Technical difficulties

Okay, so I know that I have been quite slack about making new posts lately, but it is not entirely my fault!! We are having some serious technical difficulties in uploading pictures from our digital camera to the computer. As soon as we sort out the problem I will make a new post--hopefully very soon!!

In the Pumkin patch with friends

This morning Julie called and asked if we were interested in meeting she and Luke at the Highland Park United Methodist Church pumpkin patch and take some pictures of the kids playing. Of course we said yes! Erin and Grant were able to join us, and the kids had so much fun playing with pumpkins. It was so sweet to watch them and take some great pictures. Nothing better than sweet babies to get you in the mood for Fall!!

This one is my favorite!!

Trying to pick out a good one!

Attempting to get all three kiddos in the picture and all looking at the camera at the same time proved to be impossible!!

For some reason she loved this little white pumpkin!!
The best group shot that we could get!

After our time in the pumpkin patch we headed to Chick-fil-a for lunch. The kiddos loved the chicken nuggets and fries!! While we were there some friends just so happened to show up, so we got to hang out with Jennie, Carlisle and Evelyn as well as Courtney and Olivia!! As we were leaving to take our babies home for naps, Mandy and Doff showed up!!

Notice Jennie and Courtney and their beautiful babies in the background!

Baby Girl and Grant sharing some love!! They really just love each other, they are going to miss each other so much!!

Erin and Julie--two great mommies!!

Apparently Chick-fil-a is the place to be for lunch on Wednesdays!! We will have to remember that!! It is not everyday that we get to have lunch with a bunch of sweet people and their sweet babies!!

My Birthday Celebration

I am a lucky girl--I got to celebrate my birthday for three days!! Saturday in Charleston, and then on Sunday we (Mr. Allen, my Mom, Jason, Isabella and myself) ate Papa John's pizza for dinner and my Mom made a carrot cake with cream cheese icing (my favorite!!). We decided that since Isabella is almost a year old she was old enough to try pizza crust and carrot cake. I scraped all the toppings off of the pizza and let her eat the crust--she ate a whole piece!! After that she was kind of timid with the cake--she sometimes has a thing about new textures--Mr. Allen put a small piece in her mouth to make her try it, and she loved it!!

Her Grandpa Nick will be so happy that we finally let her try pizza!!

And now, on to the cake! Mommy's favorite part!!

This look says "wow, you are really letting me eat this"!!

Papa and his "Honey"!

My Mom and Jason enjoying their cake!

Then on Monday, my actual birthday, I worked. Jason and Isabella got me a bouquet of beautiful flowers. That night we finally got to go to a parenting Bible Study that we have been trying to make it to for almost a year. The very first meeting of the Bible Study was last October, the day that Isabella was born!! Anyway, it was great to finally get to be there. We really enjoyed the study and getting to fellowship with the other people in the group. Thanks for being so welcoming!!

A wonderful day in Charleston!!

To celebrate my birthday we went to Charleston SC for the day on Saturday. Our wonderful friends Nick and Keri as well as my Dad and his wife Andrea live there. We started the day by meeting all of them at Nick and Keri's adorable apartment, and then we went to one of our favorite restaurants--Jason's Deli!! It has such a great name, and the very best Chicken Salad and Reuben sandwiches ever!! We walked around Northwoods Mall while Isabella took a little nap in her stroller and then we headed to Isle of Palms beach. Isabella seems to love the beach, and trying to walk on the sand. As you can see from the pictures it was very windy, but it was the perfect temperature!! We only got our feet and lower legs wet, but the water was wonderful!!

My Dad, Andrea, and Isabella!

The five of us on the beach!! What a gorgeous day!!

Windy family picture on the beach!

The wonderful Nick and Keri!

I love this one--the wind blowing her hair!!
Thanks guys for letting us come and spend the day with you--we had a wonderful time!!

Finally feeling better!!!

Our sweet Isabella is finally feeling better!! She hated having to take medicine, apparently Amoxicillin does not taste very good. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!!

Best Laid Plans. . .

As you have seen in previous posts our best friends Patrick and Heather have two children--Alana and Lilliana. Lilliana is about 7 weeks older than our Isabella. We are so excited to have children born so close together, and have decided that they will grow up best friends and be college roommates some day!!
Lilliana turned 1 year old September 17th! A birthday party was planned for Saturday September 22rd, Isabella and I were on going to Jacksonville for the weekend. I had arranged my work schedule to be off Friday through Monday for a nice long weekend in FL.
Thursday night Jason picked Isabella up from day care and brought her home while I went to the last meeting of a Beth Moore Bible Study on the book of Daniel (which I would highly recommend to anyone). While I was there Jason called three times to tell me that Isabella was not acting right, and seemed to not be feeling well. When I got home to put her to bed, we took her temperature and her fever was 101.3. We gave her some Tylenol and rotated it with Motrin through the night. Friday morning she still had a fever, and just seemed to feel terrible. I called the doctor and we went into the office, after waiting 1 and 1/2 hours in the sick waiting room, we finally saw Dr Whitehead and he told me that she had an ear infection in her left ear. Apparently the cold that she had been battling for 2 weeks had resulted in an ear infection. We started her on Amoxicillin and called to tell Heather that we would not be coming that afternoon, but maybe we would still go on Saturday. Well Friday evening Heather called me back and told me that Lilli had awakened from her afternoon nap with a 103 fever and they had taken her to the doctor and she had strept throat!!
We decided to listen to what the Lord was apparently telling us, and stayed home. We were all very bummed!!! Apparently we made a good decision because by Sunday Alana was sick too!!! Poor Lilli's 1st birthday party had to be rescheduled!!
Our weekend was spent at home, taking medicine, and trying to get Isabella to eat, drink, and sleep!! Hopefully next weekend will be better!!
Happy 1st Birthday Lilliana, wish that we could have been there to celebrate you!!

What's new in Allenland!!

Okay, so actually there is not really much new with us--we have just been living and loving each other!! Isabella has started cruising around furniture and anything that she can hold on to. It is so amazing to literally watch her learn and try new things every single day!!

You gotta love sweet baby bed head! I swear this is for real, we could not have made it stick straight up like this!







We love giving her new foods to try! She is such a mess, she loves to feed herself and sometimes gets so frustrated if I try to feed her! As you can see we had to take the pretty cloth high chair pad out because she is so messy I was washing it everyday.
Yummy!! She did not really like pasta primavera, but she loved playing with it!
















The week before last she started daycare (she really misses Miss Erin and her buddy Grant). She has adapted well, and seems to be falling into the routine that they have laid out. I think that she is handling it better that her Mommy is, I still feel so bad dropping her off every day. I would love to be a fly on the wall and just watch her play and interact with the other kids! Of course, since she started daycare she got her first really bad cold. Poor thing, she seemed so miserable! Praise the Lord, she is finally feeling better!!

Check out her cute little red nose!








We spent an afternoon recently checking out Hartsville with our great friends Nick
and Keri!









Hanging out with cousin Mackenzie!









Jason took this one, I am not sure when but it is really cute!









So helpful, helping Mommy empty the dishwasher!











We call these our "gangster baby"
pictures!







Hope that you enjoyed the pictures and little update!

Catch up!!

Okay, so I know that I said that I would do better about posting updates and that I have been slack about it lately. As you will see from the pictures we have been really busy! I know that sounds pretty lame. So here goes our big update:

Sunday August 5th
Isabella's Uncle Ben and Aunt Kim are renting our Aunt and Uncle's place at the beach for the week. They just love Isabella, so after I was finished working Isabella, Grand (my Mom), and I went to the beach to spend some time with them. That night we went to Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant and sports bar to watch the first Pittsburgh Steelers game of the season. For those of you that don't know, we are all huge Steelers fans!! Also, in case you don't know, they beat the New Orleans Saints that night!!

She was clapping at a great play! She enjoyed watching the game with us. We don't usually let her watch much TV, but we made an except for the Steelers!!

I know that these two pics are very similar but I had to include this one too! It is as if she is posing for the camera!! She is so funny!!

This is Uncle Ben, one of the best uncles in the whole world! He is a huge Steelers fan and always has been! (Notice his shirt!!)






Isabella's Grand! The BEST Grand on Earth! The lighting in this one is not very good, sorry Mom. We had to include Grand, though!






Super Sweet Aunt Kim! We are so thankful that she and Ben are together--we just love her!







I tried to get a picture of the fact that we were in a sports bar! She really enjoyed all the noise, people, and TVs to look at!










A really great picture of Isabella and Uncle Ben the next morning!!







While us girls were at the beach that night with Uncle Ben and Aunt Kim, our best friends in the whole world came to Florence for a visit! They got to stay until Thursday morning! Pat and Heather have two daughters--Alana is 3 1/2 years old and Lilliana (Lilly for short) is almost 6 weeks older than Isabella. We have already decided that they are going to be the best of friends and someday college roommates! It is so cute to watch them play and interact! Monday morning Jason, Pat, Heather, Alana, and Lilliana came down to the beach to join us!

Bathing beauties on the beach!! Mr. Allen also came down for the day and brought our niece Mackenzie to play on the beach with us! We had so much fun!






She is just too cute in her little bikini!!








Cutie Alana buried in the sand by her Daddy!








The burier of Alana, her Daddy Pat! Don't look too close at the picture or you will notice that Alana is trying to take a snooze, her eyes are closed!






Mackenzie in the water!








The girls may be two years apart but after they warmed up to each other, they had a great time playing in the water and the sand!






Mommy and daughter, Heather and Lilliana! Two beautiful girls!








Isabella and her Papa! They just LOVE each other!! Notice her very sleepy eyes, she would not sleep on the beach!!







Uncle Ben and Aunt Kim taking a rest and working on their tan!! They will love that I included this picture!









We ended our wonderful day at the beach with a group trip to Carrabba's Restaurant!





My Beautiful Mom (Isabella's Grand)!








Alana and Mackenzie--beautiful girls!! They had such a great time playing together all day!







We had such a wonderful time at the beach! Thanks Ben and Kim for letting us crash your vacation!!

Tuesday August 7th
Tonight we went over to Colin and Aron's house for dinner and to let all the kids play together! We had such a nice time with Smiths and LeMasters. It was great to see all the kids play together. Alana came home calling Makgill her Prince~~too cute!!



It was such a wonderful couple of days with The Burrows Family! THANK YOU so much for coming to visit us!!

Friday August 10th
Jason and I went to a Sunday School couples baby shower and Isabella stayed home with a non-family baby-sitter for the first time ever! Megan did a wonderful job and Isabella had a great time! I think that she did better being with a baby-sitter than her parents did having to hire one!! : ) Thanks Megan, we really appreciate you--and will definitely call you again!!

Sunday August 12th
Our new nephew Jesse Kendall Allen was born today!! He is absolutely adorable, and looks just like his Daddy!


Friday August 10th
Jason and I went to a Sunday School couples baby shower and Isabella stayed home with a non-family baby-sitter for the first time ever! Megan did a wonderful job and Isabella had a great time! I think that she did better being with a baby-sitter than her parents did having to hire one!! : ) Thanks Megan, we really appreciate you--and will definitely call you again!!

Monday August 13th
Today we traded our Jeep Cherokee and got a new Toyota Sienna mini-van! Yes, we have joined the ranks of mini-van families!! We LOVE it, and are so happy to have more room!! We can have seven adults, and Jason with his long legs can sit in any of the seats comfortably!!


Sunday August 12th
Tonight at church they had a reception for us (called a pounding) to welcome us to Southside Baptist Church! We are so touched and blessed by the outpouring of love and friendship that was extended to us! We are so excited to be at Southside, and totally feel like that it where we are supposed to be! Thank you so much!