Number Three

Baby number 3 is on the way! Due June 13th. I went in for my 12 week check-up today and was able to hear the heartbeat for the first time. That's the sweetest sound in the world, and makes all the nausea worth it. I've been WAY more sick with this pregnancy than with my last two. Kyle thinks that means it's a girl, but I think every baby is just different, so we will see. My ultrasound should be around the end of January, and that actually seems really soon to me. Girl babies do seem to be in the water around here, though. We live in an apartment complex that is mostly young couples, so everybody seems to either be pregnant or they had a baby within the last year. And only one of those people had a boy, everyone else had girls. So maybe that makes our odds of having a girl higher. ;) I actually really enjoy having boys, growing up it was always easier for me to hang out with boys rather than girls. I'm not much into all that female drama. I would be really happy with a little girl though, it would be fun to have that different personality in our family, and Gage keeps saying he wants a sister. Either way, we are just excited to welcome another child into our home. :)

I'm actually going to a midwife clinic this time. With Parker, I had a regular doctor but I think I only saw him at maybe three of my appointments. The rest of the time I met with his LPN or Physician's Assistant. And then Parker came so fast that the doctor didn't even make it to the delivery. There was a doctor on call, but she actually let the nurses deliver Parker. So, I thought I'd try midwives this time. At least they will actually be at my appointments and take some time to talk to me. And they will let me do the delivery my own way. My sister had a midwife with her last baby and she said it was a lot nicer being able to walk around, get in a hot shower, and use a big medicine ball rather than laying in a bed for hours with a needle stuck in your back. I want to try to have this one naturally. There wasn't time for pain killers with Parker, and I actually felt a lot better after the delivery than I did after Gage's delivery. I guess it depends on how long my labor is, but knowing that I did it naturally with Parker gives me a little more courage.

Anyway, we are excited and I thought it was about time I let everybody know!!

Turkey Day

We had a fun Thanksgiving at Kyle's parents this year. We ate lots of food, watched lots of TV, and even had the chance to go see New Moon. ;) I resisted the urge and didn't go shopping on Friday, so good for me! There wasn't really anything I wanted enough to fight the crowds for anyway.

Sawyer trying to climb up Gage.

Gage loves to wear these old shop glasses that his Grandpa used in school. He calls them racing glasses.

Parker LOVED the pie. He wanted to eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He especially loved the homemade whipped cream.

This was his favorite Christmas decoration. It plays music and blows snow, and he likes to make it go over and over and over again.

A cute little Parker pose.

Watching football with my sweetie. We hardly ever watch sports, but it was actually kind of fun. Kyle's parents got a new flat screen TV, which is super nice and big, so that was cool. :) We had a fun weekend!

Happy Birthday to my Sweetie!

Today is my Sweetheart's birthday. I'm so grateful to have such a wonderful husband. He's an amazing father, and I know that Parker and Gage just love him to pieces. He's so supportive of me, and he works so hard to take care of our family and to make sure that we are doing all the important things we need to do to stay close to the Savior and to teach our children the gospel.

We really celebrated yesterday, when we went shopping, bowling and out to dinner. Today was a nice day too, just a little more laid back since it was Sunday.

Kyle got a new pair of shoes, and he keeps smelling them. ;) They are actually crocs, but look way cooler than the classic crocs. They have that funny rubber/plastic croc smell though.

My handsome Sunday boys!

Weekend in Ogden

Last weekend we went up to Ogden. Kyle's parents bought him tickets to go see Chanticleer for his birthday, and the concert was on Saturday. We had a fun weekend with family!

Kyle's parents wanted to get some pictures with the grandkids for their Christmas card. Kyle was taking pictures with their camera, so they're looking at him. ;)

This one is cute. They definitely have some adorable grandsons!!

Kyle taking the boys for a wheelbarrow ride.

Parker was tired of smiling for pictures by this point.

Sawyer and Grandma swinging.

We got to see a lot of Sawyer while we were there and that was fun. He's interacting more with us now, and is such a sweet little guy. You can tell he is anxious to run around and play. He'll be super happy when he starts walking!

There is just something about boxes that makes them SO much fun.

Kyle's parent's got a new shed, so they had some big boxes that they taped together to make a train. I didn't get a picture of the big train, but the boys had a lot of fun playing in it.

Such a funny Sawyer face! He was trying to taste the leaves and I kept saying "no" and he was like "Why not?! They're so yummy!" :)

We decided to go formal for the concert. I told Kyle that no one else would be dressed that nice, and he thought there would be at least a few other people...well, he was wrong! I'm pretty sure we were the only people (besides Chanticleer) that were dressed in formal attire. The last time Kyle went to a Chanticleer concert was at Abravanel Hall. I can imagine people going formal for a concert there, but this time they performed at Weber State, and most people aren't going to dress up for a show at a University. We had fun though. We never have a reason to dress up anymore, so it was fun to get all fancy and I think I enjoyed the concert even more because I was dressed up! After we left the theatre, some people on campus asked us if we were in a choir concert that night. lol. It's actually kind of sad that nobody dresses up for the theatre anymore...

We had dinner at Rickenbacker's, which was super good. Our waitress was great at first, and even offered to take our picture. But at the end of our meal she kind of forgot about us. It took forever to get our dessert, and then forever to get our check, and then I think it was 15 minutes before she brought back our card. So we could have left the restaurant probably a half an hour earlier. That's my only complaint. The food and atmosphere was great though!

This is Kyle with one of the members of Chanticleer, Eric Alatorre. He has an amazingly deep voice and an awesome mustache. He joked in his bio that he joined the group in the last century. I think Chanticleer started in the 70's, but most of the current members have only been around for less than 10 years. Kyle has been a fan of Chanticleer for a long time, so he was excited to see the show and to meet Eric.

We had a great date. It was a fun gift for a birthday. We are trying to have our gifts be things to do, rather than things that will clutter up our tiny apartment, and we are loving it. It's fun to go and do things we normally wouldn't be able to do, and to make fun memories.

Speaking of small living space, we are reducing our toy collection because we just have too much stuff and there is no room. So if any of you are interested in some Thomas Trains (we are keeping some of them, just not our whole giant collection) let me know. We are getting rid of a bunch of other random stuff, but Thomas is the only cool toys we are getting rid of. ;)

Halloween: Allred Style

We love Halloween, but we don't really love candy. We've been trying to eat healthy for a while but this year we have been making an extra effort. So we tried to do Halloween a little different this year. First we carved pumpkins, like normal:

Gage got a giant pumpkin from Kyle's parents garden. He did a lot of the work himself, cleaning out the pumpkin and he also did most of the carving by himself.

Parker tried to help clean the pumpkins too, but didn't get much accomplished.

Here's our pumpkins! Mine is on the left. If you read my blog you know that I make that face a lot, so i thought it was funny, and it was in the pattern book which is how I like to do things. Kyle on the other hand likes to create his own faces. The second pumpkin is Gage's, which he drew the face for and carved by himself. A few times we had to help him cut through the pumpkin because it was so thick, but that was all. The one on top is Kyle's pumpkin. He doesn't have a stem, so Kyle said it was bald. So his pumpkin is a bald guy, looking up at his bald head. The last one is Parker's pumpkin, which Kyle also carved.

On Halloween we went to a "Healthy Trunk-or-Treat" with a group of homeschoolers. Gage was Bumblebee from Transformers Animated, and Parker was a ninja.

We ended up ordering Gage's costume online because all the stores only had the movie Bumblebee and Gage really wanted the animated one.

Each car had a game for the kids to play, so we brought our trusty magnetic dart board. It seemed to be a hit, and a lot of the kids came back to play again. We gave out honey and peanut butter popcorn balls. It was hard to decide what to do because everybody has a different definition of "healthy". Some people don't think peanut butter is healthy, and some people don't think honey is either. But that's what we did, and we only had a couple of kids say "no thanks", so I guess it was a success.

The recipe is really easy. You just pop 10 cups of corn, and put it in 9x13 baking pan in the oven on 250 degrees. That keeps the popcorn warm. Then you boil 1/2 cup honey in a pot over medium heat, let it boil for a couple of minutes and then turn the heat down and add 1/2 cup peanut butter. Stir until smooth and then drizzle over the warm popcorn and mix to get it all coated evenly. We made it into popcorn balls for the activity, but usually we just eat it right out of the pan. It tastes great and is way healthier than caramel corn!

Parker wanted to stay with me at the truck, so he didn't really go around to any cars, but he did have fun playing basketball at the car next to us!

Gage had fun playing all the games and he enjoyed his prizes. He got an apple, a kiwi, a healthy cookie, an organic sucker (not sure that is really healthy - sugar is sugar even if it is organic...) and fruit leather. Some people also gave out non-food items like play-doh, pencils, erasers, balloons, and fake tattoos. So this was a fun way for the kids to still dress up, but not end up with loads of candy. However, we still ended up with loads of candy. Here's what happened:

Gage has been trying to fill up some candy jars, to earn a new toy. We made a deal with him a while ago that if he could fill up two jars with candy that he doesn't eat then we would get him a transformer. So on Halloween night we asked him if he wanted to go trick-or-treating and try to fill up his candy jar, or if he wanted to just stay home and watch a Halloween movie. At first he said he wanted to watch a movie, but then we had some trick-or-treaters show up at our door and they were all excited and happy and that made Gage change his mind. So we went trick or treating to a neighborhood by our church. Gage ended up with a lot of candy. We told him he could pick out what he wanted and he could put as much in the candy jars as he wanted. (We try to help him make good choices, but we don't want him to ever feel like he is being forced to do something he doesn't want to do, because I think that defeats the whole purpose.) So, he chose four, yes FOUR, pieces of candy and said that he wanted to put the rest of the candy in the jars. He had more than enough to get a new Transformer so we took him to the store right away and let him pick out a new toy.

So now we had a ton of candy and I wasn't really sure what to do with all of it. Luckily I saw an article in the newspaper saying that a local dentist was going to "buy back" candy on Monday. Depending on how much candy you brought in, you got a certain amount of raffle tickets to enter for different prizes. The candy was donated to Operation Gratitude, an organization that puts together care packages for soldiers. Gage had 5 pounds of candy! (Some of it was candy he'd already been saving through out the year.) He entered his tickets for a bunch of items (they even had a Wii and an ipod, but most of the items were less expensive toys). I told him that it didn't matter if he won anything because he already got a new Transformer. I was just happy that I had something good to do with the candy besides throw it away. He ended up winning a puzzle though, so that is cool. Gage still had a fun Halloween, and we don't have tons of candy in the house (which I would inevitably eat), so that makes me happy.

Fun at Cornbelly's

Last week we went out to Cornbelly's. Last year I went with the homeschool group, but Kyle wasn't able to go. So I wanted him to come this year, because I knew he would enjoy it. We all had a lot of fun!

They had a 3D fun house that was kind of cool, but it was scary to the boys. We had gone inside "The Creature" right before and even though it wasn't haunted during the day it was still making a bunch of loud scary noises and it was dark inside. So they thought the fun house was scary too because it was dark inside, so we waited outside while Kyle finished going through the fun house.

The boys both wore their Halloween shirts that Kyle's parents gave them.

They had a bunch of slides, but this one wasn't very fun. It was hard to go down and the tubes didn't really turn like they were supposed to.

Our cute family. Poor Parker is a girl. ;)

Playing on the jumping pillow. Parker thought it was really fun, and he kept laughing.

This is such a cute picture, but it's blurry. That makes me sad.

Gage loved bouncing all over on the pillows and falling down too!

Parker got tired of jumping and just wanted to sit and watch everyone else.

Gage trying to lasso a bull.

This was Kyle and Gage's favorite thing to do.

They had big bikes for the grown ups, too - or maybe they're meant for the older kids. ;) Kyle had a lot of fun, though.

He even talked me into taking a few laps around the track.

Gage is the train conductor!

And Parker is a passenger.

My boys inside the kiddie corn maze.

We had a lot of fun. It's way cheaper to go with the homeschool group, because they get the field trip prices, so I might do that again next year. We had some coupons though, so it wasn't too expensive and I think it was worth the money. The boys could have stayed all day going down the slides, riding the bikes, and jumping on the pillow. I think it's a fun fall tradition!

A Way Back to Then

Last weekend we got to go up to Wyoming and help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the college we went too. One of our friends put together a musical theatre review for the alumni to be in, and luckily we were able to be in it! I wish I had taken more pictures, because we saw a lot of old friends, but we were super busy so I didn't think about pictures very often. Most of the review was solos or duets, but there were some group numbers that we had to stage the morning of the show. We had dress rehearsal right before the show, and that whole day was super busy. It actually turned out really well for how little time we had to prepare.

Nate and Kyle are silly... :)

This is Emily holding Parker. Kyle and I taught Emily when we were in summer stock and did the children's theater. Emily is all grown up now, and is an alumni too! It was fun to see her. :)

Kyle and Brian

Me and Kyle after the show.

Me and Annalee. Annalee sang Strongest Suit from Aida, and she was nice enough to ask me to be one of her back-up dancers, even though I haven't performed in six years! It was actually really fun to be on stage and dance again.

Me and Nicole. She didn't go to Western, but someone dropped out at the last minute, so she filled in and sang a song with her husband - and did a fantastic job!

They had a cast party after the show, it was fun to meet some of the other alumni, and to hang out with our old friends.

With Jamie, our old theatre professor!

Me and Emily. Emily sang the song "A Way Back to Then", which ended up being the title of our musical review. It's from a show called [title of show], and really fit the theme of our show. You should check out the song on YouTube.

The next day we played at the mall, went to the thrift store and ate at some of our favorite restaurants. We got to stay the rest of the weekend, because the A Capella group was going to perform on Saturday. Kyle was part of the original A Capella 5.1 that the college had, so the old group got together and performed in the show and got to perform at a banquet the school held also.

On Saturday the school had a family event with a bunch of games for the kids to play. Gage did pretty well at Twister. ;)

He also got this cool guitar.

We always loved the thrift stores in Rock Springs. There is always cool stuff, and the prices are super cheap. Kyle found this retro suit for 5 bucks and wore it to their performance at the banquet. I wasn't able to go to that performance because it was late and for adults, so I stayed home and got the kids to bed early for the only time on our trip.

We had a blast in Wyoming! It was fun to go to all our favorite restaurants, relive the memories, and see some old friends. It was still super windy, dry and cold though - just like the Wyoming we remembered. :)

Look Who's Two!

Parker turned two last week! We decided to have a basketball theme, because he loves to play with any kind of ball, and he calls them all basketballs. Except he says it bee-k-a-ball. It's cute.

Gage gave Parker a hummer car for his present. Parker said "woah!" when he saw it, and made some awesome faces while he drove the hummer around.

Parker picked out these pajamas at the store. He loves doggies.

We gave him a golf set. I had a hard time figuring out what to get him. We already have way too much stuff, and there really wasn't anything that he needed. Both boys are having a lot of fun with the golf set though!

Parker loved the balloons, especially the basketball balloon.

This is just a funny face he made during breakfast.

We went to the park and visited the ducks - he loves ducks, and pretty much every other animal.

Parker has started talking a lot more lately. If he wants to hold my hand he'll say "hand", and his voice is just so cute.

We had fun at the park, going down slides and running around. We even found a happy birthday balloon, that sang happy birthday, so that was exciting.

Kyle was teasing Parker on the swing and grabbing his legs, Parker thought it was hilarious.

Gage wanted to play tag, so we did a lot of running around.

Parker loves swings! He would seriously swing forever if we let him. He does this cute thing where he kicks his legs when the swing starts to slow down, so that is what the video is.

Gage looks so happy to be getting a picture with his mom...

We had lunch at the Sizzler. That's a pretty big hamburger for a little guy. :)

Parker ate his ice cream cone backwards. He actually wasn't even interested in the ice cream. Amazingly, the ice cream didn't fall out until he was almost done with the cone.

Kyle tied all the balloons to Gage, and they both thought that was pretty funny.

Kyle decorated a basketball cake for Parker. Parker blew out the candle all by himself!

He had a good time eating cake and ice cream, but he definitely didn't get as messy as last year!

Such a cutie!

I think that Parker had a fun day. We tried to do the things that he likes most: visiting animals, playing with a ball, going to the park, and eating. :) The past two years have gone by so fast. Parker has always been such a fun boy. From the day he was born he has brought so much joy into our family. I'm so grateful to have such a sweet little guy!

World of Speed

Last week our branch had a pinewood derby. We only have 5 cub scouts, so they let everybody bring cars and race them. Kyle planned ahead this time and worked on the car for quite a while. Gage helped paint it, and he wanted stripes all over the place, so I taped it and he would paint the stripes on. The car was faster than the one we made last year, but it was a little wobbly for some reason. Maybe by the time Gage is a cub scout we'll know what we're doing. ;)

Kyle's mom had her birthday last weekend, and she wanted to go to the World of Speed out at the Salt Flats. They were going to take Gage with them for the weekend, but Kyle didn't have to work, so we decided to all go. The salt is pretty cool, it looks like ice, so you think it's going to be slippery, but it's not at all.

Parker's birthday is tomorrow, so he got a couple of gifts while we were there. This fire station is from Emily and Jeremy. He loves it and has been playing with it a ton. Gage really likes it too.

We ate dinner at the Peppermill casino in Wendover. Parker was really excited about his cookie! He was actually really hyper and happy that night. It was cute.

Gage was blowing bubbles in his lemonade and Parker was watching him - he thought it was hilarious.

Parker loves the pineapple, too!

I guess he thinks he's a big boy! He didn't want to use his cup that had a lid on it. ;)

Saturday we got up bright and early and headed back out to the Salt Flats.

The World of Speed is and event where all these different classes of vehicles are racing to beat the land speed record, or to get into the different speed clubs (like the 150 club).

This car was pretty cool. Kyle said that it went 331 mph and broke the record for its class. I didn't see the driver, but Judy said that it was a really old guy. So that's awesome! :) It was definitely the fastest car we saw.

Gage got to sit in a couple of the cars, but I wasn't there to take pictures and Judy didn't have the camera with her. He was really excited that he got to sit in a couple cars though!

Parker wasn't quite so happy that day. He kept crying like crazy over the silliest little things. So that kind of put me in a bad mood...

This truck had a HUGE engine.

You definitely need sunglasses! There's white salt everywhere and it is so bright with the sun reflecting off of it. Parker only wore his for about five minutes though. ;)

The salt stuck everywhere! This is the part that makes me not sure it was worth it. lol. I guess it was worse this year because it was more wet, but the salt sticks to everything. Even if you brush it off, it doesn't all go away, and it leaves behind this oily residue. Parker sat down on the salt to play and his whole butt was wet with salt. I took his shorts off to let them dry and they did dry, but they were a crusty, stiff pair of shorts after that. So, it's not the greatest place for kids who don't understand that they can't sit down and play. I should have brought 6 pairs of shorts for him, and then maybe I wouldn't have been so stressed out. After we got home we got a car wash and vacuumed the car out right away, because we didn't want salt all over our house.

Kyle kept saying he wanted to make a snow ball, so he finally did. That would probably hurt if it was thrown at you though...

Gage had a lot of fun and has said multiple times that he loves the World of Speed. He hardly paid attention to the cars though. He spent most of his time coloring in an activity book that Kyle's parents gave him. He told me that he paid attention when I wasn't looking, that made me laugh!

Kyle's parents gave Parker this safari animal play set for his birthday. It got all salty and had to be washed off when we got home, but Parker and Gage have both been playing with it a lot the last couple of days.

So, the World of Speed was fun, but I probably wouldn't recommend taking young kids there. It's just too messy. Or maybe it won't bug you if you are less OCD than me. :) Camping in the dirt didn't bother me, but this salt was way worse than dirt. Gage went last year, so it's probably okay for 4 or older. It's cool to look at the cars and see them driving so fast, though! So I guess it depends on what your priorities are, if you are a car fanatic you probably won't mind the mess.

Battle Creek Falls

Last week Kyle took Gage on a hike up to Battle Creek Falls.

They said there were caterpillars all over the place.

They had super long caterpillar hair!

By the falls.

Gage took this picture, so it's a little blurry.

After the hike to the falls, they wanted to see if there was a way to get up to the G on the mountain in Pleasant Grove. They couldn't find a way, but there was a cool view of Pleasant Grove!