for Thanksgiving this is my 'thankfulness' post.

I am so thankful for Grandma's and Grandpa's!! My girls are so blessed to have three sets of wonderful grandparents that love them and love to spend time with them and spoil them. This picture is when Grammy and PopPop took the girls to see VeggieTales Live. They had so much fun and what a wonderful memory they have of enjoying that with their grandparents.

My Grandma Storm passed away right before Thanksgiving and she left wonderful memories and lots of love. I was so blessed to have such loving grandparents to care for me and to be there for me. She will be missed so very much. So enjoy your grandmas and grandpas and your kiddo's grandmas and grandpas, they truly are a blessing!!

Princess Party

Gracie turned 5 on October 17th this year and we celebrated with a couple of wonderful parties. Friday night we had a lot of fun with all the family, cupcakes and food! Saturday she got to have her first 'friend' party :) She wanted to have a princess party complete with princess crowns, princess clothes and great friends. Here are a few pictures from her fun friend birthday celebration!

Gracie, with an extra large smile and her Barbie princess cake! It was a great cake and thanks to Grammy it looked awesome!

Molly, Gracie and Sydney dressed in their princess finest ready for the party!

All the princess friends! It was such a fun group and we all had a great time!

Lily and Sydney with their American Girl dolls!

Gracie on her birthday at Fritz's. It was her choice for her birthday dinner with the family. I think she had a great birthday celebration weekend! I can't believe she turned 5!!

I Heart Sterling!!

We went to Sterling College's Homecoming a couple of weeks ago, it was so great to be back! We enjoyed the parade... with the traditional camels, bagpipes and residence hall floats. I think the girls had a great time too! We went over and watched part of the girls soccer and really enjoyed visiting with Tony, Heather, Hadley and Leila and Steve and Mitzie. It was a beautiful weekend and I did not even make the girls choose which dorm they wanted to live in... yet ;-)

Barry and his girls waiting for the parade to start.

The girls having fun at Cooper Hall!

Me and the girls.

Sydney, Leila, Gracie, Hadley and Molly on the front steps of Cooper Hall! We had such a fun time spending the day with them :)

I Heart Sterling!!

We went to Sterling College's Homecoming a couple of weeks ago, it was so great to be back! We enjoyed the parade... with the traditional camels, bagpipes and residence hall floats. I think the girls had a great time too! We went over and watched part of the girls soccer and really enjoyed visiting with Tony, Heather, Hadley and Leila and Steve and Mitzie. It was a beautiful weekend and I did not even make the girls choose which dorm they wanted to live in... yet ;-)

Barry and his girls waiting for the parade to start.

The girls having fun at Cooper Hall!

Me and the girls.

Sydney, Leila, Gracie, Hadley and Molly on the front steps of Cooper Hall! We had such a fun time spending the day with them :)

American Girl in Kansas City!!

It is here!! The American Girl store came to KC in the Oak Park Mall. Sydney asked for money and gift cards to the AG store for her birthday back in June. When we found out they would be opening a store in our mall Sydney decided to wait to spend her money until we could visit the new store and experience it all!!

We did experience it all, the girls had so much fun in the store. Gracie and Molly even enjoyed it though they were not getting a doll this time.

Here are a few pictures from our fun family night out at the American Girl store!! Enjoy!

Ready to go shopping!

Sydney trying to decide with 'Just Like Me' doll does look 'just like her'

All done shopping! It was fun!

Sydney, Sabrina (she named her doll) and Pepper the snow dog (also from AG store).

Sydney, Sabrina and Pepper ready for soccer!

I think this store will make a girl of any age feel about 8 again and remember how much fun it is to play with a really special doll!

The 10th Annual VanHorn Backyard BBQ Bonanza!

We just had a wonderful backyard bbq this year. A record 106 people this year! Wow! I am only going to post a handful of pictures because I took way too many to post here. God blessed us with a beautiful evening and a fun evening with friends.

Me and my girlies :)

Gracie showing off her BBQ tshirt.

My BBQ co-horts! It would not happen with out them that is for sure! Lori designed the shirts and they are fabulous!

Just a few of our BBQ friends!

Thanks for coming everyone and we hope to see you all next year!

Gracie goes to preschool...

Gracie started preschool last week, she is going three afternoons a week this year. She is really enjoying it!

Showing off her 'new' backpack. Sydney carried it for a few years and thankfully Gracie was excited about inheriting it!

Ready for school!

The First Day of 3rd Grade!

My baby on her first day of 3rd grade... yes... 3rd grade! I can hardly believe it myself. She was looking forward to it and was not even nervous. Is this my child?

Our conversation went something like this this morning:

Her: You're not dropping me off?

Me: No, we are all going to walk you in, Mommy wants to take some pictures!

Her: You don't have to walk me in, I know where I need to go

Me: I know but I want to , it is the first day of school

Her: (big sigh) okay

Dad: Sydney, when you are a senior in high school we will still be walking you in on your first day and taking pictures (probably just kidding, but we will see)

Her: Mom how many pictures are you going to take

Me: only a couple

Her: Okay, only two.. okay?!

Me: We'll see ;-)

I took way more than two pictures and she survived her mom embarrassing her on the first day :)

Summer Vacation!

As most of you know we had a fabulous vacation to Colorado at the end of July! We spent a couple of days with Tony and Heather (Barry's brother and family) in Colorado Springs and then went to camp at Horn Creek with Barry's parents for a week and then came back to spend a couple more days with Tony, Heather, Hadley and Leila. We had a wonderful time! If you are my Facebook friend you have already seen these and these few pictures are just a few of my favorites out of many pictures we took. I hope you have enjoyed your summer whether you traveled or had a 'staycation'!

Here is our family at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. It was a nice little walk and very hot that day!

Barry and his girls relaxing on the porch of our lodge at camp. We shared a lodge with 7 other families... in our lodge was a total of 30 kids! It was great!

We had a family hike up to Venable Falls, it was a lot of fun!

One of the many things we enjoyed... the water slides in the afternoon. Okay, okay... Sydney and Barry enjoyed the water slides. Gracie and Molly played in the pool and I captured the fun!

Sydney and Gracie relaxing by the creek in the mountains on our hike.

Cousins!

Here is one wonderful part of our vacation... visiting family! We had lots of great time with Tony, Heather, Hadley and Leila while visiting Colorado Springs. We even enjoyed a visit from Brad and Gina Chapin and their boys while we were there.

Grandma and Grandpa with all but one of their granddaughters!

Sydney, Hadley, Molly, Leila and Gracie. My girls loved playing with their cousins and Hadley and Leila shared their toys so nicely :)

VanHorn girls with the Chapin boys!

All three of our families, what a great time!

Happy 4th of July!!!

We had a great time this holiday weekend enjoying lots of family and friends! We spent the night at Grandma Mitzie's house Saturday night and went to church with them on Sunday morning, the 4th. We got back home to enjoy a nice cookout and fireworks with great friends!

Happy Birthday America!

My girls before church on Sunday morning.

It was pouring rain and we could not see fireworks so we had our own fun in the rain with Sparklers.

It was so smoky and rainy but it sure was fun!

We took the girls up to the park by our house fresh from baths and in pjs on Monday the 5th to hopefully catch some fireworks that were rescheduled from the 4th and the rain. We finished off the rest of the sparklers while waiting for the sun to go down.

We did not see many fireworks but it was still fun relaxing and making fun family memories!

Happy 4th of July and God Bless America!!!!

Old Shawnee Days Fun

We always enjoy our time at Old Shawnee Days each year! The parade is always great and we come home with SO much candy. I always look forward to Old Shawnee Days most because of one thing... funnel cakes!!

Getting ready to go find our funnel cakes, sno cones, kettle corn and free stuff!

Gracie and Molly at the parade, we were showing off our VBS tshirts to support our friends from church who were in the parade advertising our VBS.

Watching the parade with Tyler and Bria.

Julie and Keegan even joined in on the fun... look how patriotic he is even at his young age :)

Here comes our church float!