A Post about Alli

Allison is growing up, now 5 years old. I think it's safe to say we are now done with the terrible 2s, and 3s, and 4s. I love 5-year olds! Allison has become such a fun little big girl. It delights me to see her becoming Allison. I teach a class in the junior primary so each Sunday I also get a peak at her interacting with friends in her primary class. They all seem pretty comfortable with each other. Allison always acts exactly the way she feels. If she's happy, everybody knows it. If she's sad, everybody knows it. I've been telling her for a while that when she is happy her face literally shines and lights up the whole room. It's true. She loves knowing that about herself. Here are some pics from her little party.

 

Face paints. I probably wouldn't recommend using blues and purples, Julia looked bruised and abused the whole day. I think it concerned a few strangers.

 

 

Here's the bday cake (after the fact - oops, forgot to snap a pic til that night).

Her birthday was a busy day. As soon as we finished the party we drove to an appointment with a pediatric surgeon to have him look at a mysterious bump she had. He determined it was another hernia (she's had an umbilical hernia and I too have a hernia that comes and goes). We scheduled the surgery for April 5th, two days later to have it removed. She was a good sport. As it turned out, the lump was actually just fatty scar tissue from a fall she had.

Winter and preschool

The winter didn't bring in much snow, and while nice at the time we all knew we needed the water (as evidenced by the several wildfires that broke out across Utah this summer). Our house is south-facing which means the snow on the driveway was completely melted by late morning. Be jealous.

Our last three moves (including the one back here to Utah) have all been in late October. I have noticed it's a lot harder to meet people at that time because #1: everyone is preoccupied with the holiday season and #2: everyone stays indoors where it's warm. But I'm not a very patient person either. However, we got through the transition because our friends the Dolman's invited us right away to join their preschool with Allison.

                     Here are Macie, Emory, Claire, and Allison - cutest girls ever!

 

Every week had a theme based around the letter they were learning and whichever holiday was coming. Here we are ringing in the New Year with 2012 New Year glasses. Woot woot. Julia loved participating when preschool was at our house, and she fit right in with the big kids.

 

 

 

 

Crazy hair day

 

 

Decorating Valentine's boxes

 

 

 

  Field trip to the park

 

 

 

 

Christmas

We had Christmas in Tucson and had a great time as expected. We took our family photo in the fabulous Arizona winter weather. Notice Easton and Devery's newest addition, Noelle who got her first 7 hour roadtrip at age 2 weeks! I don't know who I'm more impressed by, mom or baby, but we were so glad to meet her. Way to go! She's beautiful!

I love the way we do pictures. We pick the color, put it on, go outside, take the picture (all in a matter of an hour). Done. And it always looks great - but if not, hey, there's always next year. The way family pictures should be. Though I'm sure it would only work in a family of a lot of boys.

Hannah and Jeannie created a secret "Narnia room" for Allison and Julia to sleep in.

When closed the bookcase behind Allison appears a solid wall, but in fact opens to reveal stairs leading up into a carpeted crawl space. Hannah decorated it with dangling white Christmas lights, beads, and draped delicate fabrics over the storage hidden at the periphery. Allison and Julia had the honor of keeping the much-cherished musical carousel next to their pillow and many other of Hannah's precious dolls, dress-ups, glass dishes and other things from her childhood. It was enchanting to say the least and they spent the majority of time hidden away up there.


Of course we did the traditional Eegee's (pictured), breakfast at Brawley's, shopping spree at Savers, white elephant exchange with surprise visit from Steve - uh, I mean Santa (neither of our girls fell for it this year), and lot's of other stuff I forget.

Here are Julia and Mason trying to get some dog food (aka cheese).

I have to include this pic because it was amazing. All the guys moved this ginormous tree (with casualty to neither man nor tree) for Steve's courtyard remodel that is going to be gorgeous.

Ew gross, looks like Steve wore the same shirt the whole time! Teasing.

We had a great time with everyone!

Thanksgiving and Christmas

Thanksgiving and Christmas were wonderful! Between the two we were able to see every member of both our families. We did all kinds of stuff I won't remember but I'll at least document those with pictures. ;)

Here is delicious Thanksgiving at my parent's house in Highland with lots of great company, including my beautiful Thomas grandparents.

And we were lucky enough to have Erik's sister Hannah down from BYU-I for the weekend. We're so glad you came!

We visited the Temple Square lights which is always a treat and especially for Alli and Julia who were seeing it for the first time.

Cami and Troy came all the way from Bismarck and we loved being with them! I'll never forget Troy and Cami both falling to the floor laughing so hard at each other for at least 10 min straight. I don't even remember what they were laughing about but it was hilarious. And this isn't the first time I've witnessed them do this. Love you both! The older cousins put on a play (Wizard of Oz) which was quite clever. Allison was the proud Toto. This girl spends half her life on her knees anyway (loves to pretend she's a cat) so the casting was purrfect (sorry).


And Alicia and John also made it down from Spokane for Christmas. Our kids exchanged Christmas gifts (mostly random toys we found in the house though Jeffrey put much thought into his gift). We love and miss these handsome little guys and their great parents so much!

Halloween in the new 'hood

We moved to beautiful Saratoga Springs the end of October. My dad picked us up from the airport and was a sight for sore eyes. It's so good to be back! I love Julia's face in this one. This is her camera face, serious and staring off somewhere else. I have so many pics like this.
Speaking of Julia, she must have been too young to remember much from a year earlier because within a few days of being around my family she was referring to them as "the new grandparents" and "the new cousins". PS, I am loving living by Jon and Sherri finally! So glad you moved here.


We moved into our house 2 days before Halloween. And since that day we've been getting well-acquainted with the once coveted title of "homeowner". Which is precisely why I'm 5 months late writing about Halloween. (You think that's bad, well I've still got Allison's sticky witch dress sitting in a bucket on the washing machine). And bytheway, we love owning a house.


These adorable aprons were sent to us in Kansas City by Graham (Grandma Hamblin). And if I didn't box them up in January then they'd still be wearing them to this day, guaranteed. Thanks, they loved them!

Here's the big night! Without intending it, we sort of had a Wizard of Oz/Lion, Witch, Wardrobe theme, choose your pick. There are a ton of kids here so the streets were full and our girls had fun.

From the back Julia reminded me of David Bowie in Labyrinth. Um, yikes.