Christmas Bussle

In all the Holiday hussle and bussle I have managed to catch a few moments to blog about. First off here is a few pictures of the Allen Family Christmas Party Nativity. Ayden was Joseph and Madison was Mary. Gavin was baby Jesus. I didn't get any pics of Gavin in the craddle which was way too small for him, but Carly, Sean's cousin did so check out her blog if you'd like to see. Ayden was also in the ward christmas nativity that evening, I need to bug some neighbor friends for pics. The kids were adorable however!!

Also Ayden wrote a letter to Santa that was adorable so I thought I'd share...
Dear Santa,
Jesus is a little baby. I love him. I want to say don't forget my house it's the one with the lights. We'll leave cookies and milk on the counter for you. Astronaut boy and dinosaurs and a robot would be good. Please leave presents for Gavin under our Christmas Tree. I don't think Gavin was a good boy, but I was.

Love Ayden

It's hard to be NEAT when you're learning to EAT!!

So we decided to start Gavin up on some solid foods last night. He wasn't so sure about trying it out and kept gagging and spitting out the barley. I'm sure he'll get the hang of it with a little practice!!

Fall Fun

We've been throughly enjoying the beatiful fall weather and wish it could last forever!! We recently returned from a trip to Moab with Sean's parents which was a blast. It was the perfect time of year to go, not to hot and not to cold. We went on some awesome hikes, and Ayden and Gavin were both such troopers. Ayden even did a 2 mile hike without being carried at all!! Sean's dad got some awesome pics that I'm anxiously awaiting...

Halloween was also a lot of fun around here this year. It kind of snuck up on us, but both the boys really loved the holiday and Ayden is still enjoying all the candy he got. Ayden was a Rock Star, and Gavin was a bat. They looked ADORABLE!!

Thankful Heart...

We've had a whirlwind of a summer and now that fall is settling in around us, hopefully we'll be able to settle down as well and get back into a routine. Lots has been happening...

Gavin was blessed in September over labor day weekend. It was such a wonderful day and I'm so grateful for a husband who shares my beliefs and can lead our family in the gospel.

We've been canning again this year. We've put up peaches, pears, salsa, and jam. Next year I'd like to try pickles and applesauce as well.

We've been working on putting in a yard here at our new home, which includes building a shed, planting and mulching the garden beds, preparing a garden plot for next spring, and babying our newly planted grass...hopefully it will come back next spring!

We've been camping a few times this summer, (which is an impressive feat with a newborn) Ayden absolutely loves going to the mountains, getting dirty and climbing on the rocks. He even got to bring his (toy) gun in case he saw any bears.

We've been decorating in the boy's rooms. Gavin's room is pretty much finished it's another cute little firefighter nursery and Ayden's hunting room is well on it's way.

My little Ayden turned THREE!!! I can't believe how fast the last three years have gone. For Ayden's birthday we planned a fun filled weekend down in Salt Lake. We visited the Aquarium, went to dinner at the Mayan, had a little pirate party and went to the zoo. Unfortunitaly while waiting for our table at the Mayan Ayden got sick (all over the sidewalk) and so Sean had to take him back to my parents house and he missed out on the divers and bird show. His Aunt Candis had set up a cute little pirate party with balloons and banners for him there and he just laid in Sean's lap telling him how much he loved his pirate party. Poor kid. He was however feeling well enough to venture out to the zoo the next day and he loved seeing all the animals. (He looks pretty happy in this pic ecspecially considering the previous couple of hours).

Currently I'm recovering from a Cornea Transplant Surgery. Many of you know that I have a degenerative eye disease called Kerataconus and that it's been messing with my vision for several years now. The doctors decided that my conditon had gotten bad enough to warrant a cornea transplant. My name made it to the top of the list and they were able to find me a viable cornea a few weeks ago. I can't begin to tell you how indebted I feel for the sacrifice that a perfect stranger made in my behalf. My vision in the eye that has been corrected is already improved to 20/30 while the remaining eye is worse then 20/300. The other day I was cooking dinner and looked across the room to see my little Gavin watching me smiling and I just wished that I could tell this person, and their family how grateful I am. The impact that they have had on my life is tremendous and I feel so lucky that I'll be able to pick my son out of the football huddle now, or see the expression on their faces Christmas morning (I know it sounds cheesy, but you don't realize how great it is until you don't have it anymore). So a big thank you to all of you who have signed up to be organ donors. Just know that your sacrifice won't go unappreciated.

Our family has many reasons to have thankful hearts right now, LIFE IS GOOD!!

Catch up

I know, I know, it's been forever since I've posted, life is crazy and that's the best excuse I can come up with. However, we're in our house now and the internet is connected and so hopefully I'll be better. Here's my effort at catch up- Sean was nice enough to post a few pics of Gavin after he was born so you all know he's here and healthy, everything is going great with him and it just feels like he's been a part of our family forever now. Here's a few more pics of my beatiful baby boy...

Ayden's such a great big brother, I was really worried about the transition to 2 kids and making it work for our family, but Ayden is such a champ at helping out, sometimes a little to helpful..

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In other news Ayden is now officially potty trained!! I just can't help but share this picture...

Here he is....Bunch of whiners

Gavin Kendall Allen

9 lbs 14 oz

born 6/15/09 at 5:40 PM

Happenings

Let's see here, where did we leave off....it's been an incredibly busy spring for us, but progress is being made and we are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. They've started construction on our house which we are so excited about. I know we're big dorks, but we go out to the lot almost every day to see what they've been working on. Here's the most recent pic, they've been working on the electrical and are getting ready to to sheetrock and brick now--I know it's probably not that exciting to anyone, but Sean and I.

In other news, Ayden got his first bike!! He is so excited about it and asks to ride it 10 times a day. It took him an afternoon to figure out that he can only pedal forward, but is a champ on it now, and yes I did make him wear the helmet and knee pads, Sean thinks that he's going to get beat up, but they've already saved us from several spills so it's worth it!! If we could just get this rain to stop we'd take him out for more bike rides and maybe walk this baby right out, that's right I'm still preggo, but I had a friend remind me today that he can't stay in there forever so I take comfort in that !!

Medic Graduation

So it's official, we're done with the classroom portion of Paramedic school!!!! Last week BYUI put on a little graduation ceremony for the graduating medics, my amazingly awesome husband was one of the 8 who made it through the program. Thanks to everyone who was able to make it up to support us. Here's a few pics of the day. The lighting was horrible in the room however, so I'm hoping someone else got better pics...hint, hint.

This is a pic of Sean getting his badge and certification stuff, and yes that's me...looking very pregnant. I tried my best to dodge the cameras all day, wasn't sure on a way to get around this one!

Here's the graduates...Sean did the honor guard thing so he's wearing his class A uniform. Doesn't he look great!

Here is the kids, Wesley's little girl Madison, and Mary Elizabeth and Spencer's boys Penn and Logan, and of course Ayden. They all got matching shirts for the day, which said my Uncle/Daddy is a Paramedic. Hope we didn't embarrass you too much honey.

And last, but not least a random pic from the day, Ayden just adores his daddy and is always trying on Sean's stuff, and I don't mind one bit. What better guy could my son have to look up to??

Slacker....

Slacker...hardly, we've just been so busy I haven't had time for too much of anything, but here's a little update of what's been going on around the Allen house.

First off, the annual Horticulture Symposium that I help plan went really well this year. We had record attendence and the speakers, food and venue all went smoothly (much more then I can say for last year). It's a huge job coordinating an event like this and I'm glad I don't have to do it again for another year!!

While stressing about the annual Symposium we sold our house!! It's been on the market since July and we were just getting ready to take it off and refinance when it sold. We're so excited, but the timing definetly could have been better, considering this time of year is the busiest for me at work, not to mention I'm feeling very pregnant!! However, what a blessing it will be for us both to be closer to work, we sure will miss our ward out here in Rigby though, hopefully we'll still have lots of reasons to come out and reconnet with everyone.

So we've been looking and looking at homes, but to no avail. We either love the house and hate the location or love the location and hate the house, so we've decided to rent an apartment for a few months and build. We've been working with a builder in Idaho Falls and are dillegently working on picking out features for our new home. If anyone has any idea on the best way to go about picking out countertops, cabinets and floors it would be much appreciated, those little samples you get just aren't enough to base such a big decision on!! So overwhelmed with the whole process right now!!

So we've been packing (which seemed much easier when we lived in an apartment and didn't have room to accumulate so much stuff) and finding an apartment, and a storage shed. Not to mention we've been trying to get ready for the baby to come in June!!

So here's the point of this whole post, any of you who may feel like I've been slacking by not posting is mistaken. I've been doing to opposite of slacking, I've been stressing!!!

Styling of a 2 year old

As of late Ayden has discovered the joy of playing dress up. Yesterday was one of those days where we just stayed home all day and cleaned (I've been working on cleaning out the catch-all room, so we can get started on decorating for the new baby) so I was being a little bit lazy and didn't think it was too important to get Ayden dressed, Ayden thought otherwise. Here's what he picked to wear.

And here is Ayden in Daddy's fire shirt (he's a little obsessed with all things Fire Department related)!

It's a......

It's a BOY!!!! We are so excited to be adding another little boy to our family, we just know that Ayden is going to be the best big brother and we love him so much how could we not be excited about another little guy running around the house. Plus I won't have to come up with a new title for the blog!!

Funny story about our Ultrasound...There we are taking pictures of the baby's heart when all the sudden he just stops talking mid-sentence, sets down the rolly thing they use to see the baby and says to the PA student why don't you try to see the baby's face, tells us he'll be right back and walks out of the room. So of course Sean and I both are thinking that something is terribly wrong, he went to grab another Doc for a second opinion or pamphlets to make it easier to tell us what is going on, the PA is mindlessly prattling when the Doc comes back in, and starts apoligizing. Apparently he had fallen asleep right there standing up in the middle of the ultrasound so had to excuse himself to go get some sugar. He explained to us that he'd gone on his first family vacation in 17 years the previous week and in the 3 days since returning home he'd delivered 14 babies plus all the regular check-ups etc and only gotten about 4 1/2 hours of sleep. Since he's one of the most recommended Doctors in town and really one of the busiest (in fact the wait time to get into see him is about a month out), he's been crazy busy playing catch up. We got a good laugh out of this, and were relieved that the baby looked healthy (he even went back and double checked all the pics just to make sure he didn't miss anything while his head wasn't 100% in the game). What a Doc to come to work even though he was so tired, I would have called in sick. I'm glad he didn't make us wait to find out what we are having!!

So without further ado...here is the debut picture of our new little stud!! (Name still pending, any suggestions?)

Catch Up

So I know it's been forever since I've posted,,,I've been experiencing a bit of writers block, not to mention we've been busy. No excuse I know. Here's what we've been up to!!

Ayden has been going crazy staying indoors during the cold winter that we've been having. We try and get him outside for winter activities as often as we can stand it. His favorite has been sledding!! He rides down the hill yelling wee-haw all the way!!

My Master Gardener season has started at work. I have 25 new Master Gardener's to train, a Horticulture Symposium to organize and Advanced/Veteran Master Gardener's to get signed up. I've been super busy with this and loving it. By the way if anyone knows the easiest way to make one of those photo phone directories I could sure use some direction!!

Sean is back at school for one more class this semester. Since it's only one class he's also back on shift at the Fire Department and so he's been very busy between the two. He'll be done with the class part of the paramedic program in April and we will definitely be celebrating!!

Last, but certainly not least I've been exhausted, and sick and hormonal- i.e. pregnant!! Our due date is June 23rd and we get to find out next week what we are having. Any guesses?

If that's not enough to make you tired, I don't know what is!!

Crisis Averted

I know that I haven't posted forever and I have a ton to post about, but for now this will have to do... Aunt Becky not only came through with a brand new, cooler Superman cape, but Nana and Papa (Sean's parents) also came through with Bateman PJ's. So now I can do laundry and still have a happy superhero two year old running around the house!!