A New Addition...

We found out in June that we are expecting a fourth Allen child! Everyone is really excited especially Luke who is always asking how big our baby is and what we are going to name him/her. Luke really wants another brother, but Brady wants a sister because he thinks we already have to many boys around here. Owen...well, he doesn't really know what he is in for. I don't think he is quite ready to be kicked off his "baby of the family" thrown. He will survive it though just as the others did.
We are looking forward to finding out what the final addition to the family will be!

10 Year Anniversary Trip

This year, Caleb & I celebrated our 10th anniversary with a cruise to Nassau Bahamas, CocoKay, & Key West. We traveled with our friends Josh & Kristen McGinn and had a wonderful time.

Our first stop was Nassau. We got off the boat and took a boat taxi over to the Atlantis resort which was amazing. We rented jet skis on the beach, and toured Paradise island. It was beautiful and the water was crystal clear.

Another picture of the beach at Paradise Island

Each night back on the boat we had a nice dinner followed by bingo most nights and some sort of entertainment. It was lots of fun!

 

Our second stop was CocoKay which is a private island owned by Royal Caribbean. It was a lot less touristy and much more relaxing.

Caleb spent time snorkeling and I relaxed on the beach. 

A few more pictures of us dressed up at night.

 
Our last stop was Key West, Florida which was the most fun! We have been to Key West once before and loved it even more the second time.

We rented mopeds and drove around the whole island. 

Here is a few of our cruise ship from afar.

We stopped back in Miami and flew back home to see our sweet boys who we missed so much! It was a great time away to celebrate.

4th of July

4th of July is one of our favorite holidays around here. It is just such a fun time to be proud to be an American. For the past month, the boys have been making themed crafts (so have I!) all centered around the American flag. We've made red white and blue food and all of that fun stuff. 

Anyway, on the actual 4th of July. We celebrated with a pool party with all of our friends from our small group at church along with Saw, Steph, and Ms. B which was a little added bonus.  Everyone brought lots of  great food, we grilled hamburgers, Ms. B made snow cones, we swam and swam and swam until dark. Then we headed to see the fireworks in Pearland. It was a great day.

Happy Birthday America!

Our Big Swimmer!

This summer has been a turning point for our Brady & his swimming skills. He has gone from using floaties in the the pool to not really needing them any more. So, we decided to put him in swimming lessons just to be sure he knows what he is doing before he gets to confident.

His first day of lessons was today. He is pictured above with his teacher Ms. McKenzie. She is a really sweet teacher who seems to know a lot about swimming.

They went over kicking...

And ice cream scoops (arm strokes)

And floating on your back...

And even being comfortable with your face in the water.

At the end of the class they moved to another area of the pool to play a game. It seems like Brady is going to get a lot out of his lessons. We are so glad he is able to work at something he can be proud of. It's usually him having to sit on the side and watch Bubba do stuff like this, but not anymore!

Craft Day

This Thursday Craft Day has been a lot of fun! I have a tendency to want to make more "girlie" things, but the boys are keeping me in line. For instance...I had one idea for today's craft, but it ended up getting the thumbs down, so we went with this.

With a little felt and a free printable from pinterest, we were able to make some capes for the boy's men who otherwise would just be ordinary. They dug through their toy boxes and located their people who needed to play a little dress up. After just a few minutes they were all set to play for hours of fun :)

After today, Daddy is home for a four day weekend! Yay!!!

Father's Day 2012

I know I have said this before, but I was blessed with two great dads growing up. Yes, there are a lot of downfalls of being from a divorced family, but I feel like my situation worked out to be quite alright. I have a wonderful dad & a wonderful step dad ( i hate that work step dad though, because there is nothing "step" about my step dad)

So then, I went on to marry Caleb & I got an awesome father in law who also happens to be my Pastor. He taught Caleb how to be the dad he is today. Caleb is an A+ dad to the boys. It doesn't get much better than him and I can't wait to see the dads they grow up to be because of all of the great dad role models they have in their life.

Brady cooked Daddy a German chocolate cake for Father's Day. We went swimming and had steaks and Owen looked super cool in Papi's sunglasses. All in all I think Caleb would say he had a great Father's Day!

A Busy Summer Week

Last week was CRAZY busy! I love weeks like that every now & then during the summer though. You know..the weeks when the kids are just exhausted by the end of the day? I think kids need that sometime, not all the time...but sometimes. 

 Sunday, our neighbor invited us over to pick some vegetables out of her garden. The boys had a great time & got lots of tomatoes and okra. After that we headed straight to VBS for the first night! The boys love VBS and look forward to it every summer.

Monday morning we were off again...Brady & KK loaded up in the car for a trip to Oklahoma to visit EE, Nonah, & Cash. They were gone until Thursday and had lots of fun! Luke started Victory Camp on Monday at Living Stones Church. It was a week long day camp from 9-4. It was such a fun week for him. Above are picture from camp. Alex was in his group which was nice :)

Emma went to Victory Camp with Luke every day and since she was going to VBS too, she came over after camp until time to go to VBS. Above are pics of her and Brady. The last night at VBS they did face painting as you can see!

Thursday night Luke spent the night with Yaya and she took him to get breakfast Friday morning before his last day at camp. He chose to get donuts, so they brought some for the little boys too. Notice how many Owen has on his plate...I guess that's what happens when Yaya buys the donuts :)

We spent the weekend catching up and resting from such a busy, but fun week!