Christmas Time - Cookies and Presents!!!

This past Friday evening, we celebrated Christmas with Terri, Olivia & Ethan. We did this by eating pizza, making and decorating cookies, and opening presents - what could be better really! Terri and I have the best kids ever, they had a blast, and Terri and I had a blast watching them! What a great thing to do with your kids, the kitchen may be a mess, but look at the smiles on those faces - how precious and priceless!!! Here are some pics of the kids enjoying their time together to bring in the holiday!

Just what he wanted- BIONICLES!!! Such a boy ;)

I got to buy a pretty glittery pink Barbie pony for Olivia - she is just too darn cute, and I loved buying the girly stuff!!!

Give a boy a GI Joe and a smile will appear on the face, too cute!!!

Cute faces and smiles...the mess was SO worth it!!!

Ethan was so adorable, he was too little to roll out his dough by himself, so instead he decided to take his hunk-o-dough, break it in cookie size pieces and just eat it raw - mmmmm, mmmm good! We ended up throwing away his dough rather than rolling it out...he had a blast while it lasted though -ha!

Braden got into using the cookie cutters and doing his ALL by himself! He was insistent that he roll out his own dough - which eventually needed a bit of help from mom, but other than that, he did it all himself and I just had the duty of snapping pics!

Decorating time - he is SO proud of this gingerbread man he decorated! Aunt Dana was very proud of it too, she thought he did a fabulous job of decorating his cookies.

Olivia passing off her cookie as complete, who could ask for more than icing and a blob of red and green mixed on top ;)

The kiddos hard at work - so much fun!

Again...kiddos hard at work! Dana had to work Friday evening, but as soon as she got home, she and Braden sat down to decorate MORE cookies!

I know they are hard to see because of the crazy tablecloth, but here are three of Braden's masterpieces! He did such a great job!

Ethan and Olivia's masterpieces!

Terri showing off her Christmas presents...the pink star jammies and her pretty argyle socks!

Me showing off my reindeer antlers - yes I did wear them ALL night! :)

He is a Bobcat!

As many of you know, Braden has begged and begged Josh and I to let him join boy scouts. He hadn't been able to join until he entered first grade, by boy scout rules, so he couldn't do it until this year. Braden hadn't been able to be active until this past month due to his football schedule and other commitments, but now he is going strong with the organization. He LOVES it! As does Josh really ;) In one weeks time, Braden was able to earn his Bobcat badge...I am not sure what that all entails really since this is something Braden and daddy do together, I just know that it is a big honor, and that Braden was recognized at last Thursdays Pack meeting. He received his badge along with me being presented with the mother pins for his achievement. This is big stuff boys and girls, I had no idea it was so involved, and that it included the mom's participation as well, I almost didn't go to the pack meeting until anther mom of one of Braden's friends who happens to be in the same Den as Braden mentioned it to me her a couple of days ago. His Den was presented to the whole Pack and then Braden and I were presented with his honors - because lets face it, I might have the pin, but Braden definitely earned it. Josh and Braden have been working very hard the last couple of weeks on getting Braden caught up, and in fact he surpassed several other boys who have been doing this boy scout thing for four months now. Josh says that it helps that we are such an active outdoorsy family, and that Braden is just whizzing through with flying colors! Braden's Den also earned the Spirit Stick for the month. They won the "Decorate Your Den Leader" competition, and they were so proud! Last but not least, he received the Pine Derby wood kit last Thursday...Braden and Josh are super stoked to start carving that silly thing and putting it together, they have high hopes of making it far in the Derby competition...stay tuned for January's boy scout update...that will have the Pine Wood Derby results!

Braden and I getting his honors at the Pack meeting

Braden's achievements were aplenty, his had to be presented in a baggie!

Decorating his Den leader...see the shinny red bulb near the toes!

Braden's pack with their Den leaders after winning the Spirit Stick competition...such a great job!

Braden composed the above letter for me to send to Santa today. I was so proud of him, he worked very hard on this letter for the last couple of days. I thought it was just WAY too cute not to post on our blog before mailing it off to the North Pole ;) If you have a tough time reading it, I have reprinted it below:

Dear Santa

I would like a guitar, toy air plane, a picture of you and your reindeer, mega dragonoid Bakugan, Level 2 Bionicle, and a Wii with Mario Cart.

Please bring Patch some toys.

♥ Braden Allee

Short and to the point, not a lot of detail just yet, but writing is still a LONG process. None-the-less, Josh and I were very proud of him sitting down and writing his very own letter to Santa Claus this year.

Merry Christmas to all from the Allee Family!

The Gingerbread Train Creation

On Thanksgiving Grandmother and Granddaddy Walker gave Braden a Gingerbread Train to make for our house. He finally talked me into letting him venture onto the project a few nights ago. He loved the detail work and poured his heart and soul into making it the best Gingerbread Train ever created. He is a perfectionist as well, I have no idea where he gets that from...hehehehe, so he cannot just decorate the train however he wants too, he has to stare at the box the whole time and make it exactly like it looks on there. Dana took a little break from school work to come down and help him, they had a great time getting into the decorating. I loved watching him have fun and concentrating on it creation so much. I am not sure how, but I got distracted during the picture process, and did not get a final picture snapped quick enough of the finished product and its creators...I guess it just looked too good to just sit there and look at...so as you can see in the last picture, the caboose is no longer in one piece, Braden said the cookie was very delicious - ha!!!

Hard at work, so much concentration!

NOTE TO SELF: Get a Christmas table cloth for holiday projects...the spider web one was nice for carving pumpkins, but not so much for Christmas activities - ha!

Dana and Braden comparing their display to the box picture

Notice that the caboose doesn't have a front or back side any longer...as well as the fact that the candy balls that were trimming the top of the caboose on the icing are missing as well ;) As long as he thought it was tasty though - ha!

Christmas in the Park

Every year Longview Lake has a huge Christmas light display called Christmas in the Park. Josh, Braden and I pile in the car and head out at some point during the holiday season. We decided to venture out last weekend at around 10:00 p.m., thinking that we would be able to breeze through the display since we decided to go out so late...we were wrong. There were cars bumper to bumper for miles ahead and behind us. But it is so much fun listing to Christmas music and watching Braden in the anticipation of seeing all the lights...not to mention seeing his face light up when we have finally made it to the display itself! I had Josh take some picks of our favorite parts of the display. The pictures don't do it justice at all, but hopefully you get the idea of how grand of a display it is. We had such a great family night looking at the lights in Christmas in the Park!

This is the face of..."Mom hurry up and take my picture so that i can look at the lights again!" I tried to capture on film the look of excitement, but what i got was the look of irritation because I was interrupting his light gazing time.

Here are some of the cars in front of us...and we aren't even close to the entrance of the display!

This was my favorite display at the park, it was new this year.

I also LOVE the holy arch too...one of my favorites every year to see!

Braden had to have dad get a shot of Santa Claus, this was his favorite display...I love all of the other lights around him in the background throughout the park.

We all thought the gingerbread house and kids on the trampoline was adorable too. :)

Deck the Halls!

We were able to get lights out on the house this year. Last year we closed on the house on November 22nd, which didn't allow us much time to get decorations up and around the house other than a tree. But this year, has been a different story. Josh hung all the lights on the house mid November, when we had a couple of really awesome 70 degree days, and Braden and I decorated the inside of the house one weekend when Josh was in the woods deer hunting. Braden was so much help with the tree, he helped carry up every single box from the basement...including the really heavy box the tree was packed away in. He helped sort all the branches, put the tree together, and also helped with every aspect of decorating the tree. It was so awesome decorating our house and tree with my little man. This year, I felt that I needed a Christmas wreath like I have for fall...but obviously with all xmas colors ;) When mom and I went shopping for the wreath and all the materials, I was BLOWN away by the price of an empty wreath! Mom saw this candy cane shaped evergreen, and we decided it would be perfect in place of a wreath,and a third of the cost! On Thanksgiving weekend mom helped me make my candy cane shaped wreath decoration. I love the way it turned out! I love the way all of our home decorations came out this year - tis the season!!!

Thanksgiving 2009 Recap for the Allee Clan

We spent our Thanksgiving with almost everybody this year. I always believe that the Thanksgiving holiday always begins when you start preparing the dishes you are to take to the celebrations...so for us it started Wednesday night, the day before Thanksgiving. Josh was so much help in the kitchen cutting up fruits and veggies for the fruit salad and the veggie tray. It was so nice having help in the kitchen this year...this was the first year he blessed me with his help in the preparation. Early Thursday, Thanksgiving morning, we were up, loading the Mountaineer and headed to Sedalia to go to the Walker Thanksgiving. We spent the morning and afternoon at Grandmother and Granddaddy Walker's, along with the rest of the Walker crew. Then we headed over to Steve & Mellody's to bring in the holiday with the whole Allee bunch for the evening. There I was able to go through all of my circulars for the whole Black Friday shopping extravaganza...which YES I did participate in :) By about 9:30 p.m., it was time to pack up and head to Jefferson City to get to my mom and John's house where we would be staying for the entire Thanksgiving weekend. When we arrived, Mom, Josh, and I were going through the Black Friday circulars again just to make sure we had our route planned and ready to go for the next morning...which was set to start at 3:00 a.m. Black Friday came and went, and we got everything we were after to get. Too much fun for one morning! Saturday would bring on more Thanksgiving celebration. This time we went out to Aunt Pam & Uncle Doug's house in Centertown to bringing in the holiday season with the Ives'. After a great visit with the Ives crew, we headed back to mom's house. When I called to tell her we were on our way, I was surprised with a visit from Aunt Jenein and Stephanie. So, as soon as we arrived back at mom's us girls headed out for a late afternoon on the town. It was great being able to spend time shopping with them for the holidays! Later that evening when we arrived back at mom's house, we had more visitors come over for the evening. Kelsey, Ryan and Cash came to collect their cookie dough which they bought from Braden's fundraiser. It was a nice visit. It is always awesome to be able to spend your holidays...even though it lasts an entire weekend long to get everyone in ;) ....with family and friends!

Aunt Belinda had a craft project for Braden at the Walker Thanksgiving, this is them making paper snowmen....it was so cute watching them interact with each other and brainstorm the best way to make a snowman ;)

Josh, Braden and I at the Walker Thanksgiving.

I love this picture, Braden and Josh were playing with the camera taking picutes of themselves while at the dinner table, they were so funny to watch!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Annual Family Photos

It is that time of year again, yep, picture time. I am pretty adamant about getting the Allee family pics taken each year. Our lives are always changing, and Braden is growing up so fast that I just cannot imagine not having a family photo for each year of our lives together. My problem is that I cannot bear to cover up the last years pictures..or the year before that, or the year before that, or, well, you get the picture (ha!)...because they are just so darn good (thanks Connie!) So I actually end up with pictures all over the place, and in my office! Well, this years pics are no different, Connie Martin (http://www.conniemartinphotography.com/ - go check her out, she is great) did a fantastic job capturing great smiles and smirks (that is for Braden) of our crew. I had been wanting pics of Braden with his Grandma and Papa John, so we drug them out for the occasion too. Actually we had a really good time taking the pics, so no dragging necessary - ha! Which leads me to a new problem....since we had such a blast, and the pics are so good (hard to take a bad pic of such a good looking crew - really!) I am now going to have to narrow it down and decide between all of the fabulous shots Connie took. What is a girl to do!?!

Awww, I just love this picture, Braden and his Grandma, they are such awesome buddies!!!

This is the "smirk" I was referring to above...doesn't he just look like he is about to do something he probably shouldn't?

Awww, I just love this picture, me and my mom, were are just such awesome buddies (wait didn't I just say that above about Braden and his Grandma - hehehehe!)

Halloween 2009

Okay, okay, I am so behind on posting here on the blog that I almost feel like it is pointless to post pics from Halloween evening trick-or-treating...but then there are those of you who don't have Facebook so you haven't seen the absolutely adorable pictures of Braden and Diana going out Halloween night dressed up as an adorable Lady Bug (LOVE IT!) and the awesomeness of the Black Ninja! So, without further adoo, here are a couple of pictures of the kiddos from that fun evening!

Look how cute they are, I had to talk Diana into putting her tentacles on...they were so cute and totally made the costume complete! Oh, and we cannot forget my ninja fighting machine - how adorable is he :)

Let the candy begging begin...or tick-or-treating I guess it is called - hehehehe!

I do believe my son is sticking his tongue out at me here - boo on him - ha!

We just knocked on the last door of the evening, the kiddos weren't ready to be done, but Deb and I sure were :)

Candy Candy Candy Candy Cannnnnndyyyyyy!!!!

P.S. Diana, I promise you I will get you full copies of ALL pictures I took that evening!!!!