And a Merry October Christmas!

Wednesday was CHRISTMAS!!!!

I was in charge and had a jolly good time planning.

Two of the biggest events were not EXACTLY Christmas orientated but at least they were the right colors.

RED= Visit to the Fire Station
GREEN= Visit to Keeneland Race Track

Corinda generously set up our trip to the Fire Station, which was super fun. The kids really enjoyed themselves and the fire men were SOOOOOO fantastic with them.

Yep. Still have a little teeny crush on all firemen around the country.





Ty was the super star because when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he responded "a fire man"! Although Emma's response of "Mermaid" - got a little chuckle from them. HEY. A girl can dream, can't she?

The fire station was followed with some Christmas shrinky dinks.

Because who in their right mind would want to celebrate Christmas without shrinky dinks??

Not me. Or anyone I care to know.

The kids (big and little) LOVED watching them shrink up in the oven.

The BEST part about shrinky dink time, was that Glen set a Pandora station to all Christmas music, and we were blasting it through the house.

No joke. Turn on Christmas music and I SWEAR to you, it will feel like Christmas.

Music is crazy like that. And it also didn't hurt, that I was home in Kentucky, surrounded by all my family, and hoards of fattening foods.... but still.... the music was great.


The next stop was KEENELAND. Gorgeous, amazing, world-renowned Keeneland.

The horses only race here in April and October, and I sure try my darndest to make it out to Kentucky in one of those months so that I can see them run.

Keeneland is right in the heart of Lexington and has been the back drop for many a horse racing movie. I think when you see this picture, you can see why. Picture Perfect.

The kids were absolutely HYSTERICAL watching the races. They would each pick a horse number they wanted to win and then they would cheer their little hearts out to see their horse victorious. A few times they chose horses that won or took second or third. You'd think they had big money riding on the outcome the way the CHEERED and SCREAMED. It was so great.

Nice face, Jeff.

I think he's adopted.





We ended the night with an INCREDIBLY YUMMY Christmas feast of KFC. Duh. You can't come to Kentucky without getting KFC. Just kidding. I do it all the time. But in my Mom's family growing up they had KFC on Christmas Eve, so we carried the tradition through on behalf of Grandpa Hancock.

After dinner, we read the Christmas Story from Luke 2 on the back patio, while the kids acted out the scenes. Sean was the donkey. There may or may not have been a few jokes about him being type cast as the a**. :)

Aliya and Emma were the beautiful angels. Here they are singing "Glory to God"... or something like that.
The grand kids drew names about a month ago, and exchanged Christmas gifts that evening. It was a great way to end the night and they played with their toys all night long.

My Mom made each family a set of "Astro Books" - which was the series of books we had as children on which we learned to read. They are such a part of our family history, and we are thrilled that Mom found the originals and made copies (and laminated) all the books for us in a big binder. AWESOME GIFT MOM!!! Can't wait for Emma to start using them!


Merry Christmas to all! And to all a good night!