Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Watch Dog in the House!


Monday after Thanksgiving break Caleb had a chance to be the Watch Dog at Luke's school. The Watch Dog program is a program where dads take a day off from work and spend the day at the school. Luke was over the moon excited!

Here's a few things Caleb had a chance to do:
- morning announcements
- rotated between all of the Kindergarten classrooms helping out
- recess
- PE
- lunch
- read a story to Luke's class
- spent time in the life skills class where he met a really sweet friend

I am so thankful our school has this program. The kids love having a dad walking around the halls and I think the dads enjoy their time there too!

Thanksgiving 2011


We had a wonderful Thanksgiving week. Between our trip to Leander and family coming in town after that we got to see pretty much every single member of our family which was really great. EE, Nonah, & Cash came in town for a few days so we got to spend time with them on Thanksgiving Day. sadly, I didn't get any pictures with them :(





Saw & Steph had their Thanksgiving lunch at Stephs house so they came by a little early before the rest of the Allens came. They are getting married in 3 weeks... can you believe it?



Then, an extra special treat! Aunt Leigh & Uncle Doug came in town too! Taylor, Papapon, & Blake came by Thanksgiving night to visit with them.


What an awesome Thanksgiving!

A Very Fun Trip To Waco

We started off our Thanksgiving vacation with a trip to Waco to see the Baylor Bears play the Oklahoma Sooners. This was Brady's first trip to Waco and his first Baylor game, so he was super excited. Since EE & Nonah are both OU Sooners it was a rival game for our family which made it even more fun. (any other time we would be rooting for the Sooners, just not that day)


First, we took the boys to see the bears. Judge Joy & Judge Lady.

We walked around campus a little to show them all of Daddy's old stomping ground before we headed to the stadium to meet the rest of our family for the game.


We got to the stadium early so we could make it in time for March of the Bears and got a quick picture of Brady with Bruiser!



Daddy & Saw let the boys on their shoulders when it was time to high five the players.



Brady got to see Robert Griffin :)



Our family! Owen stayed home with Grammy & Yaya while we were gone. He will have his chance to go to Waco very soon.



and look who the boys stumbled upon for a picture... a Baylor cheerleader. Silly boys :)



We tailgated with our family who came up from Leander before the game.



Mamaw was so happy to see the boys and they were glad to see her too! After the game we went back to Mamaw & Papaw's house to spend time with them and the boys were in pure Heaven!


Best part about the trip....Baylor beat OU!!!!! Go Bears!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Thankgiving Feasts 2011

It just so happened that both schools that the three of my kids attend planned all three of their Thanksgiving Feasts at the same time. I got the news last week and started to panic. Thankfully, we have both sets of grandparents close- but originally, The Allen set of grandparents were going to be out due to Papi's shoulder surgery.

I know, I am kinda weird about that, but it is really important to me to make it to their school functions. It all worked out fine and I was able to make it to both schools and have a great time with all of them.


Caleb worked from home today, so he was able to meet me at Luke's lunch first. Good thing he stopped at ChickFila first....cafeteria turkey & dressing is very...interesting.



Then, it was time to head over to Brady's feast. We had asked Grammy & Papa to be there just in case I didn't make it in time which was really nice. I think he really enjoyed having them there too. His school served fried chicken strips, corn, french fries, rolls, & chocolate pudding. (we joked that it was the typical preschool feast- which was so perfect!)



Brady's potato turkey place card looked amazing ;)


I headed over to Owen's class just in time too! He was eating his pudding when I got there. Sadly though, I forgot my camera when I went to see him :( He was having a blast and was covered in chocolate!


Owen & Brady's place mats. Oh how I love preschool laminated place mats.



On the back of Brady's place mat, he was to say what he was thankful for...very sweet that he picked Yaya!


As a mommy, I could not be more thankful to have those three boys and be able to share their special moments like today with them. My heart smiles on days like today!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Operation Christmas Child 2011

For the past 9 years I have been participating in some capacity with this amazing program called Operation Christmas Child. It is run by an organization called Samaritan's Purse. They collect shoe boxes full of children's toys, school supplies, socks, etc. to take to less fortunate communities in other countries during Christmas.

Most years I have been our church's liaison for Operation Christmas Child and collected the boxes to take to the drop off location. I have hauled hundreds of shoe boxes over the years that were donated and have always been truly blessed to be a part of such an awesome act of love.

This year, I told my church I would not be able to head it up due to my commitments with the boy's schools, but of all the years this one was my favorite. This was the first year I was able to see how selfless my two sweet boys really could be. We sat them down and talked to them about other children around the world and told them that tonight was a night to think only about those kids and not ourselves. So we loaded them up with their shoe boxes and headed to Target.

Brady had his box filled to the brim in no time. Luke was a little more careful with his choices.
I was so proud of the boys! Not once did they ask for one thing for themselves. All this time, I have to admit that I have kind of avoided projects like this thinking they wouldn't "get" it, but they totally "got" it!

Shame on me for not doing things like this more often. Lesson learned though- I want to instill in them an attitude of selflessness so from now on we are going to try to start thinking of ways to use what we have to help others from time to time. Because boy weren't those boys good at it!

Here they are with their boxes full! (there was no way we were gonna leave that store without a football for each of our little friends across the world)




Luke did a great job writing a special note for his friend. Brady did too, but at the last minute he decided to give his note to me instead of including it in the box which was fine too :)

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Happy Halloween- May the Force Be With You


This year since the boys are SO into Star Wars, we didn't really have a choice but to dress up as Star Wars characters. There was really no way around it....I tried. I do have to admit though- it was so much fun seeing how excited they were to see me dress up and be a part of their world.

Luke went as Luke Skywalker
Owen went as Yoda
I was Princess Leia
Brady was a Storm Trooper
Caleb stayed home and handed out candy to all of the other trick or treaters


Look how cute our little Yoda is!



It's our Halloween tradition to have our friends come over for pizza before we all go trick or treating in our neighborhood. The VanEps also came, but weren't there when we took this picture. The kids love getting to play in their costumes and trick or treat together. Fun times!