Cheer and Dance Time

I rounded out my weekend by attending Kaylea's cheer and dance competition in Sedalia, Missouri. It is a long day for these girls to perform and stay on their toes...I arrived at noon, which is long after the girls are there, and I left around 6:00 p.m., which was before the last award ceremony for the individual events. We all know that I have a special place in my heart for cheer and dance :) I enjoyed very much watching her out there on the floor competing, as well as watching all the other teams out there. Kaylea is such a girlie girl, and it is so fun watching her shake it up out here whether it is tumbling, dancing, or cheering. I was able to snap a couple of shots of her dancing, along with a picture of her with the first place trophy her squad was awarded for one of their performances. Kaylea also received 3 medals for all of her hard work. I also took a short video clip of one of her tumbling passes during her tumbling solo, so I thought it would be cute to share it with you all too. I am just so proud of her for putting all of her heart and hard work into something she loves so much, and then being able to share in it with her by going to the competitions. This for sure will make you smile!

Video Game Junkies

I am sure most of you thought that this post would involve my husband and my son...WRONG!!!! I am not sure if Braden gets his video game addiction from his dad or from his Grandma Jancey! My mom has been a video game head ever since I can remember back in the day my mom and dad having Atari (yep, I said Atari) parties, with all of their friends gathering around the console tv downstairs while all of us kids were in bed asleep (or trying too - ha!) Mom has gone from Atari to Super Mario Bros. to Sonic the Hedgehog to Crash Bandicoot. She has gotten her grandson hooked on Crash so now every time we go to visit you can bet that if you cannot find my mom and Braden that they are upstairs playing their favorite game. Mom enjoys it because it is good quality time with her grandson and they just laugh and have a great time, I love watching them together...and we have to admit, Braden has become quite the little Crash player! Aren't they adorable :)

Birthday Celebration

So, this past Saturday was my mom's birthday...she would like for me to say it was her 35th birthday, so I will just stick with that (although I think you will find that I just transposed those numbers after seeing the birthday cake picture - ha! Sorry MOM!) I thought it would be great to have the family up to her house to celebrate her fabulousness! It would be the first time some of the family members had an opportunity to see her house. The birthday girl got to decide her birthday meal, and she chose for us to make homemade eggrolls. This is a sight to see. Traditionally we have those who cook all of the insides of the eggroll, which tends to be mom, Aunt Jenein, and Granny; and then we have the rollers which are Nick, Tara, Stephanie, and myself...this year we initiated a newbee and my sister-in-law to be, Ms. Jodi, stepped up to the plate and learned the ropes of rolling homemade egg rolls; then they go back to the cookers to be fried. We always have a great time sitting around the table and in the kitchen while making this meal. All in all we made 120 eggrolls, and we ended up placing 8 in a baggie to put in the fridge, and by midnight Saturday night, there was only 2 left in that baggie. I have to say, I enjoyed my fair share! We had alot family show up to share in the celebration: Grandpa Jack and Nancy came, as well as Sandy (mom's stepsister); Nick, Tara and Kaylea; Aunt Jenein, Uncle Steve and Stephanie; Granny; Quintin, Jodi and Kylie; Braden, Josh and I,;Uncle Jackie, Lisa and Austin; and last but not least John was there too :) I think that is everyone. Everyone, including mom seemed to enjoy themselves, and she had lots of love and lots of presents to fill her house! Happy Birthday, mom!

Wrestle Time

Josh and Braden are constantly screwing around trying to catch the other one's attention. This weekend amidst all of the family excitement going on they seemed to find time to mess around and beat up on each other. They love this past time, it is like "who can aggravate who the most"? Josh definitely has the upper hand right now...but I don't know if that will always be the case ;) I just love watching them goof off and laugh and enjoy each other, even if it is that they are trying to irritate one another -ha!

House Update

We closed on and moved into our house exactly 8 weeks ago...but I am just now getting around to buying and hanging curtains in the living room and the dining room. On January 14th, I made a trip to Jefferson City for the afternoon to spend the day with my mom, and my Grandma and Aunt Jenein were there as well. We all set out to find my curtains at JC Penney's. It took a while of walking around with my couch pillow in hand before I decided that I needed to go with a solid color because of the pattern in pillows and the chair and ottoman in the living room. I had it in my head that I was going to paint the wall surrounding the fire place green to match the darkest shade of green in the pillows, so I didn't want to go green, and the fabric has a bit of a shimmer to it and is mostly golds rather than brown so I went with a white gold shimmery type curtain. When I brought them home several hundred dollars later, Josh wasn't too happy with the choice...specifically he said "those look like old lady curtains". What a butthead right! Anyway, he finally concluded that he doesn't have to like them, as long as I like them that is all that matters. We have been really busy on the weekends lately, so I haven't been able to paint wall. I was off work on Monday, so I was set out to paint the wall and hang my curtains...low-and-behold, the task has been completed. Josh has decided now that I may have known what I was doing all along when I picked out gold curtains :) I love the way it turned out!

I now have curtains in the dinning room as well, here is an updated shot of the dinning room too since I am posting updated pictures.

Friends Gather Around - Late Holiday Dinner

Even though there wasn't a Christmas Tree in sight, or any egg nog, or mistletoe, or really any remembrance left of the holiday season...this past Saturday was the Holiday Friends Dinner at the Luebbert's home :) We gathered together to eat a great dinner put on by Kelsey herself...fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy (well, I had to remake the gravy - ha!), corn, green beans, rolls, and an awesome salad - my favorite of the meal I have to say ;) The girls gathered around the table after dinner to visit and the guys disappeared downstairs - typical right. After about 30 to 45 minutes, Ryan made his way back upstairs and very sweetly asked (yep, I said Ryan, I didn't mistype) the girls to relocate our visiting to either the living room or to downstairs, so that the guys could strike up a game of poker at the table...the only place to play poker in the house according to Ryan. I did suggest them sitting indian style on the floor, but he didn't seem to keen on that idea :) It took a little bit for the guys to join Ryan while he sat at the table alone with all of the girls in the living room...after I hollered downstairs saying that the girls were going to take back over the table, it didn't take long for them to take up post with Ryan. We finished off the night with a trip to Cold Stone Creamery for some ice cream...yep it was probably 20-something degrees outside, and yes we did have brownies and cheesecake, but ice cream was the the topper to the night - it made up for not having Christmas decorations - ha! To be fair though, not everyone had an ice cream, but you can bet your sweet bottom that I did :)

Amanda, Kelsey & Janelle - Before being kicked out of the dinning room ;)

Kim and Beth

Ryan, by himself, and so proud sitting at the kitchen table

The guys enjoying their game of poker

Beth and I, yep - we are in the living room now :)

Meet Buster

No, Buster is not yet another canine addition to the Allee family, but is a birthday present to my mom. My mom has fallen in love with Patch, our Boston we got four months ago, and has threatened nonstop that she was going to steal him him away from us...she was joking of course (at least I think she was - ha!) I started looking for a Boston to fullfill her desire to take mine :) I came across Buster, much in the same way I found Patch...on Craigslist. He has not been treated the best, so he is a bit shy, but with this family he will be expressing himself in no time! I took him to mom the 2nd of January, and he has come out of his shell and taken a great liking to all of the love he is receiving there in his new home. We welcome our new four legged family member!

This is just a video of Patch & Buster getting use to each other with an audience. Buster was looking to play, but Patch was a bit resistant...he wasn't too keen on the idea of Buster playing with his new stuffed mole he got for Christmas...but Buster sure was trying to get his attention. When they finally got use to each other and were playing great together, they tore that poor mole in half!

Mickey Mouse Here We Come

We have finally booked our Walt Disney World Resort family vacation - YAY!!!! I am so excited, we leave for our vacation while Braden is on Spring Break and will be gone 5 nights and 6 days, ohhhh I am just so excited. I am not really sure who is more excited Braden or me! He understands that we are going on vacation and to Disney World, he just doesn't understand why we aren't leave tomorrow -ha! We plan on only visiting three of their parks (our pass is only for three days worth of Disney parks that I bought with the vacation package - I am sure we can add on if we change our mind when we get there), so we have to narrow it down between all of the great places to see. I would like to do a Universial Studios day for sure, and then that leaves one other full day to have as a miscellaneous day to go to the beach or do some other sight seeing of some sort. Anyway, I am counting down the days until we are in the warm Florida sun visiting Mickey Mouse and Cinderella's Castle!!!!