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!!!!

Braden X-mas Morning

Waking up Christmas morning in our new home was wonderful! Especially since we were able to share the experience with my mom and John since they stayed all night with us to wake up with Braden on Christmas morning. He woke up at around 7:45 a.m., which wasn't too bad we didn't think :) He was VERY excited to walk down the stairs to see his presents waiting for him. Santa brought him all sorts of goodies and he was ecstatic to see all the new presents sitting around the Christmas tree. It is so much fun doing the whole Christmas experience with a child!

Braden and his new bike. Papa John searched long and hard for this bike to make sure his grandson was riding the perfect bike!

Patch had to get his own stocking as well, and his mole was a BIG hit!

Heelys, I have been hearing about these darn things for at least a year now...thank goodness Santa remembered to put them under the tree this year!

For some reason, Braden has this obsession with Mustangs, so on his wish list for this year was a fancy remote control car - but it MUST be a Mustang - good thing Santa pays attention to details!

Power Ranger Jungle Fury Rhino Rider - who knew it was so simple to put a smile on a kiddos face!

Christmas Celebrations

So, the Allee's have WAY to many Christmas celebrations to do a post for each one, so I decided to outline our holiday celebrations and include one picture from the day. I will then add a Smilebox presentation with lots of pictures from all of the family, food, presents, and fun!

We kicked off the holiday celebrations with the Ives' at Uncle Troy and Aunt Debbie's house in Sedalia on Saturday, December 20th. Josh, Braden and I were the first to arrive, and I am pretty sure that Dad, Julie, Brett and Dallas were the last to arrive :) - with the exception of Uncle Troy, but he doesn't count since he was out working. It was decided to go easy and no one have to prepare a big meal, so we ordered pizza and just hung out, drank a little wine, a little bit of some frozen amaretto sour, and had dessert - which means Julie's (my stepmom) awesome pecan bars - NO ONE makes them like she does ;) We exchanged presents and enjoyed the company of family we don't get to visit with very often.

Dad, Uncle Doug, Kaleb & Stephen deep in conversation

Next it was x-mas at Grandpa Jack's in Lee's Summit on Christmas Eve evening. We always seem to snack out at Grandpa Jack's house...Nancy makes lots of goodies for us to eat. It seems like I graze all night long there :) It is nice doing the Christmas celebration at his house, this is the only holiday celebration that my family doesn't have to travel far to spend an evening with family, and then we only have to drive 10 minutes to get home when the night is done :) We all laughed and ate and had a great time - and the presents were awesome too, cannot have a holiday without someone unwrapping a present. At one point I thought that mom and Grandpa Jack were going to start wrestling in the snow over a lemon pound cake that Nancy's secretary made -ha!

Uncle Jackie with the kiddos before the present unveiling :)

When we returned home after Grandpa Jack's xmas celebration, Braden headed straight to bed without any arguments at all - he was ready for Santa to visit our house ;) Mom and John came over to our house this year Christmas Eve and stayed all night at our home so that they could see him get up Christmas morning and open his presents from us and from Santa. It was awesome having them there with us to share in the experience of Christmas morning with our son. I have dedicated a post of its own to Braden opening presents Christmas morning, so no pics for this one.

We had to be at Granny's house in Sedalia for Christmas at noon. Granny's is always AWESOME to go to, because she does the traditional - dare I say "old fashioned" (HA!) Christmas dinner - sorry Granny, I couldn't resist :) My all time favorite thing for Granny to make is her scalloped potatoes, but I don't think there is anything she makes that isn't just out of this world! Plus Granny made sure that I had plenty of black olives to snack on for this family holiday celebration - she was lacking in that department on Thanksgiving ;) Presents are pure mayhem at Granny's house - it is the most awesome sight to see! Lots of memorable things happened this Christmas...one is funny and one is sweet. This year, Nick & Tara, Stephanie, and Josh and I went in to get Granny her a new shower for her bathroom. It was pretty tough to wrap the whole shower, so Stephanie wrapped up several tubes of white caulk and gave it to her as a present to open from all of us...when she opened it someone in the crowd, while Granny was trying to figure out what she was going to do with all of this caulk said "aaaaahhhhh, Granny got caulk for Christmas" - everyone busted out laughing - so hilarious! The sweet moment was, my mom approached all of the family members a few weeks ago regarding doing a "gratuity box" for Granny. Everyone wrote a card to her telling her why she is so special to us, and what we love her for and why we are thankful to have her in our family. As a surprise to my Aunt Jenein and Uncle Steve we did one for them as well. We presented them with their boxes with all of the cards and we read them outloud - resulting in LOTS of tears - all good tears though. We are very lucky to have each of them in our lives!

Granny and her caulk - hehehehe, it still makes me laugh!!!

From there we went to the Walker's to have a Christmas celebration. We ate a great meal prepared by Aunt Velma and George, grilled chicken and bbq ribs. Everyone dug in and ate until they were stuffed. Josh and I were really stuffed because that was our second HUGE meal of the day. Braden had had such a big day by then, that he went into the extra bedroom at Grandmother and Granddaddy's house and went to sleep. He slept for pretty much the entire holiday celebration at the Walker's house. He just played way to hard at all of the other xmas gatherings :) He woke up just in time to give Grandma Paula her present from him he picked out from Hallmark. We had a packed house, but we like it that way, lots of people to love and celebrate at a time like the holidays! We headed home from the Walker's so that we could sleep in our own beds one last time before the weekend celebrations began

Everyone doing their own thing - and Josh in front of the computer!

Friday Braden and I got to hang out at home and run errands while Josh went into work. It was really nice to just chill out at home and Braden play with all of his toys before we were off to the next holiday family gathering. We celebrated with the Allee family Friday evening, we arrived at about a quarter 'til 7 p.m. - we were a little late, but in they were kind enough to wait for us to start dinner. Aunt Cindi and Uncle David are here from Florida visiting for the holidays, which is really nice since we don't get to see them very often. Jana was here this year as well since she is back in Missouri, it was great having her around for the holidays! She helped Braden put together a couple of the presents he received. Which by the way, was WAY to many - he is such a brat HA!!! We also wanted a recent family picture, so we gathered in the living room to take a good picture of the bunch! Braden's attention span only went so far with the multiple pictures taken, and started making faces into the camera, so we decided to have one final picture taken with everyone acting silly - so naturally, that is the picture that made the post!

What a crew!

From there we went to Jefferson City, I think we arrived there a little after midnight Friday night - or Saturday morning, whichever way you look at it :) I wanted to make sure that I woke up at mom's house so that if she needed any help getting ready for her Christmas celebration at her house on Saturday with us kids then I wanted to be there to help her out as much as I could. She pretty much had it all under control, but I was there just in case :) Aunt Jenein and Granny came up to share in the celebration, this is the first year they have been able to come and participate in Mom's holiday with her kids since generally it falls on Christmas Eve or during a time that another celebration is going on. It was awesome having them there with us and celebrating in mom and John's new house. Plenty of room for all of that wrapping paper ripping and kids bouncing off the walls with excitement of the gifts - actually I think that Jodi was just as excited over her vaccum - ha! We all got awesome presents from mom and John, and we had even better food (homemade fried chicken) and company for the evening!

The kiddos getting waiting to open presents

Sunday we wrapped up the weekend celebration with the Stokes' at their house. Josh and Jim spent most of their time driving back and forth to Daisy Delight - they got our order wrong - but the kids got to play and open their presents. I didn't have my camera for that one for some reason, but we had lots of fun sitting around in a calm atmosphere enjoying company of friends :) We have one last holiday celebration to do which is with the Ham's, and that will have to wait until Braden gets back home from staying the week at Uncle Quintin and Aunt Jodi's house. So much family and friends to celebrate the holiday season with!