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Monday, June 22, 2009

Believe me, I'm sexier with most of my clothes on

I just woke up, and Rachel has barked the order for me write up our next blog. So much for Father's day. If this sounds like rambling, it's because my brain hasn't quite caught up to my typing fingers, and they have dirty minds.
To begin with, I would like to say that we weren't planning on vacationing. We just got sick of the sun and wanted to go somewhere the sun wasn't. Idaho Falls appeared to be having that rainy issue. Seriously, though, we planned the vacation so we could hang out with my Virginian brother and his family. But then his work told him no. I know. Ironic. I begged for an extra week off just for Darren and the guy changes plans willy-nilly.
Anyway, on my birthday (June 16th; thank you friends for noticing), I took a plane ride to Denver and then a bus to Ft. Collins for an animal scientist conference. I got to see old colleagues, met new colleagues, and basically sat through three days of presentations.
Meanwhile, Papa and Grandma showed up in Tucson and the rest of the family caravaned to Idaho Falls. Most of the luggage made it. Gabe's bag is still sitting on our bed in Tucson. Knowing this, Gabe puked a lot the whole way up on his only pair of pajamas.
Meanwhile, my conference ends and I fly to SLC and hitch a ride on the Hammon-mobile. Thanks Kevin.
And now we are here in IF. Soaking in the . . . rain. One good thing about it is that Rachel finally felt cold for the first time in 8 months. But then she was hot again. And then cold. She's so messed up. Last night she had the air conditioning on in the car while it was 60 degrees outside. The kids complained; she slapped my hand as I tried to turn it off.
And now the clock begins ticking. I leave in 2 weeks for dirt lawns, poky trees (home sweet Tucson home), and genetically stupid calves, and Rachel stays until her sister's wedding in August. I'm done.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Happy Birthday Lulu!

I'm jumping the gun a little here but if I don't get it done now, it will never get done. Our little Lauren will be 3 on Tuesday. Wow! 3? Already? Time has flown. It does not seem like it was that long ago that we upheaved our little family and moved to Moscow, Idaho. Lauren was only 8 weeks old. She has been able to be my baby for the longest. We call her Lulu and here is why.... When she was born Avery could not say Lauren, she said "Laulen", so from that came Lala, I told my mom that is what her new nickname was and it reminded her of Telletubbies. So everyone started calling her Lulu. She also answers to Doodle Bug, Bug, Unamae(Her daddy's nickname for her), Laureen(how Hadley says Lauren) Bug It, Buzz, Doodle, Doo, Lu, Laur, well, you get the idea. I thoughyt the poor little thing is confused but she will tell you her name is Lauren Sommer Allen. She has been such a joy to have in our home. I never in a million years thought I would have a blonde hair blue eyed baby but I got one. I get comments all the time about how beautiful she is and I have to agree. She LOVES to play with baby dolls, her sisters, drive her brother crazy and make him laugh, go shopping, throw fits, play dress up and just hang out watching tv with family. She was our 3rd oops! baby and I don't regret one of them. She is such a happy girl (most of the time!! c'mon she's 2 still, 3 is pretty much the same though!) Her favorite thing to eat right now is Soup! She loves animals of all kinds, and moths, they are her butterfly friends!!! Every one of the kids has been given an animal to represent them, with her we went with a mouse first (Avery came up with it, she always asked is she could kiss mouse while I was preganant with Lulu) but the first animal sound she made was a piggy, and it was a great one, so pigs have kinda become her thing. I never had a child draw on the walls until she came along and now she has taught her older sisters how to do it too! She loves singing primary songs, I love listening to her. When she was born she had no hair just a little blonde fuzz. I thought she would never get hair. Well, she turned 2 and a miracle happened, her hair started growing, I think it was the AZ heat, everyone's hair is growing like crazy. She HATES having it washed though, I'm sure some of you have heard her (Even from down here) getting it washed, she's a screamer. She loves to be in a swim suit getting wet. Unfortunatley it's too hot to do that here during the day but we have our evenings. The girl LOVED her "stuffie" (pascifier) as you will see in the pictures to follow. She had it until about 2 months after we moved here. The transition wasn't as bad as I though it would be. Just 4 months after that I told her it was time to go potty and we haven't looked back. She even gets up in the middle of the night to go. She is so grown up. I know it's only 3 years but still, it's old to me. She insists to wear dresses all the time, I say she was born in the wrong era. She is a very influential, everything she does, i.e. wear dresses, color on walls.. her sisters have to do the same. Maybe she will be a great leader someday.I am so happy to have this little munchkin in my life. She says the funnies things, helps me out with Gabe so much and ALWAYS has me on my toes. I can't wait for school to start, her sisters will be in school and while Gabe is napping we can have alone time together. I'm looking forward to it. Enjoy the pictures!
Lulu at 8 weeks!


I think she either had a good diaper or just spit up in this one. Man Gabe looks just like her!

Her 3 month picture. She freaked until she had her stuffie in her mouth.
This is how she would take baths with mommy, babies are very slippery when wet. She could spend hours in here.
Her 6 months. Notice the chapped mouth...I wonder what that's from ?!?!?
9 months
1 year. I lover her teeth in this.
14 months, Oregon coast. This is the only happy picture we got of her all day, she hated it all.

Almost 16 months. I love that face.

Less than one month shy of 3. Dang she is cute.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY LULU! WE LOVE YOU!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Funny, Just when I think there is really nothing to blog about...

Here is a cute picture of our fattness. At his 4 month checkup a couple weeks ago he was 20.14. 99% for weight. 90% for head and height. Big boy! He officially is too big for the infant seat so I had to go get him a convertable seat. Shopping is so fun without the infant seat when your baby can't even sit up yet.





















Hadley's class went to the zoo and I tagged along with my other little ones in tow. She is really not too sure about being this close to a peacock.



Hadley's school did a performance and displayed their art. Here she is "singing," "De Colores"













I could not help but take this one of Gabe relaxin'



























I put Lulu's hair up in curlers. Well, it didn't really take so I used my 1/4" barrel curling iron. She was so good and patient. The sad part is, she looked so pretty and all we did was go to the ghetto grocery store.















Here is Hadley's class singing for us moms. Only a couple of us came to celebrate their last day of Kindergarten with them.














My big girl's last day.















Hadley and Mrs. Tang. I hope Avery get's her next year. We miss her already.


















Hadley and Jeadyn and Breadyn. I still can't tell these 2 apart.
















We have this couch my parents gave to us. It has been through a lot but it still stands up for us. I figured out if we keep feeding it fat babies it will hold up forever. I gotta agree with the couch, he is so *YUMMY* !!!





























So a few night ago when I couldn't sleep, (no surprise there, after all it's 4:49 am and I'm still up, whole other story in itself) I walked into the kitchen and felt like I had a hair or something on my leg (I have been losing a ton of hair lately, whole OTHER story in and of ITSELF), so I bent down to brush it off and this is what I saw flying across the floor...
































Now, mind you that I'm really not afraid of spiders but when they can be deadly and my kids are sleeping on the Living Room floor just feet away I flipped. I threw a jar over it to trap it, then I somehow scooped it up into a bowl, put the lid on it and went and woke up Jamie. He kinda freaked. Funny thing is, I was just finally getting tired enough to go to bed. I was getting an ice water to take to bed when all this happened. So, I really didn't sleep. I put that bowl inside of another bowl and just stared and swore at it. I researched black widows for pretty much the rest of the night/morning. I called the property managers and they had someone out here Monday. I put the spider, still inside the 2 containers, out in the garage, I wanted it to suffer like I did when I had no sleep. As of Monday she was still alive. Luckly she was not on me long enough to bite me, I had just walked into her web she had made all over my kitchen in just a couple hours time. The exterminator told me to look for her egg sack, 'tis breadin' season! GREAT!



Hhmm, I guess stuff has happened in our house. Stayed tuned... Lauren's 3rd Birthday is the 9th and my parents are coming down on the 15th to drive back up to Idaho with me on the 17th. (Jamie is flying to Denver for a conference, then over to Idaho for a couple weeks then has to go back to Tucson all alone. I'm sure he is so sad about it!! I could do the drive myself but last time with 4 kids, because Gabe was nursing and diaper changes, it took 19 hours. NO THANK YOU!) There will be Jamie's 31st Birthday (6-16), family, friends, Father's Day, maybe Jamie and I could go to the temple and even on a date, friends, Bear Lake, hunting (for Jamie), 4th of July, back to school shopping, family from Virginia, a BBQ here and there, family from California, lunch with friends, Bear Lake, more family, and a wedding.. Wow, all in a month and a half's time. So much for Vacation. The girls start school Aug. 6th. So we gotta hurry back after the wedding. Grrrr.
I just realized there is nothing about Avery in here, real fast, Hadley is tkinda eaching her how to read, she is reading a lot of the little books Hadley brought home from school and is very curious about wordsand sounding them out and addition. She's getting a nice jump start on Kindergarten. More about her next time too! Thanks for hanging in there!