The Allens

Update

2011-06-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

I know it has been much too long since I last posted anything, it is obvious I am not much of a blogger. Things have been quite hectic over the last few months. We finally bought a house and moved in the middle of March. We have been busy remodeling, unpacking, and organizing and we still have so much to do. Check back in two years and I will let you know what has been completed.

Another thing that has thrown our lives out of balance was the discovery that Claire has a heart defect and will need open heart surgery. I took her into the doctor for croup a month ago and the doctor heard a heart murmur. After several tests at Primary Children's Hospital by the end of the day I was told she had a large hole between her atriums (Atrial Septal Defect) that would require open heart surgery. Needless to say we were in shock. Now we are just trying to keep her from getting sick before her surgery on July 26th. If she gets even a cold we have to post-pone the surgery for six weeks. So we have been trying to quarantine her and Jane as much as possible- no church, no stores, no family parties if someone is sick, etc. We really can't have her surgery delayed as I am pregnant and due the beginning of September. With my last two pregnancies going early, I think I am the only pregnant woman praying that I don't go early again! Any prayers in Claire's behalf would be greatly appreciated. It is the top thing in my mind most hours of the day as we wait for her surgery day. My life perspective has totally changed the last month.

P.S. we are having another girl! I tried to add some pictures of the girls, but it wasn't working...sorry

winter happenings

2011-01-04T18:42:00.001-08:00

Girls with their cousins Sadie and Piper, waiting for the train at Candlelight Christmas at This is the Place Park, it was so fun, definitely a Christmas tradition from here on out.

Claire on Father Christmas's lap at Candlelight Christmas

Jane's turn, classic baby picture on santa's lap

Claire's first pony, impressive!

One of the girl's favorite pastimes, running around without clothes

Claire's first time skiing, she said she loved it!

Sledding

Christmas at Nana and Gramp's house

Halloween 2010

2010-11-10T14:09:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of the girls from Halloween. Claire was "Super Claire" and Jane was a cute pumpkin.

The littlest Interior Designer

2010-10-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

You know you have been designing and talking about houses for too long when you take your three year old to a design center and as she browses through the samples she says, "I want this tile for the mudroom, this one for the kid's bathroom, this one for the master bathroom, and this one for the kitchen". She then proceeds to choose her coordinating countertops and cabinets.

(The designer taking a break in the snow two days ago)

Summer Birthdays!

2010-08-09T13:31:00.001-07:00

It seems the moment we arrived here in Utah we have been running around crazy. I haven’t had a chance to blog and have been feeling guilty about not posting lately, so here it is…

Somewhere Over the Rainbow…Claire turned 3!

the birthday girl

the spread

the candles being blown out

the cake (yes, this took quite a long time!)

enjoying every last bite

her favorite part, presents!

Jane turned one and we had a great carnival party to celebrate the occasion.

the spread

the cake & candle

this girl has a bottomless stomach and a sweet tooth, she ate almost the entire cake!

presents!

carnival games, we had to have them in the garage due to high winds and a threatening storm

Lots of fun, but I am secretly glad I have almost a year until the next birthday parties.

Here are some cute pics of Jane recently:

Farewell to the Husker State

2010-06-01T17:14:00.001-07:00

Even though we have only been in Nebraska for a short time, I have been reminiscing about all things that have happened in our lives the last two years:

Claire had her first birthday
Claire took her first steps
Claire lost her first three teeth in a chair climbing accident (one of which was never found, so will be forever somewhere here in Nebraska!)
First time I have ever been in a small LDS branch
First and hopefully last full kitchen remodel
Jane was born at home, delivered by Jake (first and hopefully last!).
Jane’s whole life so far has been here- learning to roll, crawl, stand up, etc.

Things I will miss about Nebraska:

Living in a small town where we can walk to the grocery store, post office, park, downtown, etc. and Jake can ride his bike to work and come home for lunch everyday.
Never being caught in traffic.
All the great people in the Columbus Branch.
Sitting on our front porch swing at night in the summer and watching the fireflies.
Claire and I watching the squirrels, bunnies, and cardinals out our window.
Not watering our grass once last year.
Low cost of living.

Things we have learned about Nebraskans and/or people from Columbus:

They have supper here, not dinner.
They say “yet” a lot (such as, “We are helping other customers yet”).
Jake’s work was known as “BDs” instead of just BD.
We have never seen such loyalty to a football team, most houses have some kind of Husker symbol in the front yard, on game days everyone is wearing a husker shirt and the games are broadcast over the intercom at the store.

So long to the midwest and everyone we have gotten to know here, we will miss you!

Jane conquers the slide

2010-05-28T07:41:00.001-07:00

Jane can now make it all the way to the top of the slide. She is obsessed with going on it and if I take my eyes off her for one second she is up on it again!

Growing up too fast

2010-04-22T15:13:00.001-07:00

I can’t believe Jane is almost 9 months old and Claire will be three the end of June, where does the time go? Jane is very attached to me right now. I have permanent wrinkles on the skin of my left forearm from holding her so much. But I guess I should cherish the fact that she wants to be with me all the time, before I know it she will be a teenager and won’t want anything to do with me.

Yesterday I took this snapshot of Jane. She hasn’t totally mastered crawling yet, but she has decided to start climbing up things (are we going to have to take another child to the ER with knocked out teeth??).

Jake started building a white picket fence the end of last summer. The whole reason we decided to build it was to keep Claire contained in the backyard (that girl can run fast if she wants to!). He started building it with his dad and mom when they came the beginning of August after Jane was born. Needless to say, with a newborn and other things going on, we didn’t complete it before winter hit. The other night as Jake was literally attaching the last of the pickets to complete the fence, Claire reached her hand through the pickets on the gate, unlatched it, and escaped! Aren’t we glad we spent all that money and time to finish this fence and now we are just moving back to Utah? Our precious little Claire….

So innocent looking too!

My cute girls

2010-04-01T11:15:00.001-07:00

We are all so excited that the weather has warmed up, it makes such a difference to get outside! Claire picked out a swimsuit online and it came in the mail the other day. She had to wear it the rest of the day, even though it was still cold.

That same day, I took a picture of Jane, who looks like Ralphy on the Christmas Story (swimsuits and snowsuits on the same day!).

Jane is growing up so fast. She is crawling around a little (a combo of army crawling and up on her knees), is getting her second tooth, and is sitting up better.

Is spring here yet?

2010-03-10T06:40:00.001-08:00

We are all getting a little stir crazy here. Luckily we had our first break in the weather last week and actually got out for a walk—50 degrees felt absolutely balmy. The snow drifts we have been staring at since Christmas are finally melted!

Here are some recent photos. The first is of Jane rolling. She is our rolling master and can get across the room in nothing flat. She is now starting to figure out how to crawl and can inchworm herself to toys.

These next photos document Claire’s recent bloody nose from an accident on her slide. She started freaking out when she saw the blood and all the kicking and screaming got the blood everywhere. Our bathroom looked like a scene from a horror movie:

After she finally calmed down, I asked her to smile for the camera (notice the blood smeared all over her face!):

Terrible Twos?

2010-02-02T12:10:00.001-08:00

Claire is now 2 1/2 and some days I am not sure if I will make it through the “terrible twos”. I have been wondering if all 2 year olds throw a fit (yelling, screaming, kicking, running away, etc) for everything or if it is just her. Claire throws a fit 85-90% of the time for the following:

Getting into her chair for breakfast, lunch, & dinner (she never wants to eat a meal, she only wants “nummy treats”)
Brushing teeth
Washing hair
Getting out of the bathtub (even when she has turned completely blue)
Brushing hair (don’t even think about making it look cute)
Getting dressed and undressed
Getting her coat, hat, & gloves on
Putting lotion on her face
Wiping her nose
Turning off the TV
Going to bed
Getting her diaper changed (especially bad)
And other inexplicable reasons

Things she is always willing to do include:

Eating candy or gum
Watching Curious George

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? I have heard that the “threes” are worse than the “terrible twos”, if so, please let me know and we will consider a family of four sufficient!

“The Road Series” by Claire Allen

2010-01-26T18:12:00.000-08:00

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We have discovered that Claire’s artistic style is of the linear nature. She calls them “roads”, several of which are built each day. I am currently consulting with my brother Jordan, who is studying to be a psychologist, to make sure her art form is not an indication of OCD!

And here is a cute picture of Jane:

Halloween 2009

2009-11-05T13:51:00.000-08:00

Claire as a butterfly. She loved going trick-or-treating with Dad. The first door they went to Claire walked right inside the house when they opened the door (luckily it was a neighbor we knew). She quickly caught on that you just ring the door bell, say "Trick-or-Treat", get some candy, and then leave. After she went to bed we hid her candy from her hoping she would somehow forget about it. The first thing she said when she woke up was, "where is my blue pumpkin?".

Jane as a happy peanut.

New pics of kids

2009-09-30T18:03:00.000-07:00

Here are some more recent pictures of Jane:

Blessing dress pictures:

Binky addict?:

Jane Allen: Special Delivery

2009-08-10T06:32:00.000-07:00

Jane Allen arrived two weeks early on August 8th at around 2:10 am in our upstairs bathroom with Jake stepping in to deliver her. Needless to say, her birth did not go as planned! My water broke Friday evening and I decided to stay home, rest a little, and then get my contractions going before going to the hospital.

The general rule of thumb on going to the hospital is when your contractions are around 5 minutes apart consistently for about an hour. So, we were waiting for my contractions to get in a good pattern and then we would drive the short distance to the hospital. By 2 am my contractions were intense, but were only around 6 minutes apart. All of a sudden I felt like I needed to push and could tell the baby was coming. Jake called 911 and they talked him through the process to help little Jane into the world. The 911 operator came to visit me at the hospital and said that Jake deserves an award because he was so calm and did such a great job (especially considering that a few weeks before I asked him if he wanted to cut the umbilical cord and he wasn't sure he was that interested!).

We are so blessed that Jane was in perfect health with no complications. Paramedics arrived less than 5 minutes after she was born and then we were rushed to the hospital. She weighed in at 5 lbs 14 ounces and 19 inches long. We are now "back" home and trying to adjust to life with our special little delivery.

Proud big sister Claire with mom and baby.

By the way, Jake's shirt is not wet from the delivery but from a wet towel someone put around his neck.

2009-07-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

We installed our concrete countertop in our kitchen a couple of months ago and I wanted to show everyone what it looks like. I started it in April and finally completed the project in June. Luckily it didn't take any longer because I don't know how much longer the tablecloth-covered plywood countertop would have lasted. Mandy was patching things up with duct tape on a daily basis.

I started by building a temporary table using cheap saw horses and 2x4's. Then I made a water-tight melamine mold on top of the table. Imagine a remesh and rebar grid suspended in the mold (I forgot to take a picture of it).

The next picture shows a couple of smaller molds. One for a small section in the kitchen and the other for the bathroom countertop.

After the mold was complete it was time to pour the cement. We borrowed a cement mixer from a farmer in our branch and got to work mixing about 16 80-lb bags of cement and additives. It took Mandy and I about 9 hours, with no breaks, to get the cement poured, vibrate all the bubbles out and screed the wet cement. I almost wet my underpants.

After about 10 days I took the mold apart, flipped the pieces over and started polishing the top surface using a wet grinder. I put on a few coats of sealant and then had some friends help me carry the three large pieces into the kitchen. The pieces weighed between 200 and 400 lbs so it took three guys to lift them.

I just hope the floor is strong enough to hold everything up.

I still need to finish the backsplash and trim and then we should be done with the kitchen.

Black Hills Trip over Memorial

2009-06-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

We climbed only one route in the Black Hills, but when Jake started up the wall, Claire said, "I climb too" and immediately started free soloing. I spotted her as high as I could, but she threw a tantrum because she couldn't go all the way up to the top with dad. We need to move closer to some rocks and get this girl climbing (and us too!).

The family at Mt. Rushmore.

Chad & Brenna Kimber and Jake on our hike. Not the best picture, but the only one with all three.

Claire and her best friend Lydia. Sadly, Lydia has moved to Utah!

This is what Claire did when I asked her to smile (beautiful toothless grin!)

Easter Pics

2009-05-08T15:11:00.001-07:00

This sums up how Claire felt about getting her picture taken in her Easter dress.

Yes, this was the best shot I could get!

Hill Billy Claire

2009-02-17T09:08:00.000-08:00

A few Saturdays ago we had our first (and probably not last) trip to the emergency room with Claire. She was climbing up the back of a dining chair and then fell backwards and it hit her square in the mouth. She lost three teeth (her two front/top ones and one next to it). After visiting the pediatric dentist he informed me that because she lost them so early, her permanent teeth will not come in until she is 8 or 9 years old! She is fully recovered, but I think I will be in mourning for quite sometime...I guess at least she is on her way to becoming an excellent rock climber!

Happy Halloween

2008-11-03T08:41:00.000-08:00

Fiesty kitty-cat

2008-11-03T07:54:00.000-08:00

Needless to say, Claire wasn't in the best mood

on Halloween

Binky

2008-09-29T20:18:00.000-07:00

We have conditioned Claire to take out her binky when we say, "You don't need that binky!"

Taking a walk

2008-09-29T19:56:00.000-07:00

Claire loves being outside

Playing dress up

2008-09-29T17:57:00.000-07:00

Baby food jar lid

2008-09-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

Claire walking

2008-08-12T17:41:00.000-07:00

Claire crawling

2008-08-12T17:16:00.000-07:00

Claire crawls on her knuckles when she is on carpet: