First Day of School

Today was a big day for our family. First, of all we were thankful for little Elizabeth giving us an extended amount of sleep of 6 hours. It was really nice to wake up to the alarm clock for a change! The kids eagerly got dressed, ate breakfast, and loaded up for the first drop off for school. Anne-Marie was our first to get unloaded. She happily unloaded (which was an answered prayer.) Karen walked in Caroline and William where he was thorougly excited to see the small doors for his size. He bursted into the room yelling "Hi guys." Then on the way to Caroline's class she informed her mother, "I can do this all by myself and you can go home and take care of the babies." Thankfully everyone was just as excited and happy when mom arrived for pickup and eager to return tomorrow.

Little Baby Lizzy

For everyone wanting an updated picture of Little Elizabeth here you go. She is absolutely precious and still on the tiny side for a baby in our family. These are the pictures I put on her birth annoucements.

Family Picture

We decided to attempt a family picture while we had someone to take it for us before church on Sunday morning. There is nothing like telling your child "they better smile" where you can take a good picture. As you can tell William wasn't happy with his mother and wasn't going to give her his best smile. (Notice if you look in the mirror in the last picture you can see Mimi trying to get all the kids looking in the same direction.) However, imperfect these pictures are, they are both priceless and precious to us! Enjoy the new Allen family pics with all SEVEN members.

Happy First Birthday Alden

On Sunday evening after the worship service we celebrated Alden's first birthday with a cake and ice cream social. He had a grand time enjoying his own cake as you can see!

The Return of the Kids

When Jason called our parents in Alabama to let them know of Elizabeth's arrival, Karen's parents loaded up and came to pick up the children. They packed up and took the kids back to Alabama where they and Jason's parents watched and entertained the children for two weeks. On Thursday, Jason's parents made the caravan back home with the kids. We enjoyed their stay and did some really fun outings. We went to the zoo and enjoyed the Splash Run park. Also, we had more fun at Blackacre as well as fishing in the neighborhood lake. Notice in the pictures that Jason bought some corn for the kids to learn to feed the animals from the palms of their hands. Even William got into it! Jason felt bad for Alden missing out on the fun, so he put some feed on his stroller tray. Before we knew it, Alden was enjoying the feed as well. Karen rescued a few corn niblets from his mouth before being swallowed. The kids also rode in Papa's vehicle while looking at the gardens for him to point out all the vegatables to them. It was a great weekend to mark the return of the kids.

Welcome Baby Elizabeth

The past 3 days have been so chaotic in the Allen household. We were down to the wire preparing the house to make room for the baby. The contractor put the finishing touches on the addition on Monday morning. That just left us with the rearranging. We had to move Jason's (some 4K) books down 2 flights of stairs, bookcases and other furniture. The girls moved to Jason's old office and received the guest bed from the basement. The boys received the girl's bunk beds and the girl's old room became Elizabeth's nursery with Alden's crib. Whew! Not to mention Karen painted 3 rooms to get everything decorated and put together. We started the move on Monday with lots of help from friends on Tuesday. It was truly amazing all the progress that was accomplished. Karen woke up Wednesday morning after 3 hours of sleep and started frantically getting all the rooms finished and cleaned. When all was finished about 8:00 pm and she rested the contractions came harder and more frequent. The Lord graciously answered her prayer in that everything would be settled in the house for when the baby came. She went to bed around 11:00 pm and woke up at 2:00 am with sure confidence that this was the real deal. It was complete providence of God that a young lady from church who had come to help on Wednesday was spending the night. Jason and Karen arrived at the hospital shortly and Karen was already dilated 9 cm. Elizabeth was born OP (or sunny side up) into the world at 4:25 am weighing 6.1 lbs. She is so tiny but precious. She definitely gave her parents a lot of work preparing for her arrival with the remodeling and purchasing a larger vehicle (to hold 5 car seats). However, there is no doubt she will make a great caboose to the family.

Happy Birthday William

Last night we were finally able to celebrate William's 3rd birthday. His actual birthday was a couple of weeks ago, but with our schedules during VBS and last week's episode with the stitches we just couldn't quite pull it off. However, the delay only made the anticipation grow for the little guy. I always make my children's birthday cakes, but having a baby any day now but a damper on my excitement of messing up the entire kitchen with cake batter and icing. His only request for his birthday was to have a Chuckie Cheese party with a chocolate Deigo cake. We felt a little sad for the lad because last year he didn't get a party because we were getting things ready in the house for Alden's arrival and we didn't want to repeat the story this year, especially after the saga last week.

We picked up his cake from Kroger yesterday afternoon. He was absolutely precious. He couldn't keep his eyes off it. He woke from his nap and his first request was, "Can I go see my cake?" Daddy picked out his birthday presents: a Go Deigo Go laptop and lunch box. As soon as we turned onto Hurstborne the kids went absolute crazy in the back seat of the vehicle. Jason and I erupted in laughter of their excitement. He had a wonderful time as you can see in the pictures. Alden enjoyed his first cake and ice cream and the girls enjoyed helping William open his presents (since he was having to open them with one hand).