Merry Christmas!

I am sure the next 3 days are going to fly by, so I wanted to take a few minutes to send Christmas wishes from our family to yours! I hope that each of you has a wonderful time celebrating the holiday with family and friends. My prayer for all of us is, that in the excitement of gifts and food and fun, we will be able to take a few minutes to remember and reflect on what this special holiday is all about. May we find a way to share the love of Jesus Christ with those we come into contact with during the holidays and in the year that follows!

Merry Christmas!

The Allreds.....2009
Alex - age 6
Emily - age 3

Charlie the Elf

We have a new "family member" this Christmas Season.....meet Charlie the Elf! Charlie arrived at our house last week with a copy of the book Elf on the Shelf just for Alex and Emily. The first job Alex and Emily had was to name our elf. After much discussion they decided on Charlie. Did you know that Charlie is in the Top 5 of Elf names....who knew? Charlie has stirred up much mischief at our house over the last week, but his nightly reports to Santa at the North Pole have kept the kiddos on their toes as far as behavior goes! Charlie first showed up in our kitchen basket, and has since made appearances on our Christmas tree, in the kids' bedrooms (he built an elf-mobile out of Alex's LEGOS in his room, and made a mess in Emily's dress- up clothes). Sunday, he made his biggest mess yet by digging into the cereal box (Lucky Charms, no less....what else would an elf eat?) and leaving a cereal mess all over the kitchen floor and table. He is hanging out in a Christmas Stocking today. The kids wake up each morning searching the house to find out what kind of trouble Charlie may have stirred up while they were sleeping. They are already sad that they will have to tell Charlie good-bye on Christmas Eve, since he will leave with Santa on Christmas Eve! Charlie has been a great addition to the Allred Family Christmas Tradition!

School Christmas Program

Alex peformed in his first school Christmas Program last week! He even had a special duet part with a little girl in his class! He did a great job! We were super proud of him and had fun watching him sing with all the other kindergartners!

Santa Pic 2009

Today was the big day..... the day for our annual Santa Picture! Emily and Alex were both excited and Emily was pretty certain that she was going to walk up to Santa, hop on his lap, tell him her wishes, all without crying. This would be a first for her! We were first in line....Alex walked right through the gate without any hesitation and Emily immediately put a death grip on my leg. So much for her bravery! In a few seconds I put her on Santa's lap for the obligatory picture. Thank goodness you can't see me in the picture, but I was to her immediate right. BUT, the most exciting part of all of this is that I have a picture of Emily with Santa and she is NOT crying! It's not her most genuine smile, but I will take it! Alex is an old pro at talking to Santa and he was excited to get one last chance to whisper his wishes in Santa's ear before he begins his big flight on Christmas Eve! It is so much fun to see their excitement as Christmas nears!



Alex and Emily, Christmas 2009
Merry Christmas!

Christmas Tree Trip, part 2

Boone, NC : December 2009

Christmas Tree Trip

The first weekend in December our family took a weekend trip to Boone, NC. We had SOOOOO much fun! We had been to Boone a couple of years ago with friends from church, but this year it was just the 4 of us who made the trip. We left on Thursday afternoon after school and drove up to Boone. By the time we got there, it was really, really cold and we were beginning to believe that the weekend forecast of snow might be a reality. We spent all of Friday driving through the mountains admiring all of God's beautiful creation. We were on several 2 lane winding mountain roads. The higher up the mountain we went, we found snow on the mountain tops! It was beautiful. We visited the Mast General Store in Valle Crucis and loaded up on candy from the candy store. We had lunch at a cafe in Banner Elk, made a pit stop on the side of the road to take some pictures of a beautiful waterfall, went to The Blowing Rock where Alex and Emily tried out their rock climbing skills (I tried not to watch) and then finished up our night with all kinds of good food at the Daniel Boone Inn. We woke up on Saturday morning to snow falling. The kids were beyond excited. We left our hotel and made our way back up the mountain to the RRR Christmas Tree Farm where we picked out a beautiful tree that we put on our front porch! It snowed the whole time we were looking for our perfect tree! We were completely frozen by the time we had our tree cut down and tied to the top of Ryan's Tahoe, but we went back to the hotel, changed clothes, warmed up, and headed home! It was a great trip and I hope we have a chance to do it again some time! There were lots of good memories made on this family trip!