Annual Elf Yourself

It wouldn't be the Christmas Season at our house without the annual Elf Yourself experiment! My kids think this is hilarious. They sit in front of the computer and watch it over and over and crack up every time. I love it. And this year, we all fit in! Click on the title to see it , or paste this to your browser. Merry Christmas! http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/lIyvb6wrNxefz360

Thankful

I think it is high time I post a little something to express my gratitude. I feel so blessed lately to have everything I have in my life. I am so thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am thankful for the peace that I feel and the guidance it gives me for how to live and be happy. I am so thankful for my family. I seriously look at my girls and think that I am so lucky! I love their excitement at the simple things in life and their innocence and purity.I am thankful for my amazing husband and all that he does for me and our girls. I am thankful that he is my best friend and that we have so much fun together. We had a great Thanksgiving, our first one with just the five of us. We missed being with our extended family, but it was fun to just be together and start some of our own traditions. I am thankful for our health and our home. I am thankful that we have a safe car that runs and that we are warm during the winter. I have so much to be thankful for and I truly am thankful for it!

Chocolate

Aaron and I have decided to rent out our chocolate fountains. Check out our website(link on the right). If you know anyone in the Des Moines area that might want to rent a fountain, we'd love it if you would point them in our direction. Thanks.

Pray Always

I am posting this for my Mom (she's making Christmas gifts) and as I put it up I thought I would just comment on how much I love this saying. Aaron and I got these blocks when we began this journey to med school and it has become our tagline. Things haven't gone exactly as planned, but we have managed to pray alot and believe that it will all work out. I love having the gospel in my life to help me have hope and be faithful. With God, all things are possible and I really believe that. Hope you all have a great day!

(top block is 6.5 inches long by 2 inches tall, bottom is 8.5 inches long)

Halloween!

We LOVE Halloween! We love to go all out and dress up. This year, Hallie and Maggie chose our costume theme. Hallie wanted to be Wendy, from Peter Pan, and Maggie wanted to be Peter pan. No amount of bribing or persuasion could talk her into being Tinkerbell! She wanted to be Peter Pan and that was it. So, I got to be Tinkerbell, Aaron was, of course, Captain Hook and Lainey was the Crocodile. My extremely talented mother volunteered (sort of) to make the costumes for us! They turned out AMAZING! Lucky for us she was here for Halloween. And just before Halloween, Nana got to come out and spend some time with us. So, naturally, the grandma's had to dress up, too and they got to be Mr. Smee! We had so much fun having our Grandma's here and doing all that Iowa has to offer in the Fall. What a great time!

WOW! That's a ton of candy, and you can tell by their faces that we were a "little" hyper tonight!

Let's Rock the House

So it is time for a very random post to update you on what has been going on around the Allred house. We have been busy enjoying the fall and all of the fun that goes along with it! We have spent lots of time outside and the girls are loving every minute of it. We have been to Howell's Pumpkin Patch (where we played, but did not pick pumpkins) We did that at our past Bishop's house. They have an awesome pumpkin patch and the girls loved picking out their own pumpkins. Actually, what they really loved was holding the kittens. We could not get them away from the kittens. They took about 10 seconds to pick a pumpkin and were right back to holding the kittens. Bishop Pence "gave" Hallie a kitten last year (it lives at his house, but it is hers). She named her kitten "Cinders" and literally, she has prayed for that kitten every night since she got it. This last time we went to see Cinders, one of the other kittens had been killed by another animal. In her prayers that night, Hal asked that "Cinders and her mom could be happy that their sister got killed by a wolf, that they would be safe and no more kittens would get killed and that Cinders would be safe while we went home for Christmas". She loves this kitten sooo much! Now Maggie has picked out a kitten, too. Hers is "Noodles" and she is following suit and praying for her kitten every night, too. I have some serious animal lovers! It is great.









Aaron and I got to go to an awesome Murder Mystery Party. The Jankes hosted such a great party! It was a blast and it was so much fun to see everyone in character. Aaron was a Spanish Golfer (Cougar Forest) and I was Miss Sugar Ann Flour- the town pastry chef! Looks like I need to layoff the cupcakes! It was a great time.




It looks like I may have a thumb sucker! THe last few times I have checked on Lainey, I have found her like this . . .



Right now I think it is adorable, but that could be a hard habit to break.

Here are a couple more pics of Lainey. I couldn't resist the side shot-- you have to see her sweet cheeks!




And finally to the title of my post. Quick background . . . I got an Ipod for my birthday. LOVE IT! My birthday was in August, but I am just getting around to loading all of our music onto the Ipod, so it has been a really fun thing for all of us lately. The other day we were riding in the car and an old school "Milli Vanilli" song came on. I thought the girls would prefer their Disney music, so I changed the song. Hallie immediately protested and said "turn the other song back on! I want to Rock the House!" I cracked up. So I was trying to find it and since I was also trying to drive, I found a similar song that I thought would sufficiently, "rock the house". Hallie again protested and said, "this song only rocks the car and I really want to rock the house!" So, back to Milli Vanilli and let me tell you, we rocked the house!

Lainey Shae

Here are a few pictures of our little Lainey. Poor third child, I didn't even take her out of her wet onesie for the pictures, but at least you can see how she is growing and changing! Her smile is contagious. She will smile at anyone who pays attention to her. And if Hallie and Maggie are in front of her, she is completely entertained. She is getting more and more content as the days go on and has even slept throught the night the last few nights! It feels like she has always been a part of our family and we love her so much!

Waukee Homecoming Parade

What a fun day! The girls got to be in the Homecoming Parade with their dance studio. It was so much fun. It made me a little nostalgic for High School days (a little). It was just fun to see the town pride and all of the high school kids and the band, ect. etc! The girls thought it was the coolest thing ever! We took Hallie and Maggie and their friends Ella, Mailee and Brooklyn to the parade, too. The plan was for Hallie, Ella and Brooklyn (the dancers) to ride on the flatbed and Maggie and Mailee to ride in the stroller that I would push. It turned out that Maggie and Mailee got to ride, too and they were so excited. They felt like such big kids. So all five girls just fit right in, chanting, "Waukee Warriors" and throwing handfuls of candy to the crowd. I tried to coach them on spacing out the throwing of candy, throwing a piece to each kid, but they didn't get it. And sadly enough, they were out of candy a mere 10 minutes into the parade! They didn't care. They had a blast. It was fun to watch them. What sweeties!

It got a little crazy after the parade. Poor Aaron had to run the parade route backwards to get he car, and I stayed at the park with the 6 girls! Yes, 6 girls! It was great until one decided she had to go potty! THen they all had to go potty and the craziness began! We trotted around the park, looking for restroom that was open. All of them were locked. So finally Aaron got back and we threw them into the car and drove across the street to the library., I sent them out, one by one, to Aaron as they finshed going potty and somehow they all ended up at storytime! I wouldn't have cared, except that it was 7:45 andnone of them had had dinner! Not to mention Lainey was poopy and SMELLY! So we finally talked them all into leaving before the last story and we ran through MCDonalds for some chicken nuggets and fries! It was a fun night. I think Aaron and I fell a little more in love as we relived the high school fun! There was something romantic about walking that parade route together (with six little girls!)

Lainey's Blessing

I am finally ready to post a few pictures from Lainey's Blessing. It was a beautiful blessing and made me so grateful to be a member of the LDS church. I can't imagine my life without the gospel. I am so grateful for the blessing that I have in my three perfect daughters. They are everything to me. I LOVE being their mommy. Though the laundry piles are overwhelmingly high, the dishes are only sometimes done and the "to do" list is nowhere to be found, the joy that I feel everyday from my children is overwelming. I fear that I have lost a little in the stress of things and have been reminded lately to cherish these precious, fleeting moments with my babies. It truly is a gift and one that I will no longer take for granted. I realized that this is my last year to have all of my girls home with me everyday. I will never have that again. I vow to treasure it. I need to spend more time playing with my girls, letting them help me cook dinner and clean the house. Sometimes it makes for more work, but the sense of joy that we both feel from that kind of time is worth it. I am thankful for my blessings, my family, my health, and the opportunities that I have had and have now in my life. I just needed to express my gratitude. Thanks for indulging me!

UPDATE CITY!

I have been a little busy for the past few weeks and have not been great at blogging. You may think that since I haven't written much, we haven't been up to much, but we have been doing all kinds of things. We have had tons of company and we have been playing a lot! I decided to do an update tonight since everyone is asleep and I can actually think. I know that when Lainey wakes up and wants to be fed 5 minutes after I fall asleep I am going to be sorry that I stayed up, but right now it feels ok! We had Lainey blessed in church last week and so my family was here for that. We had so much fun together. I have written about things and posted pictures all the way back to July when Aaron's family was here, too. Sorry for them all coming at once, but I have to do it when I can. I haven't downloaded the pictures from Lainey's blessing yet, so those are coming, but the rest should be here! I will start with the girls first day of school! They started school on Wednesday and they love it! I was a little worried that Maggie would cry, b/c she has been having some separation issues lately, but I convinced her to stay and she had such a great time! She came running out when I picked her up and was yelling, "It was fun, school is fun!". She told me that she painted and sang songs and played ring around the rosies. She had a blast! Hallie loved it as usual. She was so happy to be in a class with all of her friends. She came running out and told me that she and her friends, "saved a butterfly that was dead". (Figure that one out, will ya?) Anyway, she had to take me over to the flower where they set a butterfly that was no longer flying. She later told me that he was not dead anymore! Anyway, they loved school and I am so glad. Have fun catching up on our lives!

Apple Orchard

Since my family was here, we decided to go out to Center Grove Apple Orchard again and have a little taste of Iowa. It was fun. The girls remember the three little pigs houses from last year and the old school house. They haven't stopped talking about those houses since last year, so they were pumped when we told them we were going to go back. We did the corn maze and had to find hidden objects in the corn. It was really fun. Iowa really is beautiful. I love all of the farming and orchards and open land.