Christmas letter

This year I actually did write a little family letter, but failed to get them mailed. I'll post our letter here in hopes that a few of you might read our family update.

Merry Christmas! This year has been a good one for the Allen family, mainly because of the new addition to our family. Joshua was born July 14 and has been a great blessing to our family. With three girls and two little boys, our life is busy and full of activity. Earlier in the year our life was consumed with reorganizing our home to make room for one more child. I even attempted a garage sale for the first time. Despite its success, I don’t know that I’ll be trying that again anytime soon.

We now have an official teenager in our home, although I can’t make many complaints yet. Ashley has eased us into the world of teenagers very graciously and is such a cheerful daughter. She continues to enjoy playing volleyball and has made some good friends this past year. Ashley had so much fun at girls camp last summer that she was sad to come home. I’m getting nervous about entering the stage when friends become more fun than your parents.

Kelsey is not only excited to have another baby in the home, she is requesting that we have 10 more! (which is not going to happen, by the way). Kelsey has such a love for babies and has been waiting for the day that she can start babysitting. After babysitting for my sister recently she made the comment, “My dream finally came true, I was finally able to babysit!” You can imagine how nice it is for us to have a daughter like this in the home.

Kaitlyn was excited to move into a bedroom with her sister this year and finally be part of the “big kids.” After being the youngest for so many years, she is enjoying some of the experiences that come with getting older, including being old enough to go to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert this year. Her excitement doubled when she learned that David Archuleta would be the featured guest in the concert this year. Kaitlyn was also old enough to be baptized this year, which was a wonderful experience. Kaitlyn is a joy in our family.

Justin is often at the center of the laughing that goes on in our home. His cute phrases and funny performances keep us entertained. One of our recent favorites is Justin pretending to play the guitar, stomping his foot, and singing, “Oh my Joshua” (pronounced Jofua). Justin has become a daddy’s boy and loves to play and wrestle with his dad. When he wakes up from naps, his first comment almost always has to do with dad… “Where’s daddy?”, “I want to give daddy a hug”, “Is daddy home?” Scot doesn’t mind a bit and loves the attention from his cute little boy.

Joshua has been a wonderful blessing to our family. Babies bring such love and tender feelings into a home, and we have loved having our sweet little Joshua in our family. We love watching the constant changes with him as he grows, including getting his first two teeth recently.
We are grateful for our family and friends and feel so blessed for all of the experiences we have had. We hope you are all doing well and wish you a very merry Christmas.

Updates

I decided I should put up a few pictures from the past few months, since I have not been keeping this updated. Kaitlyn has been having fun doing gymnastics. When the weather was nice, she could go outside for all of her tumbling moves, but she is now limited to our house. She is often doing back bends off of the couch and is now teaching Justin how to do the splits (which makes me cringe every time).

Kelsey decided to be a scary ghost this year for Halloween. Everyone thought it was a great costume, except for poor Justin who didn't want to get very close to Kelsey. His comment was, "Kelsey, you look kind of scary."

Joshua

I have neglected to keep up on our blog. With a baby who is changing constantly, I need to do better at posting a few pictures from time to time. Here are a few shots of Joshua over the past couple of months. Two of his front teeth have just starting coming in this past week. All he wants for Christmas is his two front teeth.

He didn't wear this costume for long on Halloween, but we still had to get a picture of our cute little bumble bee.

He is now about five months old already. Amazing!

Our growing girl

Well, Ashley finally attempted the dreaded mowing of the lawn, which she was not very excited about. But she successfully mowed the front yard, after some tutoring from her dad. She's a pro!

Our growing boys

Blessing day for Joshua! It was wonderful to have Joshua blessed and to feel the support of our family who was there for this great event.

Joshua enjoys his bouncer chair...

... but Justin seems to enjoy it even more. He has taken it over as his lounge chair.

Joshua doesn't enjoy his car seat as much as Justin did at this age. Justin would have been happy to sleep in the car seat all of the time when he was an infant. I guess Justin is still attached to that car seat.

Day at the lake

We were able to go with a few other families to the lake and enjoy our last Saturday before school started up again. One of the families had a couple of wave runners, which Scot enjoyed taking all of the kids out for rides on. He even got me out there with him. I tried driving one for awhile, but I guess I'm too cautious these days because I actually had more fun holding on for dear life while Scot was driving it.

While waiting for turns out on the water, the kids were not lacking for fun playing on the beach.

Justin was in absolute heaven as he played in the sand to his heart's content.

I had not been planning to go on this outing since we do have a five week old baby. But I decided that maybe Joshua would be okay for a little while, as long as we could hang out in the shade. Joshua was completely content sleeping in his car seat and I ended up staying most of the afternoon. It was wonderful to be outside enjoying this fun day with my family.

One of the rare awake moments Joshua had during the day.


Justin's adorable mud-splattered face.

Singing in the rain

We so seldom get a good downpour of rain, that when this rainstorm hit, the girls decided to make the most of it. It was actually very refreshing to see this much rain.

Ashley really knows how to enjoy life and drink it all in (playing in the rain was her idea)

Kelsey seems a bit dazed by all the rain.

The cold and wet finally got to them and they had to finish off their festivities with some hot chocolate and a warm bath.

Kaitlyn's baptism

Kaitlyn turned 8 on July 15, the same day as her daddy's birthday and the day after our little Joshua was born. We were a few hours away from having three July 15 birthdays. Kaitlyn was excited to be baptized and confirmed by her dad on August 7. There were many family members there to support her on this very special day.

Brothers

Justin has been very excited about baby Joshua and, surprisingly, has not been very jealous of all the attention our new baby receives. He likes to hold Joshua and loves when I hold both of them and say, "I've got my two boys."

Don't worry, the third baby is just a doll, I think five children will do for us.

Welcoming Baby Joshua

Our new baby boy arrived on Wednesday, July 14. Joshua Paul Allen weighed in at 7 pounds, 7 ounces and was 20 inches long. Everything went well with the delivery and Joshua's first few days at home have been filled with gratitude. It is incredible the love that a new baby brings into a home.

Happy and relieved parents!

Justin suddenly seems like a little boy instead of our little baby. He is a sweet big brother.


Can life get any better than five beautiful children?!

Spring projects

Even though we have had a rather cool and wet spring, we have had a few projects going on. Scot, with some help from his dad, built a new swing set for the kids since the old one was falling apart. Justin and his little brother will be needing some outdoor fun as they grow. I guess I should mention that we are expecting a baby boy the middle of July. That explains the impetus for our other projects around the house. We have been moving bedrooms, painting, and sorting through all that "stuff" that can pile up over the years in a home. It has kept us very busy, but the girls are excited about their new bedrooms.

The kids wanted to help Scot build the little picnic table on the new swingset.

Kaitlyn and Justin seem to be working particularly hard.

Of course you have to take breaks for ice cream cones.

The kids are excited to welcome a new baby brother to the family very soon!

Spring Break

We decided to make use of our 3-day spring break by taking a quick trip to warm St. George. Our trip in the fall to Moab with our friends the Holbrooks ended up being successful enough that we decided to try another trip together. It is wonderful that our kids get along so well with their kids. The girls had fun while on this little hike.

The boys did quite well also.

Paul taught all the girls how to skip rocks. Amazingly, no one got hit by a rock.

Justin had fun throwing rocks as well.

Minnesota in February

Justin and I took a quick trip to Minnesota last month so that Justin could provide some excitement for my mom who had been laid up in bed with back problems (she is now doing much better). Not only did he provide comic relief, but he also provided lots of snuggles.

Mom sharing her love of the piano.

Dad enjoyed the attention too.

Ahhhhh.......Minnesota in February!

Update on family

It's time to provide a little update on the Allen family. I guess I should start with Christmas since that's where I last left off (and I don't have many other pictures from the last few months). One of Kaitlyn's favorite presents was her new craft/art kit.
For awhile now Kelsey has been collecting various kinds of scrap material from old clothes, tights, etc. to make things for her dolls. She was thrilled to get this little sewing kit with several new sewing supplies.

It is true that Ashley is fast approaching the teenage world and was in desperate need for an MP3 player.

It's amazing what kind of smiles emerge after getting into a new pair of warm, cozy pajamas!

We decided to encourage our little boy's penchant for playing with balls. I was excited about the basketball hoop for Justin, but I'm still trying to figure out why Santa would have brought him a University of Utah football.

Now if Justin could just grow a little bit.