The Allen Family: 2013 in Review

The Holidays Begin

Holiday preparations are well under way at our house, but before I talk about that, I want to share a couple of pictures from back in November. 

The picture on the top left is one that I took at Owen's Veteran's Day concert at school.  They sang a collection of patriotic songs and had a lot of fun.  The rest of the pictures were taken on Thanksgiving. We left town for a couple of days and went to Branson, MO. We met up with our friends, the DeGraws, for Thanksgiving Dinner and we had fun playing games and eating a delicious meal.  It was my first time ever cooking a turkey and it turned out beautifully.

After Thanksgiving, we started decorating for Christmas.  I finished crocheting our stockings after Christmas last year, so this is our first year with our new stockings.  We also have managed to fill up our Christmas tree with our 10 years of memories.  I also put up my nativity sets in my hutch this year to keep them safe from little fingers that like to get into everything. To top it all off, we have the count-down chain that Owen made at school to keep track of how many days until Christmas.

And last, but not least we had a gingerbread invasion.  I made gingerbread men and the pieces for a gingerbread house earlier this past week. Yesterday Owen and I decorated the gingerbread house. Owen did most of the decorating and I just put the frosting where he wanted to stick the candy.  We had a whole lot of fun and Owen thought it was the "best day ever!"

Fads and Fun

Here in St. Louis the big fad of the fall is rubber-band bracelets and necklaces.  I didn't realize how big the fad was until I went and helped out at Owen's class one morning.  I was reminded of boondoggles, POGs, and Chinese Jump Ropes from my own school days. So when the kids and I were at the dollar store last week and Owen chose to buy a bracelet making kit with his own money instead of a toy or candy I was proud of him for realizing that it wasn't Mom & Dad's job to give him what all the other kids had. We brought the kit home and had fun making a couple of rubber-band bracelets together (the blue ones).

The next day Owen went to a birthday party for one of the kids in his class and was given another bracelet kit as a party favor.  That afternoon we made a rainbow bracelet and a necklace for my cute little boy.

Owen was happy to have bracelets like the other kids and I enjoyed making them with him.  My little boy is getting bigger every day and I love him sooooooooo much!

Pumpkin Decorating and Costume Parades

Our week of Halloween fun ended very well.  On Tuesday night the kids and I decorated two more of our pumpkins. Here is Owen posing with the first pumpkin we decorated, and a couple of pictures of MayLynn keeping herself happily entertained while Owen and decorated the pumpkin.

Here we are decorating MayLynn's pumpkin.  I tried to get her to help me take out the seeds, but she wanted nothing to do with it.  She also was fascinated with the way that the top could come off of the pumpkin, and since I broke down and got electric candles this year (turned out to be a very good thing because of all the rain) I didn't have to worry about her burning herself while enjoying a lit pumpkin.

On Wednesday night, Daddy and Owen decorated our final pumpkin.  MayLynn wasn't involved too much, but she had fun exploring and keeping everyone entertained.

And finally, here is our family of pumpkins guarding our front door on Halloween night:

Yesterday we had a fun and busy day as we enjoyed a rainy Halloween.  In the late morning MayLynn and I went to Owen's school to see his costume parade.We started out in Owen's classroom and managed to get a picture of Owen's class in their costumes.

We then went outside and watched Owen's class as they paraded past (luckily their was a several hour break in the rain during they day - I can only imagine the chaos that would have ensued if they'd had to have their costume parade inside the school).  MayLynn wasn't too thrilled to just sit and watch, but she was a trooper as we waited for the kids to parade past in their costumes.

After Owen got home from school, we went to the mall to do a little bit of Trick-or-Treating inside at some of the stores that had treats for kids. We then went to SLU and took some pumpkin cookies to Bryce and his students. After MayLynn went to bed last night, Owen and Bryce braved the rain and made a quick loop around our neighborhood to trick-or-treat one last time. Both of our kids have had a lot of fun with Halloween this year, and while I've had fun too, I'm ready for life to move on and settle down for a day or two. So, with one final picture of a cute little fairy princess, we hope that you all had a good Halloween, because we sure did.

Halloween Prep and Trunk-or-Treat

I will start today's tale with that of a little boy and his dad.  They had both had a hard day at school, but wanted to make the most of their evening's plans.  While Daddy opened up the pumpkin, Owen designed the face of this pumpkin friend.  When it came time to remove the pumpkin goo, Owen dove in with both hands, and Mommy even got to join in on the fun.  After the pumpkin was cleaned, the boys went to work bringing the pumpkin head to life. Using Owen's design, Daddy cut out the pumpkin's features, then Mommy added a candle.  And there it was, Owen's new pumpkin friend.

Next comes the tale of the fairy princess, MayLynn:

And our family's weekend exploits wouldn't be complete without the action heroes:

We had a great pre-Halloween weekend, and now that the kids have gotten their costumes broken in, we are ready to meet Halloween head-on this upcoming week.

A Glimpse at Kindergarten

Owen has now finished up his first term of Kindergarten at Westchester Elementary School. Here's a picture of Owen's class outside their classroom.  They made this sign to help support the St. Louis Cardinals as they compete in the World Series.  (Owen is on the bottom row, second from the left).

We also got Owen's school pictures back this past week.  Here's Owen's first school picture.  He picked out one of his favorite shirts to wear for the occasion.

Here's a picture of Owen's Kindergarten Class.  From left to right - Top row: Mrs. Wright, Adam, Tyler, Elsie, Corrina, Bobby, Hannah, Meghan, Henry, Ms. Kopp.  Second Row: Ryan, Molly, Jayna, Charlie, Marcella, Duncan. Front Row: Owen, James, Harry.

Some of Owen's favorite parts of school are: recess, PE, field trips, and the Westchester Woods. He won't admit it, but from our after school conversations he also likes music, art, and computers.  His reading is also progressing well and his handwriting is definitely improving.  I look forward to seeing how he continues to grow and progress the rest of this year.

MayLynn's First Hair Cut

My little girl had a mullet. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.  I've been watching it grow longer and longer and kept telling myself that I needed to give her a hair cut.  Finally, today it happened.  I took my cute little girl, put her in her booster seat, and gave her a book to read to keep her entertained. Here's a picture of her before I started:

You can't see it very well in this picture, but she had a layer of hair that came down just to the top of her neck (from where the hair grew back in to her baby bald spot) and I wanted to cut the longer hair to match it's length. So, I took a deep breath to gather in all of my bravery and went ahead with the scissors, made a couple of cuts to remove the long scraggly hair, and a couple more to round it out and get rid of a few long hairs. Here was the final result:

She sat still and quiet throughout the whole process and was excited to go look in the mirror when I was done to see the "pitty gil" in the mirror. Here's one last picture of her with her hair dry and lying a little more naturally:

Now that her first haircut is over I am pleasantly pleased with how it turned out and once again amazed at the difference between boys and girls (it's still hard to give Owen a haircut :).

A Trip to the Pumpkin Farm

Since Bryce is out of town this weekend, I decided to have some special fun with the kids to keep them from missing their daddy as much.  Since it is October and we live in a area surrounded by farms, I did some research and decided to take the kids to Stuckmeyer's Farm in Fenton, MO.  They had some fun Halloween themed activities and each of the kids got to pick one mini pumpkin to paint this weekend and one other pumpkin to carve with Daddy next weekend.

One part of the farm that they liked was the little red wagon that they pulled the pumpkins around in and that I got to pull them in when they had played themselves out.  I even got them to pose as cute little pumpkins themselves. Another part of the farm that they really enjoyed was the kid-sized corn maze.  We ran through the maze numerous times and I even managed to take a couple of good pictures of the kids enjoying themselves in the maze.

We also had fun riding the tricycles and playing in the sandbox and playground.  Owen's favorite part of the farm was being outside and he said that he liked "all of it." MayLynn seemed to prefer the sandbox, though the corn maze was a close second. I just had fun being with my kids and showing them that pumpkins grow outside and don't just come from the store.

Playing at the farm didn't take Daddy's place, but it did help me get the kids wiggles out for the morning and we had a lot of fun together.