Allen Family Adventures

This is T checking in with everyone.  We have made it halfway through break, and yes I said made it.  I understand why mom would always want us kids back in school after awhile.  Lizzy and KT are energetic, but I need them to keep learning.  Oh well, I still love them.  Christmas is over and we spent it as a family.  We are working are finishing up some painting in the house and putting in flooring/a shower and countertops over the next month.  It finally hit we will probably be moving in 13-15 months based on the times from the past assignments FAIPs have gotten out of here.  I am excited to find out what the next phase of life holds, but still love the south and have gotten comfortable down here.  All is well though.  We want to wish you all  a Happy New Year and pray your lives are twice blessed as they were this past year.

So I think we finally found a breed of dog that suits our family.    We just got a Dachshund puppy last week.  She's now about 8 weeks old and weighs about 2.5 lbs.  The only dogs we had when I was growing up were outside pets. T had several dogs and cats over his childhood. They were inside pets and part of the family.  I think the reason this kind of dog works for us is more because it works for me.  Rosemary has short hair so I don't have to worry about pet hair all over everything.  And she won't get very big so hopefully she won't be able to get up on the couches without help.  This works for me.  Plus she doesn't require large amounts of food which is always good too.  The kids have really taken to her and she has taken to them and me in particular.  Her favorite spot is to be curled up in my lap which I don't mind terribly.

T took a couple days off after Thanksgiving so that we could paint our bonus room.  I think we were both tired of the tannish/brownish/slightly yellowish color of paint that was actually throughout the house.  We'd already painted the kids' rooms. I'd done the master bedroom with an HGTV inspired paint job and we put a nice "Milk Chocolate" paint color in the living room.  We still had the bonus room and kitchen as well as the bathrooms.  Once that is done, we will be finished with the updates.  We painted the walls in the bonus room a couple weeks ago, but finally decided to bite the bullet and do all the shelves and cabinets.  After two days of painting off and on we have most of it done.  I still have to touch up the edges of the cabinet doors as well as do the trim around the ceiling, floors and windows.  But...once that is done, the painting will be all done.  We even spray painted the hardware so that we could save a lot of money.  I think it looks great and will be even better when it's all finished.  That will leave the kitchen and bathrooms to do.  And...before we leave (and not until we are going to be leaving) we will take the carpet out of the living room and kids' bedrooms and refinish the hardwood floors.  But that won't be for a while.  I will be glad when it is all done though.

So this year we put Lizzy in soccer up on base.  T and a friend of ours coached the team with a couple of assistant coaches.  There's about 8 kids on a team ranging from 5-7 years old.  Lizzy is one of two girls on her team.  They have a lot of fun with practice and then "games."  The games consist of 8 minute quarters with a drink break between the quarters and a 5 minute halftime.  The coaches are the refs.  There is no score kept so that it can be kept fun.  Of course they all remember who scores.  The first game a little girl got a ball to the face.  She cried and sat out for a bit.  About 5 minutes later Lizzy got a ball to the face.  Of course my tough girl whined a little, but stayed in the game and played.  During one of the other games she was the goalie and blocked an attempted goal.  Next week is the end of the season.  They had fun, but I'm glad it's almost done.  Yeah.  Here's a couple pics from the games.  Go Mudbugs!

We had a great Halloween party at our church.  This is the first year that T and I dressed up.  I felt like a complete idiot, but it was also fun to just do something different.  There were several things to do at the party.  First of course we had a chili and pie cook-off.  T's chili didn't place in the top three (even though it's the best), his pie didn't either...but my Fluffy Strawberry Pie took second place.  After eating we had a few contests.  First was a pumpkin carving contest which we only had 5 minutes to carve.  We followed a pattern and the guys did a great job for being in a hurry.  My hands were dirty so I never got pictures from that.  Then the kids had a jello drinking contest.  They had to drink the jello with a straw.  Of course some of the teenage boys had to have their own contest with the leftover jello.  Then they had a pie eating contest.  They had small pudding pies for the adults who were brave.  There was no hands allowed at all.  T barely finished second.  I think I was the fastest female though (or at least one of the top ones).  Then of course the typical trunk-or-treat.  We decided to just leave it at that and not go to base where we would have scored big.  My kids are still little enough to not care that much.  All in all it was a fun night.

So...the Tooth Fairy was on stand-by during the month of Septemember.  In this case the tooth came before the Tooth Fairy needed to be summoned.  Lizzy was complaining that a tooth was wiggly.  I checked and discovered that she had a tooth that had already surfaced before her baby tooth fell out.  Needless to say we finally had to summon the Tooth Fairy in October.  First on the 11th and then again on the 15th.  I never thought I would be like my dad when it came to teeth.  I hated when my dad would put a string around the tooth and yank it.  It's probably terrible of me to admit, but I found enjoyment in trying to yank out Lizzy's tooth.  I now understand why my dad did it to us kids...both for the pleasure and then also just to get us to stop complaining about having a loose tooth.  Three weeks of hearing about the "loosen tooth" was driving me up the wall.  So...needless to say when they were just barely hanging on, I tied a string and yanked.  A couple weeks later I also discovered that she had her first molar come in as well.  Three new teeth down...I don't know how many more to go.

The rest of the summer was pretty uneventful.  We had a really relaxing 4th of July (mostly because Katie doesn't like noisy fireworks).  So...we mostly bought the cheapy, quiet fireworks.  We did buy a couple fountains and Katie did ok with them.  She still tries to hide her face. 
Here in Columbus school starts the first Wednesday in August.  So the end of July brought getting ready for school.  This year Lizzy started Kindergarten and Katie was able to go to the Pre-K program.  The best thing about the pre-K program at the school is that it is free and is only 20 minutes shorter than the rest of the school which means that I just have Junior at home.  I was a little worried that he would want to be entertained all the time, but I think he is basking in the time that he doesn't have to fight to get a toy.  Plus he gets to pick any movies that he watches.  Also he gets to have Mommy all to himself.  Lastly, he gets to go with Mommy to have lunch with Daddy on occasion.  I know he loves it because the minute I tell him to get his shoes on (even if it's still during the morning), he says, "No go get Lizzy and Katie."  He was sad that he didn't get to go to school himself...but I think he has recognized the benefits of being at home. 

Lizzy of course is absolutely loving school.  She is well above average.  The only trouble that she has at school is that she tries to help everyone because she already knows how to do it.  She is picking up on everything really quickly.  They are doing math and everything.  I remember going through Kindergarten and you only had to know your colors, shapes, letters and numbers.  I think you also had to be able to color inside the lines.  Now they are reading in pre-k.  Lizzy decided that she wanted to read Harry Potter with me.  She'll read a few pages and then I will read a few pages.  She really only needs a little help (mostly with the British slang).

Katie is slowly coming out of her shell.  She talks a little more and is a little clearer with her words.  She still would rather just not talk, but she's getting better.  I can tell that she is beginning to want to read because she is pretending to say words as she points to the individual words in a book.  She does bring her little books home and read them to us (I think mostly from memory though).  She suprised me one day when she spelled October.  I think they repeat the spelling of the month every morning.  But...even though it's from memory, she can spell September, October, November and December.  She can sing most of the color songs as well.  She did have an advantage on that since she'd been hearing them for a year from Lizzy.  All in all, I am very pleased with her progress in pre-k.  The best part is that she loves it.