New Toys

For my birthday, and the next few major holidays, Ryan got me a camera I have been eyeing for quite a while! So yesterday I started playing with it and found some pictures I really liked!

These were my two favorites of Leah yesterday.

These were my two faves of Monica yesterday.

The cat makes a surprisingly good subject to practice on, so out of the 50, these are my two faves of the cat!

I was playing with the aperture on this one.

I think it turned out pretty good.

Then this morning I had fun shooting the girls before church.

I loved the succession of Leah's facial expressions!

I was still trying to figure out the focus on the manual setting, just so I knew how to do it.

When they were bigger than the thumbnail on the camera screen, most of the ones of Monica were blurry enough to hurt my eyes a little or she had squinty eyes if they were in focus. I caught this one though, and thought it was so expressive.

After watching the Super Bowl, I showed off my new toy and thought I'd try getting some more practice after some advice from Dad.

Like mother, like daughter...

In beauty, that is!

I thought it was funny that I had just caught Julie digging for gold and then Emily pretended to when I pointed the camera at her.

Monica loves to ham it up!

Finally, out of nearly 300 pictures, these next two are my absolute favorites!

My little beauties!

Coming soon in approximately 9 months...

Baby Allred #3!

Yes, that's right. This was the second test of the day. The first one was one of the cheapies from Walgreens and I wasn't confident that the faint vertical line was really there, so Ryan picked up another one that would be less confusing. It took about 1 minute (the box says it could take up to 3 minutes) for the hourglass to stop turning and VOILA! Let the doctor appointments, uncomfortable proddings, and stretching begin! Because in the end, we'll have a beautiful baby to love on.

I know the chances of having a boy or girl is 50/50, but sometimes the pattern of the male line adds to the fun. Just to make it more interesting, here are the stats on Ryan's family (he lending the XY chromosome and decides it, so my side really doesn't matter, though we can bring it in later for argument's sake). Travis' pattern goes Boy-Girl-Boy-Girl. Jodi's pattern is Boy-Girl-Boy. Kimmie's pattern is Girl-Boy, and Spencer's pattern is Girl-Girl-Boy. With this in mind, we have long since bowed out of the oldest 3's patterns. Which leads us to wonder, will we follow Spencer's pattern or make our own? Now here's where my side comes in. My family has a 3:1 ratio of girls to boys. Not kidding. My mom and dad currently have 8 grandchildren, 6 are girls and 2 are boys. Extend that to aunts, uncles, and cousins and the ratio holds. Matt and Elisha appear to be having a girl, (the ultrasound was not conclusive to a boy) which follows the pattern of my dad and uncles who all had a girl then boy. So let the guessing begin!

Will we keep the ratio in my family going and set our own pattern in Ryan's family and have a girl? Or will we throw off the balance of my family and follow Spencer's pattern after all and have a boy? Vote now! Winners get something super sassy... like bragging rights!

P.S. Just in case you were wondering...we are super excited! YAY!

New Hair Cuts

Over two and half years ago, Granny passed away after battling ovarian cancer. I decided then that I would grow out my hair in her memory. Just before New Year's Monica and I cut off our hair to donate for wigs for cancer patients. I asked Christina if she would do it for us, and she lent her skills to creating these cute 'dos for us. We were both very pleased with the outcome, Monica donating 8" and I had 11" for donation. And one note, Locks of Love still charges for their wigs and Pantene donates them for free. 

Yesterday, Aunty Theresa bleached some highlights for me. Ever since my sister-in-law visited with pink streaked hair, I have been considering going with bold, fun colored highlights. Being February, month of the amethyst, (and well- it's my favorite color anyways) I went with purple highlight for my first try!

I LOVE IT!

So thanks Tina for the cut and Aunty Theresa for the streaks!

Christmas 2009

I'm finally getting caught up on all my pictures from Thanksgiving and Christmas!

This year's Christmas started a little differently. Ryan and I wanted to start a new tradition before the gift opening frenzy began. So we had the girls come to our bed and we read the Christmas story out of Luke. Then we had a family prayer and then ran to the den to open our presents!

The girls started with their stockings. I had to laugh really hard because ever since the first time she saw it on TV, Monica has been asking for "the touching brush" and when she sat on Santa's lap at the mall and told him what she wanted, the "touching brush" was right there on her list! So she was really excited when she pulled it out of her stocking. Santa must have elves who shop the "AS SEEN ON TV" sections of Walmart!

Leah LOVES Spongebob Squarepants. It's the only thing she asks for by name.

So she was pretty stoked to pull a DVD out of her stocking.

These two pictures are another thing I had to laugh at.

Or rather, Ryan had to laugh at.

Every year he tries to trick me into telling him what I got him for his gifts, ever since our first Christmas together when he came out of the bathroom all smug saying, "I know what you got me for Christmas!" He had totally figured out the Craftsman 150-piece tool set. (Honestly, how do you keep something with that many metal pieces from rattling?) So this year Ryan got a movie/entertainment themed gift. The girls gave him "G.I. Joe" and I gave him popcorn and Santa brought him Coke. So whenever he asked me what I got him, I would tell him I got him popcorn or Coke and he never really believed me. So we had to take a picture of him opening his popcorn and Coke! (He also got a year's subscription for online XBOX play if anyone has a hubby that wants to co-op with him...)

Here's another funny. In our nursery at church, Leah LOVES this little hammer toy. So I got her one. Well as soon as she opened it, she didn't want to play with anything else. Ryan would give her unopened gifts and she would push them away. So we finally hid the hammer and shapes when she wasn't looking and then she kept unwrapping. Well, after we were done at our house and went to Nana and Papa's, it turned out that Nana also got a hammer toy! Luckily hers was a wooden one with different colored pegs and Leah was just as enthralled with the wooden one as the plastic one, if not more so!

One of the other things Monica continually asked for was Pixos.

Since she also loves Tinker Bell, she got the Tinker Bell Pixos from Grandma Kathy.

Monica was pretty stoked.

The girls and all their loot! Last Christmas we were sort of, well...broke. So even though the girls were perfectly happy with half as many presents, it still hurt our feelings a little bit that we couldn't give them more. So this year I started early in September because I knew we were going to be pretty broke again, and whenever I saw something I thought one of the girls would like, I would grab it. So little by little we were ready for Christmas and actually felt like we had overdone it just a tad! I have to say I like that feeling a little better than wishing there was more we could do.

I love when you ask a group to smile and get one of these instead! HAHAHA!

No worries, I still love you guys!

But what I love even more is when you ask a group to smile and they try their best to get a good shot in even if your camera is incredibly slow and takes the picture 15 years after you push the button! Thanks Taylors!

So this is worth remembering for years to come. Monica scored some big wants from Nana and Papa this year. The first was an awesome Tinker Bell clubhouse that I'm sure I'll have some pictures to post about later but didn't catch on Christmas. The other was this set of helmet and knee pads! Monica's reaction to the helmet was, in a word, AWESOME! She looked at the helmet and took these really deep, excited breaths and was practically hyperventilating..."It's..it's...it's a..." deep breath, "it's a...(gasping for breath by this time) it's a PRINCESS HELMET!!!!!!"

I think this reaction will be retold over and over because it was stinkin' hilarious!

Me and my mom!

The next day we had another Christmas at Aunty Theresa's.

I thought this pic was so cute of Mikey, Monica and Leah!

Now here's the part where I complain. My pictures, for some reason, are now suddenly not downloading from my camera, even from the same group of pictures. I had some awesome pictures of my aunts and uncles and cousins and now each file is saying "empty". BOO! So I have to play with my camera and hopefully just a setting was changed by a kiddo playing with it and I can get back on track taking pictures. But we had a wonderful Christmas!! Ryan got me a beautiful necklace and a really cool version of David McCullough's 1776. And he got me "Star Trek" with Chris Pine because he knows he is my Hollywood crush. :)

Thanksgiving 2009

I only got two pictures from Thanksgiving. But I think that just means we were having so much fun I didn't even think about taking out my camera. We went out to Ramah to celebrate with Jeff & Jodi and Kris & Lonnie. I also got to spend some time chatting it up with Maressa, which is always a favorite anytime we can squeeze it in. So here are the two pics.

It was during this weekend that Ryan and I were introduced to Canasta. Since then we have become Canasta crazoids. It's a fun game, to be sure, but the most fun of it is good company.

The night before we all left, Leah cuddled with Kris and had a special moment with her. The reason this pic is especially important is because Leah hardly cuddles with anyone but her daddy. So if she lets you cuddle her, you have triumphed in a major way!

Timeout for Conspiracy

The week before Thanksgiving, the girls had their first joint timeout. I thought it was worth documenting. Plus, Leah was so darn cute all itty bitty but plenty big enough to know she shouldn't have been climbing on the sink. Since Monica helped her climb up on top of the sink, she had to do some time too.

Fallen Leaves

On November 13, 2009 I was a motivated mom and raked up as many leaves that had fallen on the grass and made a pile for the girls to jump in. Leah wasn't too sure about it, but Monica dove right in.