Emily turns 3!

I cannot believe that my baby is 3 years old! But she is! Yesterday was her birthday...I know, those of you who actually read my blog are amazed that I am posting something in a timely fasion and not months late! We had a great day celebrating! We rented a bounce house for the occasion and for the first time Emily wanted to invite "Fwends", for all you non toddler speaking people that means "friends" to her party! We had several little friends from church that showed up for the occasion along with lots of family! The funniest part of the whole day had to be when we sang Happy Birthday to Emily. I don't know if we sounded that bad or what, but she started crying! I think she was a little bit overwhelmed with so many people singing to her and was a bit embarrased! At any rate, it made for some great pictures....check out photo #2 below. Mommy came to her rescue and held her hand and even blew out her candles for her! Needless to say even with a few tears we had a great day and Emily recovered quickly and was more than happy to open gifts and entertain the crowd! Emily just came upstairs as I was typing this. I asked what her favorite part of the day was and I quote, "Bouncing in the bounce castle." It was a day fit for the little princess that she is!

Halloween '09

We had a great Halloween! Alex wanted to be an "army man" and Emily found a Curious George costume in a catalog that she liked. It was an easy year for Halloween costumes! The kids both racked up on lots of goodies that they are still munching on! We will probably still have Halloween candy left at Christmas time. Alex is giving super cheesy grins in these pics, but I can't blame him....he had a virus on Halloween weekend. I gave him some Children's motrin before heading out to trick-or-treat to try and combat his fever. "Army man" was going to have a serious melt down if I had told him he couldn't go trick or treating! He survived the virus and trick-or-treating!

More birthday pics

Alex turns 6!

Can you believe my baby is six years old? I cannot believe it at all! But at the end of September Alex turned 6 years old! Alex wanted to have a LEGO party this year. At first we were going to have a LEGO party at our house, but them Alex started listing off who he wanted to come to the party. When he got to boy #9, I said, "I don't think so." We went to plan 2: The LEGO store at Concord Mills in Concord, NC. We told Alex he could pick 3 of his friends to go with us (that's how many would fit in the car with us) and we would go to dinner have cupcakes and then go to the LEGO store for an in-store party! It was awesome! Alex picked a Star Wars LEGO theme and the boys built a clone walker lego machineThe boys had a great time and it was so easy. The hardest part of the trip was being the outnumbered female for the hour long drive up to Concord and back home on a Friday night! : ) Then the week following Alex's birthday, we had our family over to the house for a family get together. Celebrating with family and friends was so much fun! And Alex was thrilled.....I think every gift he opened was a set of LEGOS......he and Ryan built new sets for at least 2 weeks following his birthday! His train table has officially been converted to a LEGO table. He builds all sorts of cars, buildings, airplanes, and anything else his imagination can think of! Here are some pics of my big baby boy.

Beginning of School

Alex's first year of school is going great! He loves it and he has adjusted well to being at a new place and even having mom around all the time! He got his first report card this past week.....he has no clue what a report card it, but basically he is your average kindergartner who is doing a great job learning all that his wonderful teacher is teaching him. He and I have both adjusted to having the other one around...he knows I pretty much ignore him when he comes to library and is always saying mama, so he has gotten pretty sly and now calls me Mrs. Allred if there is something he really feels the need to tell me! It is pretty funny! His favorite part of Kindergarten besides recess and PE is Writer's Workshop. I never would have imagined Alex would love to write, but he is doing an awesome job writing and illustrating books every week. He gets to choose the topic of each book and they have ranged from stories about going boating with dad to more nonfiction books on Water animals, or African animals. He also has stories on Star Wars and Monster Trucks!

We are so proud of him and cannot wait to see what else he accomplishes this year!

Playing Catch-up as Usual

Well, I can't seem to keep up my blog as of late...... Things are a little hectic around here and everytime I think I might have time to catch up this blog, other stuff keeps popping up. Things at church have kept Ryan hopping the last 3 months and school stuff always keeps me busy. Not to mention soccer games for Alex and chasing Emily around wherever we are! So, I guess I am going to do a blog info dump this afternoon and try to catch everyone up on the last 3 months. I promise to try and do better at this blogging thing as we head through the holiday season! I love reading everyone else's blog and always feel bad that I've left mine sitting for so long! So here goes....the Allred Catch-up since August.