The Allens

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Beautiful Brielle

Just had some cute pics from the past couple weeks that I had to share. She's just such a stink'n cute little girl and getting bigger by the moment. She is now weighing a whopping 12 pounds.

I got these fun feather bows a couple weeks ago. They're a little big but love them.

She is so easy going. She doesn't really fuss much except when she's tired...but she just played so hard that she couldn't even fuss and fell right to sleep.

She's a rolling machine lately and got herself tangled up in the blanket on the floor. She rolls all over and loves to smile at you all the time. So stink'n cute.

I just love this girl. She is so fun.

Today is Ridge's 4th birthday. He has been looking forward to his birthday for so long and every day he has recited ALL the presents he's wanted. Any commercial he's seen or any toy any other kid had for the past couple weeks, he will let me know 'I want that for my birthday'.

So we started by making his birthday cake and some mini cupcakes for preschool. I had an idea as to what I was going to do for his birthday but his idea was completely different. So after I started, he kind of took over. He didn't like my ideas at all. So this cake is truly his idea. Notice the polar bear and power ranger on there. And the white mountain...is a volcano with sprinklers.

Yeah he's proud

Him in preschool...he was so excited to celebrate it in preschool

Everyone singing to him

Later that day we took his cousins D and Luke out to McDonalds and then back for cupcakes and ice cream.

Saturday Grandma and Grandpa Meikle along with Aunt Jarica, Uncle Connor, Uncle Jaymon and Aunt ShanTay came up to do a birthday. He opened his gifts and LOVED them all.

He had a hard time getting out his cards

I got him a cape with a mask which he wears whenever he can. Grandma also got him a Captain America costume.

Sunday we went to Nana and Papa's and he got more presents. One was pretty funny. It was a Car's lego set from Nana. Turns out it was a returned gift to Walmart that apparently didn't have all the pieces to it and some from a Thomas the train set. Yeah...pretty funny.

Brielle 'loving' her cousin Reddick. He's I believe 5 weeks or 6 weeks and just a pound lighter than Brielle.

The uncles had fun chasing and playing a game with the kids.

So his birthday has finally come and gone. Not sure what he's going to do now :) Maybe look on to the next present giving day in his life-Christmas.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Brielle is 4 months!!

I am a loser...I completely skipped on her 3 month post. But I am at least doing her 4 month. She is just such a different baby from a couple months ago. She is so fun. We can interact with her and you can just see her coming more and more into her little personality. She is a smiler. You look her direction and she thinks you're looking at her and gets all excited. Same with talking, if you're just talking to someone else in her area, she thinks you're talking to her and she just gives you the biggest smiles. Makes it hard to not talk to her :)

She is becoming quite mobile lately. She's been able to roll over for a couple weeks but its more routine and intentional this past week. She prefers her tummy and is really trying to move with her legs everywhere.

She is still pretty quiet. We keep wondering if she'll start 'talking' soon. She has her moments where she talks but I remember our other kids being so vocal by this point. It cracks us up cause we'll talk to her and she looks like she's going to squeal or make some loud noise and her expression and body just gets so excited and then only a little croak or sound comes out. Pretty funny.

She loves her brother and sisters. And they love her too. She is definitely starting to figure out people and recognize people.

We started sleep training her this week. Its been hard, but she's doing great. She sleeps in till like 6 right now which is beautiful. We are hoping to move her into the girls room this weekend hopefully.

We had our swing break this past month which has just not been fun. Out of all our kids, Brielle has taken to every gadget we have. Which is nice to a point but then when they all seem to break down, it makes it hard because we struggle with going to get a new one just for a few months with knowing she is our last one, or making do. The swing was a necessity unfortunately but my mother-in-law was sweet enough to buy it for us. Its nice and small and doesn't take up as much room. We think the other swing probably got done in with the older kids (especially Brecklynn) getting in it and swinging in it. She's light enough but she's just a little rough. So that's what I think happened. Its been weird having Brielle knowing she's our last though. Where I really wanted the next stage to come with my other kids, I am hoping Brielle will stay little longer and not go on to fast. Well here's some quick pictures I took from yesterday for fun. I didn't edit them and should have, but will try that later. Just wanted to get them on here before I just didn't do it and another month passes.

Can you believe its September...Holy Cow!!

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Precious Moments

Its special moments like this, that make being a mom so great. I just love the true joy shown on both of their faces.

Kindergarden and Preschool

These past two weeks has been an adjustment for our family. Having a kid going to school full time, for some reason, has made our lives much busier. But we are all enjoying the change...well most of us.

Cambree's first week of school, she was so excited to go every day. She was excited to wear her clothes, and make her lunch and came home every day telling me about everything she did at school. She was definitely becoming more emotional but I figure it was just the length of time being gone and just being drained from school.

Well this past Monday, she for some reason, did a 180 and started to cry about going to school, cry at school and at home would ask us to pull her out. Of course, having such an independent child as Cambree, to come home asking to be pulled out, kind of concerned me. We would dig into her concerns trying to figure out a true reason why she all of the sudden did't like school. Her reasons were actually pretty funny... "I don't want to go to school on this earth, I want to go to another earth and go to school"...or even better "I just want to go to college". Gotta love kids. So this has been a complete shock to me to have her act this way. Of all my kids, I thought she would have the easiest time going. Little did I know :) I am hoping this will pass and she will start to love school. I think she will too. Its just a huge adjustment going to school full day like that.

We'll see. Hopefully next week will be better. We've got a few things we're going to try with her...keep your fingers crossed for me!

We just completed week 2 of preschool. I have an awesome group of kids this year. Its so fun having the school year start. This age is so great. They are so eager to learn and you can see it every day they come in. I love the quick relationships I've built with them. Ridge is adjusting without Cambree by his side telling him what to do but its making him grow up too which he definitely needs. I hope this year continues as well as it has started. This is the picture from the first day of preschool. Ridge chose his hat and inisted on wearing it. Also insisted on not holding the sign that stated it was his first day of school....yep he's stubborn ;)

So school is officially in full swing!!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Brielle 3 months and Baby Blessing

Time has just flown by. I feel so terrible that I haven't taken more pictures of Brielle. It's been truly a month before I've taken out the camera to capture her. Talk about feeling guilty. Anyways, she is 3 months and a lot has changed. We took her back into the Dr. like we planned and decided that she didn't need to have all the tests we thought at first. He examined her really good and said that it didn't seem to be anything too serious and that she would grow out of it. I never took her back to the other therapist and amazingly, she did start to grow out of what ever it was that was ailing her.

Now she is gaining weight better...still small for her age but gaining. She eats full bottles without problem and for the most part is a happy baby. She is now a grinning fool and starting to really enjoy her. She has yet to fully laugh for us but you can tell she wants to. She can roll over which is funny to watch. She does it over and over and really can scoot herself around.

We finally decided to bless her this past weekend. We had tons of family that came into town which was great. We really appreciate all the support. So weird to think this was our last baby blessing. But I think Curtis is happy about that :). Thanks to everyone who came and made this day so special!!