Christmas Blessings!

I am going to take a page from a blog of a friend of mine and share some of our Christmas blessings this year!

We were able to celebrate Christmas with all of our families in the span of two weeks and it was wonderful! We enjoyed a nice Christmas vacation with Barry off between Christmas and New Year's. I do think it went way too fast because we still never managed to go drive around looking at Christmas lights and drinking hot chocolate!

We spent a wonderful day on Christmas Eve celebrating with my side of the family with an extra special visit from Santa that day that shocked and awed the girls. We spent Christmas morning at home having Christmas as a family and then headed to Denison for a few days to spend some time with Barry's family. We did have a battle with the flu during break with three out of five of us getting it... but we survived!!

We headed to St. Louis for New Year's for Christmas with my Mom and family. We had a great weekend and enjoyed playing some fun Minute to Win It games for New Year's Eve.

So what are our blessings? We have the blessing of Jesus coming to earth as a baby... what a wonderful story to share and to know that He came for us! We have the blessing of so much family to love and spend time with to linger in the moments of watching the girls enjoy celebrating Christmas with cousins, grandmas, grandpas, special friends, aunts and uncles. These are the memories that last!

I hope your Christmas Season was one of memory making and celebrating Jesus' birth!

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!