Back in Business

Hey! We're back and I bet you're all so excited about it! That or you've given up checking our blog for updates. We've had a busy couple of months. We haven't had the Internet for a while, hence the lack of posts. We've also been busy moving and our computer has been in storage since mid-Feb. I think. Anyway, we're all set up now, except, I have yet to find the camera, so this is an old picture. Sorry about that. (Well, it's old to me, new to you, I guess. It was taken in January.)
So, here's a very quick update on our family. As I mentioned, we just moved (down the street) to a beautiful home. We are really excited about it. It needs some work, and we've been living in a construction site for a week and a half. But they're done now and its very nice to have our house to ourselves!
The girls are doing well. Kaylee will be a year old next Saturday (the 17th). But I still feel like she's my little baby. She is so cute. She prefers to scoot around on her bum instead of crawling and she's really fast. She loves to stand and walk along furniture but she has yet to take her first steps. She loves to laugh and play with Emma.
Emma loves being a big sister. She has a huge vocabulary and amazes me with the things she says. She's really funny.
Timothy and I are awesome! He loves his job and we're having fun dreaming in the isles of Home Depot. (Did I mention this house needs work?) I am stuck in this country for a while though and that kinda stinks. Mom and Dad will be leaving for their mission in August and I am hoping to be able to visit them before they go.
Anyway, that's us for now. Sorry that I abandoned you all the last little while. I promise that things will be more consistent from now on. As soon as I find my camera, we'll get some new pictures up too!

Surprise!

I have actually posted two weeks in a row! Unfortunately, I keep getting a message from blogger saying that I can't upload pictures right now. Which is really too bad because I have a great one of Timothy & Emma lying in bed wearing helmets! We had a really exciting day today. Timothy & I made a little trip to the ER this morning. Timothy has a pilonidal cyst that was causing him great amounts of pain and his doctor told us to come in. So, they did a little procedure to help him out. He felt better after that but he had to be in bed for the rest of the day. Emma found his bicycle helmet and wanted him to wear it. Then, she wanted to wear her's. It was really funny. They look really special.
Anyway, I've been trying to upload this picture for 20 min., getting the same message. So I guess it's time to give up. I hope everyone has a great Halloween!

Finally!...an update

Well, after much too long a break, I am hoping to make regular posts...which means, probably once a week. And, since our internet is so dang slow, I'll probably only get out one picture. Sorry folks, but that'll have to do!

We are doing great here. Timothy is still loving his job, which is really nice, and is busy busy with Church. But he loves the quorum and they are starting to have lots of fun together. I am just enjoying being a mom. I love my babies so much! We have been going through training classes to become foster parents (I know, half of you are saying "don't do it" and the other half have raised eyebrows). But we have thought a lot about this and really feel that it is something we need to do. We are excited to welcome another child into our home and try to help and teach and love her. (It won't be for another couple of months though.)

Emma is growing like crazy and is really smart. I'm sure that most parents are astonished at how much their toddler picks up, but it almost scares me! She loves being a sister and wants to spend every waking (and sleeping) moment with Kaylee. We recently moved the girls into the same room together and Emma has started climbing into the crib to be with Kaylee. So, we have to put Emma down first, which can sometimes take an hour. Any suggestions?

Kaylee is a beautiful girl! She reminds me so much of Emma, smiling and cheerful most of the time. She weighs somewhere over 16lbs now and has started to eat rice cereal. She loves the stuff and gets really excited for every bite. She is so sweet and we are lucky to have her!

That's about it for us right now, not too much going on. Congrats to the Wadsworth's and the Giles' on the births of their babies! I promise to start trying harder to post more often. Love you all!

More ramblings and random pics

Well, I figure that if I can post once a month, I'm doing pretty well. Sorry for those of you who have been asking for pictures of Kaylee. I promise, she's growing well and is really cute!
This past month has been pretty busy with summer travels and reunions. We had a couple of play-dates with Emma's new best friend Sierra after we got home from our trip to Mom and Dad's. One day, we started to attract the neighbor kids. It was fun for Emma to meet some kids around here. Too bad they're a lot older than she is! Oh well. They seemed to have fun and liked to 'take care' of Emma while they played.

At the end of July, I headed back up to Mom and Dad's for a couple of days for another family reunion. Emma was really excited to see Abbey and Griffin (my sister's kids) again. We had lots of fun riding in Papa's wagon, jumping on the trampoline, eating, riding the pony, and we even had a trip to the beach.

Kaylee is growing so fast! At her two month check up, she weighed 11 lbs 11oz. She's almost in the 75%!! Emma has always been 25% for weight so we really feel like we've got ourselves a Buddah baby this time! We love her rolls! She really likes to talk and smile. I tried to get a good picture, but she kinda looks drunk or something!
Anyway, Emma is a really good big sister. It is obvious that she loves her baby so much. She is very nurturing but needs to learn to control herself a little bit better. I'm sure that will come with age. If she's anything like her mother, she might have control of her excited emotions by the time she's 30.
After ten minutes waiting for a picture to post, I'm going to leave you with just this one. I'll try again later. Sorry!

Summertime!!

I've been meaning to post this picture for a long time, since Father's Day, actually. I just wanted to say how wonderful Timothy is. His girls love him so much (all three of us!) and he is such an amazing Daddy and husband. So, this is my tribute to my most handsome man. I love you Timothy! Thanks for all you do for us!
Allright, now that that is said, lets get on to the fun of summer. It has been so hot the last few weeks! Timothy pulled out the sprinkler one day and made Emma run through it until she found it fun! Then, we couldn't get her to stop! She loved it, and loved trying to get a drink.

The last week of July, Grandma Allred and Great-Grandpa Mitchell came for a visit. It was Great-Grandpa's first time meeting Kaylee, and Emma was so proud to introduce them!

Right after their visit, I took the kids up to my parents for our annual Gibb family reunion and first of July celebrations. (The first of July is Canada's 'independence day'). The town that Dad grew up in always has the same festivities, and though some think they're boring, I love them! Here's Emma with Great-Grandma Gibb, watching the parade... she didn't really get it, but liked the candy.

After the parade, the whole town goes down to a beautiful park and has a delicious roast beef lunch with baked beans and whatever sides your personal family provides. We ate way too much, as usual, but it was awesome! My family has the 'Gibb family brew-off' each year. Various family members make a batch of homemade rootbeer and we have an offical judging for the best. This year (as per usual) my sister won. Yeah Jen! After we've eaten until we can eat no more, we head over to the races! They divide the kids (then adults) into ages and they race. Of course, everyone wins in the end. This was Emma's first year and she didn't really get it, she did like that everyone seemed to be cheering for her though and she stopped mid-field to smile at her audience! I don't know if you can see her, but she's mid-right side, purple shirt, with my Dad.

This year was extra nice. Mom and Dad decided they needed a pool and we hve definately been enjoying the cool waters on these outragously hot days! Emma loves to swim, and has been in almost every day since we've been here!

Anyway, that's what we've been up to. Sorry that this was so much at once!

She's Here!!

Well, sorry that it took me so long to get some pictures posted, but at least I'm doing it! Kaylee Hazel Allred was born on Thursday, May 17th at 5:38pm. She weighed 7lbs 3oz and was 20inches long. I must say that I much prefer a 7lb baby to a 8lb! Things went very well with labor and delivery and we are all doing great! Emma loves her little sister and loves to hold her. It makes us a little bit nervous but so far, she is being really soft and a really good sport about all the time she takes up. We'll see how that changes after Grandma goes home! Anyway, here's some pictures of our new addition, I must say though, I think she is absolutely beautiful! And she's got a little bit of hair! All that heart burn paid off!

A Much Needed Update

Well, we don't really have anything exciting to post right now. We're still waiting for baby to come, but hopefully, only for a few more days! We'll get pictures posted as soon as we have some!

Timothy started a new job on the first of the month. He is a counsellor (or case manager) at the Pre-Release Transition Center here. He absolutely loves it! And we love the hours! He is really excited to be able to actually be working in his field. He really liked FedEx, it really is a great company, but this has been his dream for years. I am happy for him to be able to do what he loves. Today starts his third week there and he already has five cases (that's five people who are working through the program. These are people who have committed a non-violent crime and have less than 24 months left on their sentence. They finish serving it at the center.). They seem to be impressed with him because they said they don't usually give cases until after someone's been there a month.

Anyway, I'll try to get a recent picture of Emma posted, but that's all of our news for now. Again, we'll get something up as soon as we have something exciting!

Happy Easter!!!

Well, I have a ton of pictures to post today, we have had a busy weekend! I hope that everyone else had as much fun as we did this Easter weekend. Before I get into that too much though, I want to say congrats to Jen and Jeff and family, baby #3 came this evening! A little boy, 7lbs 12oz. Both Jen and the babe are doing well, thanks for asking. Anyway, back to me...
So I was asked to do some baking for a bake sale this week and I made my 'famous' (they're not really famous, I just like to call them that because I really like them) mint chocolate chip cookies. Emma really had a lot of fun helping me clean up and I just had to post this picture.
Service sure is delicious!
Anyway, onto Easter. We went up to Timothy's aunt's house about an hour away for the day on Saturday. They live on a ranch and Emma loved to see all of the cows and the calves. I think the highlight of her day though was her horseback ride! She absolutely loved it! She was a little bit nervous at first but as soon as they started moving, she was grinning ear to ear. She stayed on the horse for like, 45 minutes before she would let us take her off. This picture is kinda bad but she was a little bit too distracted to look at me. She even got to ride bareback!

The community up there puts on an incredible Easter egg hunt in the afternoon for all of the kids. They have a special area sectioned off for kids two and under, the eggs are just sitting on the grass and there were tons of them! So, we had to wait behind a fence for a buzzer to ring before we could start and Emma was just itching to get at all of those 'balls'. I had had her in 'training' for a few days before hand, filling a little plastic egg with M&Ms so she would understand that the 'balls' had candy in them. It took her a minute to really get into it but after she opened one and chocolate fell out, she started grabbing two at a time and even trying to pick up three. She had so much fun and got way more candy than she needs!
Here we are before the hunt with Grandma Allred, waiting patiently to get at those balls! And a couple of Emma actually 'hunting'.

The town there also has a dinosaur museum-thing so we figured we'd see what Emma thought of them. She was fine being next to the concrete beast, even giving it a kiss, but she would not ride the thing! Timothy had to be holding her too. They're kinda scary you know.

And now for today. I don't know why it meant so much to me but I was so excited for Emma to be able to wear this dress as her Easter dress. It was Abbey's flower girl dress from our wedding and its kind of a mini version of my wedding dress. Anyway, after I put it on her, I had her stand in front of the mirror and she just grinned. She knew that she was so cute! And then of course, everyone at church had to tell her too. It was a good day for her, she felt really good about herself. Plus, she did really well in nursery for the first time ever! She had so much fun, except that she kept getting her feet caught in her beautiful frock. Oh well. It was only once. I don't know why she insists on looking drunk in her pictures but she did it again. You'd think with a digital camera I'd be able to get a better shot. I just don't have the patience for stuff like that. And we were running a little late for church. Timothy was a little disappointed that I didn't get any of her standing up and now I kind of am too but she was really happy sitting in the chair and I didn't want to mess that up before making her sit quietly for an hour. But come on! She looks like she's totally posing in the second one!

Alright, that's all for now. Sorry that this post was so long with so many pictures! I hope that you were able to get through it. Or at least look at all the pictures. Anyway, hope all had a good Easter and were able to spend some time with family and remember our Savior.

Sick and Tired!!!!!

So, I have been sick for over two weeks now!!!! Note to self: don't get sick when you're prego...there's not much they can do for you and your body is already working double overtime...there's just no hope for recovery!!! I have some virus or something in my throat. Basically, extremely sore throat, no voice, pain, pain, pain. But, that's enough complaining. My whole family is probably annoyed with my constant complaints the past two weeks so, I'll get on with the good news.
I am officially 32 weeks along now, getting large and quite frankly, uncomfortable! (But, there I go complaining again! Sorry.) We still have no idea for a name, I'm sure something will strike us once we see the baby. Thanks to all for your suggestions...we'll think about them and get back to you =).
Timothy was able to get off early on Friday so we did a quick run up to the temple this weekend. We, of course, also saw my family...who put up with my complaining, hacking and honking. (Is that too much information?) So, thanks to them. Anyway, here are some pictures of our weekend.
Here's another tummy-to-tummy. Jen is due on the 9th but they are going to try to get that baby out this week. Good luck to you Jen! This will probably be the smallest baby yet (the others were 8 and 9lbs....so, smaller might be nice for a change!).

Here's Emma and Grandma looking at the cows. Emma loves cows but has not said 'cow' until this weekend, just 'moo', so, it was exciting for her to see the cows... I think it helped her put the two together.

Here's a nice shot after an ice cream cone...not sure what was in that ice cream...she looks a little tipsy.

And Griffin, still enjoying his. So, when we asked him if he wanted ice cream after dinner, he kept asking if there was cake. He could not understand why we didn't have any cake to go with our ice cream. Then, he was convinced that there were cookies we were hiding on him. He loves his food!

Emma and Abbey, best cousins! Emma loves to follow her cousin around, and Abbey loves to boss Emma around, so it works out nicely. Abbey got a kick out of Emma because she would ask her to pick her up and Abbey would say, "I'm not your Mommy!" and laugh. It was really cute.
Well, sorry that this was so long, and probably boring for those of you who aren't the parents and grandparents of these children. I'll try to be more exciting next time. Give me a break, I'm sick!

Big Girl!

I just wanted to post some pictures of Emma in her new 'big girl' bed. We finally got the bed almost a week ago, I think, and she has done really well sleeping in it. We took these pictures right after we got it set up. She loves to lay in her bed and play on it. I think she feels really grown up. I don't know what I'm going to do about her blanket though. It's the one from her crib but she loves it. It's her blankey and she carries it around the house with her. I might have to make a bigger one from the same material or something. Anyway, here's the pictures.

She was laying down in it but as soon as Timothy came in with the camera, she sat up to pose! (how do you spell pose? That doesn't look right...) Anyway, we finally got her to lay back down.

Happy Birthday Babe!!

We celebrated Timothy's birthday on Tuesday (its really the 29th but we didn't get one of those this year), he's the big 27 this year! Yeah!!! My Mom and Dad came down for a couple of days and tiled our bathroom for us (pictures coming, I want to finish painting first). Anyway, we went to Fuddruckers for lunch on Tuesday - it was delish - and then had some 'cake' after Dad and Timothy finished up in the bathroom. Timothy has gone off desserts and so instead of cake we did a fruit pizza, which was really good. The glaze was a little sweet, I definately will cut back on that next time! Anyway, here are some pictures, enjoy!

Emma wanted to help open all of the presents. She didn't quite understand that this wasn't for her. She loved when we sang 'Happy Birthday' to her though.

Timothy's favorite show is Leave It To Beaver, (seasons 1 and 2 now available on DVD), so of course, he got season 2 to complete his collection...so far.

A nice new shirt. (So, our mail man smokes and I guess he smokes while driving the postal truck? Are they allowed to do that? Needless to say, the shirt is airing out.)

Doesn't it make your mouth water? It was so yummy! You may not be able to tell but there are blackberries and blueberries in the middle. I was surprised to learn that it really doesn't require that much fruit. I had bought everything at Sam's Club (Wal-mart's version of Costco, for those of you in Canada) but only used like, 3 kiwis, 4 strawberries, and handfulls of the other berries. So, we've been eating a lot of fruit lately. And I made fresh blueberry muffins. I love fresh muffins. Anyway, Happy Birthday Timothy! I love you so much! Thanks for being born!

P.S. Joanna - I'm due May 29th but chances are, we'll go in a little bit sooner.

Little Mommy

I know that I've been posting a lot lately and that's probably taking some of you by surprise. I guess sometimes, I just get in the mood. Anyway, I just had to post these becuase it was too cute! Emma has her baby, a little cabage patch that she always carries around naked (I don't know why, none of her babies can wear clothes) and she feeds her all the time with the little bottle that came with her. Well, this evening, Emma found herself this empty milk jug by the garbage and took it into her room. When we peeked in on her, she was unscrewing the bottle (well, pretending to), filling it with milk, screwing the top back on, and then feeding her baby with it. She was concentrating so hard and was trying to be so carefull. It was the sweetest thing ever! So, enjoy the pics of our 'little mommy'!


You can't see here but she's got the bottle in her other hand.


I don't know if she'll be quite so helpful when little sister arrives, but we can hope!

Once there was a snowman...

Timothy has been putting in some long hours at work this week, and considering that he usually works 5am-4pm, that's really saying something. So on Friday, we were pleasantly surprised when he came home for the day around 11:30am. After some lunch and a nap time for everyone (except me...) Timothy wanted to build a snowman with Emma. One of her favorite songs is, 'Once there was a snowman' (you know, with the actions and the snowman melts), but I don't think she's ever seen one before. Anyway, I did some painting while they were outside but snuck out a couple of times to take some pictures of the progress. Timothy said that while he was rolling the balls, Emma was walking behind him grunting like she was really working hard. Here they are, rolling the first ball.

I thought that this was really cute. I didn't see Emma really helping too much. When I looked out, she was eating a snowball. But, Timothy assures me she was a big help, and it was obvious she had a ton of fun.


Here's the finished product, they're really proud of their accomplishments!

And Emma goes in for a kiss! We love you snowman!!

Thanks for the fun outside Dada!

She's quite a swimmer!

Emma had her last swimming lesson on Saturday, I think it is something we will miss. We'll have to go back as much as we can so she doesn't forget what she's learned. She really made some great progress over the course of the class. She can actually swim! I have a video of it but I don't know how to post movies. Any help would be appreciated. Anyway, here's a couple of pictures of her last class.

Here she is, ready to get in the pool.


Here, she has to sit on the steps, water to her chest, and reach for toys under the water. This helps her get used to putting her face underwater. She doesn't really enjoy that though and cheats all the time by just reaching down and turning her head to the ceiling. I look dumb because I'm counting. We always count to three before she puts her face under, so she knows it's coming.


This doesn't really show it very well but she kicks her feet and splashes her hands to move. I am holding her up though. She doesn't swim by herself on top of the water, just under. Basically, you have to let go and it's kinda a sink or swim mentality. Literally. But, she does great, kicking her little legs to get her head up.
Anyway, it was a really fun class and recommend it to everyone. The class here started at six months. I say, start them as early as you can because its harder when they get older!

He's a travelin' man

Well, Timothy spent the last week gettin' some learnin' in Pittsburgh for work. It was very sad for us to be apart and Emma really missed her Dada but we are glad to have him home now. I went home for the week so as not to be so lonely and was able to go to Shelby's wedding (my best friend from home). Anyway, here are some pictures of Timothy's travels. He was able to go downtown one day and do some sight-seeing. Oh yah, read the previous post because its new today too!

Here's my handsome man posing by a parking meter. And a gas station. Niiiice. Just kidding. I think the point is to see downtown. (We're 'downtown' deprived here. Oh how I would love to be in a real city again...*sigh*)

Timothy said that you drive through a really long tunnel and when you come out, downtown is right in your face. I don't know if this is a picture coming out of the tunnel or what but I thought it very pretty. I like bridges. As long as they don't sway. Or collapse.

I miss anything with any sense of design or architecture. (No offense, Montana.) But I really like this picture. I hope that its an apartment building. I would live there. As long as I could be on that corner.

Ahhh, buildings! I think the tallest building in our downtown is like, three stories. What I wouldn't give for a skyline! Anyway, Timothy learned lots and is home now and we are happy!! He says he has another training course that he's supposed to go to but he can choose between Pittsburgh and Phoenix. I say, if he goes to Phoenix, we'll be going with him! I would love some sun right about now! There's like, a foot of snow outside and it's been coming down all day. Hey, at least it's not 15 feet!!

IT'S TWINS!!!!

Just kidding! Ha!! I have started to get complaints about the lack of posts coming from our house but, I have nothing to really report so, I had to dig out some pictures from somewhere so that some of you would stop harassing me! Here's a nice tummy shot of Jen and me taken Jan. 19, so we're both a little bigger now. Notice that I seem to be carrying much higher than she is...why is that? Anyway, for those of you who don't know, these cousins will be born about two months apart. So, that's exciting. I'll have to get Timothy to take another picture when he's home because I seem to have, um... blossomed within the last month.

Anyway, I just thought that this was really funny. I went in the kitchen a few weeks ago and poor Wicket had eaten all of his food and drank all of his water and pulled the dishes out around himself. His little head was so low on the floor and sad!! It was so cute! But as soon as I got the camera, he looked at me. Oh well. Just picture the most pathetic looking dog around...that was him.

And now for my cutest ever baby girl! She loves to help in the kitchen and always pulls her chair to the counter whenever I start to do anything! I just thought that she looked so grown-up so I had to take a picture. She's wearing the apron that I made her for Christmas (yes, I made it all by myself, without a pattern!). She doesn't really get it yet but she sure looks good in it! Anyway, we were making cookies for the young women in my class. Emma loves to eat the dough. It really gets very messy. Speaking of her being grown-up, Emma is offically 18 months old (as of last Friday) and went to nursery for the full two hours yesterday! She was only without a parent for like, 40min. but at least we're getting there! I can't believe how big she is and how much she learns everyday! I have to start watching myself more. The other day she had taken off her diaper (she wouldn't let me put pants on her) and she walked into her bedroom where Timothy was. Timothy was a little surprised to see naked buns and said, "What the?!" and started to laugh. Emma smiled and said "what the?" and laughed too. So now, she walks around saying 'what the' all the time. Hey, at least it didn't end with a swear! We better start watching our mouths more!