Allred & Co

Karleeism of the Day

2012-01-25T07:17:00.000-07:00

This happened yesterday right after Karlee's nap.

Karlee: Mom, there are monsters under my bed.
Me: That's impossible since you don't have an "under" your bed.
Karlee: Yeah there are. And they're really nice too!

A Sad Post

2012-01-19T21:02:00.000-07:00

I know I've been a bit of a slacker the last couple of months on the whole blogging realm. In my defense, I had a good excuse. I was pregnant. When I did feel motivated to do anything, blogging wasn't it unfortunately.

Anyways, you may recall back in October when I received the bad news that I would be miscarrying the baby I was carrying for my sister. I never did go into a lot of detail about that. It was one of the scariest times of my life. The day of my ultrasound I got a call from the fertility clinic saying it wasn't a good pregnancy, discontinue all medications, and you might start bleeding in a couple of days. That was it. I had no idea what to expect from a miscarriage. I was so scared. I ended up doing it all naturally and with no pain medications because I didn't know you could use pain medications. Somehow I managed to get through it. I found a doctor here that I really like and they followed me with labs until my hormone levels reached 0.

On December 15th, we found out we were expecting our own baby that would be due in August. I was hesitantly excited. I wasn't sure if I was nervous because of what I just went through, or if I knew something about this pregnancy just wasn't right. I was put on progesterone supplements from the beginning as a precaution from just having a pregnancy loss. My symptoms were all over the place. I would be so nauseated for a few days and then nothing, and then a few days later it would start up. I also had a lot of the same symptoms as Karlee. We did tell our parents before Christmas.

We weren't sure what our due date really was because I have really long cycles so the due date they generally give me is usually off by about 2 weeks. They scheduled me to come in for my first appointment and ultrasound on January 11th. In the ultrasound they found the yolk sac and fetal pole and I was measuring just about 6.5 weeks. No heartbeat. The doctor thought it was very possible that I was only that far along and it might be a little too early to see the heartbeat. She scheduled me to come in for another ultrasound in a week and to have some labwork done. I would have to wait the weekend to get my labwork results back. Luckily we had a trip planned to San Antonio for the weekend so that really helped keep my mind occupied.

I was hopeful, but unsure. We got our results on Monday and all they told me was my numbers had gone up, but not as much as hoped for. I thought them going up was a good sign. This hope kept me going the next couple of days. On Tuesday, Penn and I went and did a temple session at the Dallas temple. This is our first time going since moving here. The feeling I got there was that things would work out for us, but maybe not now.

I dropped Karlee off with my sister-in-law on Wednesday and headed to my appointment. I felt very calm. The ultrasound was probably the fastest ultrasound I've ever had. The ultrasound tech said nothing, but what I saw said everything. There was still no heartbeat. The baby had not grown in the past week and had quit growing just days before my first appointment. I cried. I wanted this baby so much. I wanted to make Karlee a big sister. But I knew that was not the plan for this baby. I feared having to go through a miscarriage again, having this be the second one in 3 months.

My doctor was wonderful through all of this. She gave me options on how to handle the miscarriage. I opted out of the D&C due to my history with scar tissue in my uterus. So I will be going through it all this weekend. I'm grateful I know when it will happen this time and I will have Penn home with me to help with Karlee and myself.

I'm also extremely grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers we've received on our behalf. We feel truly blessed to be in the ward we are in. We had three meals brought to us last night alone and many more texts offering to take Karlee and run errands. It's very hard for me to accept help sometimes.

We will power through this. There will always be a place in my heart for this little one (which Karlee claims was her baby brother). We have confidence that this is just a small trial in our lives and we will get to be parents once again, hopefully soon.

Out with 2011, In with 2012

2012-01-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

All I can say is what a year 2011 was! It was definitely one for the books and full of many ups and many downs. Here's a recap:

Karlee has become quite the little girl. She has progressed from saying a few words to speaking in full sentences, singing full songs (all day long I might add), and carrying on a conversation. She's still a daddy's girl and still a night owl. Now she doesn't talk to herself for hours at night, but will silently have little parties in her bed with her stuffed animals thinking we don't know what she's up to. She is still an awesome sleeper and has never once gotten out of her big girl bed.

Last year our New Year's was spent getting tubes in Karlee's ears. They've definitely worked since before she would get a cold and you could guarantee an ear infection would follow. She's had many colds since, but not a single ear infection. The ear infections weren't the bad part, it was her reaction to the antibiotics that had us all miserable.

Last year was also spent ripping out our flooring in our townhouse and putting in all wood floors on the main floor. Yeah, only got to enjoy those for a few months. This year brought us having to move out of our first home in Layton and moving in with my parents in an effort to sell our house. After having the house on the market for a month and having a lot of problems with our realtor and realizing we didn't want to lose so much money on this house that we've really put a lot of work into, we pulled it off the market and decided to rent it out. We absolutely love our tenant. She always has her rent to us a week early, keeps the place in frankly better condition than we did (we did have a baby in our defense), and is just so wonderful. Here's hoping she doesn't get deployed so she can stay the full 3 years of her assignment at HAFB.

Last year Penn was starting his final semester of school at the University of Utah. He graduated on May 6, 2011. He was also working for Bridgepoint Systems as an intern. The internship was supposed to carry him through til the end of September. Well, on May 27th he was given notice that that would no longer be the case due to some bad business moves and mass layoffs. Since he was an intern, he would have to go. They gave him 2 days of pay and that was it. Fortunately, I had agreed to work for my previous employer to cover some maternity leaves, so we didn't go without. It was hard for me to just leave Karlee, but she got some good time with her daddy.

After a long and arduous job search that consisted of us expanding outside of Utah, Penn was offered a job on July 1st as a Mechanical Engineer for Peterbilt Motors in Denton, TX. Words cannot express how many prayers were answered that day. He started his job on July 25th and lived with my brother for 2 months while I finished my job in Utah. Those were the longest 2 months ever! We were able to go visit over Labor Day and also pick out a house to buy. We decided to buy a house in Little Elm, TX and couldn't be more happy with it. We aren't very far from my brother and absolutely love the ward we are in. We love our house and all the space we have. We have a few projects on the horizon as well. The move out here wasn't nearly as bad as I feared. 22 hours with a 2 year old and a cat would make anyone nervous I think. They both did great and we got almost everything here in one piece.

After moving here, I tried looking for work. I was back and forth on whether I wanted to work again or not. On one hand we wanted to get our student loan debt paid off as quickly as possible. On the other hand I wanted to be able to stay home with Karlee. I was very close to getting a job in Human Resources at the University of North Texas and went through 3 rounds of interviews, but was not offered the job. I took that as my queue that I need to stay home with Karlee. It also means we've gotta stick to a rather tight budget which will be a challenge, but doable I believe. I did sign up for a class to certify to ref youth soccer in the spring so I'm pretty excited to do that to earn some extra cash.

We also went through 2 rounds of IVF in an attempt to be a surrogate for my sister and her husband. I am still sad that it didn't work as we had hoped.

So there's our recap. We've also decided to make some goals for the coming year. We decided to do some physical and spiritual goals.

Penn
Physical: Get our yard all trimmed and fixed up. Paint our pagodas. Build us some storage shelves in the garage.
Spiritual: Attend the temple 6 times this year. Finish reading D&C and read the whole BOM.

Kiersten
Physical: Gain 30-35 pounds and then lose it all. Go on walks and bike rides with Karlee at least 3 times a week.
Spiritual: same as Penn's.

Karlee
Physical: Potty train. Eat more vegetables.
Spiritual: Learn to say own prayer without help. Learn more scripture stories.
Educational: Identify all letters in alphabet. Learn more songs. Learn more numbers.

So that's our goals. I think they're attainable.

Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

2011-12-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

Since we moved here to Texas at the beginning of October, we knew right away that we wouldn't be making the trip back to Utah this year for the holidays. This is the first Christmas I've had away from my parents. I've been feeling a bit homesick this past month with all the festivities going on. Luckily, my brother's family decided to stay here as well.

On Christmas Eve morning, we headed over to my brother's house for delicious belgian waffles, bacon, and fruit. Seriously so good! We stayed and played for a little bit and then headed home for Karlee's nap.

After naptime, we went over to the Winn's house for Christmas Eve dinner with both of the Winn families (they are brothers) and us. Karlee, Jenna and Kenna enjoyed playing with toys and watching Christmas shows while we ate and played games. Dinner was fantastic and we had a lot of fun! Karlee got a cute pig in a teacup from Kenna and a super cute skirt from Jenna.

We made it home in time for Karlee to get to bed so Santa could come. Santa was tired so he came at about 8:00 pm :)

On Christmas morning, we had church at 9:00 am. Karlee is not a morning person and on a normal week we have to wake her up on Sunday so we can make it to church on time. So we went about the morning as usual and told her Santa was going to come while we were at church. She was cool with that. She was actually mad that she didn't get to go to nursery. We also told her it was Jesus' birthday so as we walked in the door to church, she saw a picture of Jesus and yelled "Happy Birthday Jesus!" Our ward choir did the sacrament meeting with a number by the primary and it was so beautiful. We came right home and Karlee wanted to see what she got in her stocking. Santa filled it with stickers, puzzles, flash cards, band aids (the girl loves band aids), and a toy microphone. Karlee spends all day every day singing all the songs she knows, so why not amplify it? :)

Since my sister and her husband and my grandma were at my parents house, we opened presents with them via Skype. There were some moments during the present opening that I really wish we would have gotten video of. The first was when she was opening a present from my parents that was Mickey Mouse Clubhouse figurines, she let out this squeal that had us all rolling. Then while opening all of the presents she kept saying "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!" She also insisted on opening ALL presents. Even mine. Even Penn's. After opening each present, she would ask in the most pitiful voice if we would open it so she could play with it. We had to keep telling her over and over that she could in a little while. When she opened up a coloring book, she was beaming because we didn't have to open it for her and she made sure she sat and flipped through the whole thing! We all definitely got spoiled this year. Penn came away with a heavy duty ladder, miter saw, hedge trimmer, alligator lopper, digital camera, sweater, speaker thing for his phone, and his diploma framed. If you can't tell I have plans of putting him to work :). Penn succeeded at surprising me this year by getting me a Silhouette Cameo! I'm so excited to put it to use. I also got a bluetooth keyboard for my iPad, some new measuring cups and spoons, some CDs, a purse that Penn's mom made for me and a gift card for my Cameo. As a family, we got a fire pit and bench for our patio outside, some movies and Wii games. Karlee made off with a nice haul as well. She got puzzles, books, a shopping cart, a doll house, a fish lamp, big girl underwears (planning on undertaking potty training here in the near future) Backyardigans beanie babies, The Lion King, and a princess skirt with tiara and bracelets. Our kitchen also got the gift of new hardware :)

We did manage to get Karlee away from her toys long enough to take a short nap. We had my brother's family over for dinner, got to Skype with my other brother's family, and then put the kids to bed and played some games for a little while until they needed to go home.

We cannot forget how truly blessed we have been this year! Even though we were celebrating a little differently this year, I was so happy to have my little family with me and to have family and friends to share this wonderful holiday with!

Ready for Christmas Eve breakfast

Karlee and Baby Emery

Kenna, Karlee, and Jenna

Mom and Karlee before church on Christmas Day

Checking out her stocking

Karaoke anyone?

So happy about her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse figurines.

Pretty sure the Bluetooth Keyboard is not for Karlee. She opened ALL presents that day.

"It's the King Lion!"

Widget enjoying the wrapping paper.

Loved the slinkies from cousin Carter.

Playing with her doll house.

The All Encompassing December Update

2011-12-29T07:29:00.002-07:00

Wow, I've been a slacker! So brace yourself for a long list that will cover everything we've been up to during December.

* Met up with some friends for pizza and a Christmas festival that a nearby neighborhood was throwing. We didn't end up staying very long because waiting in super long lines and a 2 year old don't mesh very well.

* Karlee battling cold after cold after cold. Poor thing can't catch a break!

* Entertaining ourselves with the boxes that Amazon sends that are easily 4 times larger than the item being shipped.

* Successfully made Karlee some cute pajama pants. The original plan was to make some for Penn and I, but let's just say that never happened.

* Scoring an awesome deal on Groupon to try out Smashburger. Fed all 3 of us for $5. Step aside In-N-Out, this place is SO much better!

* Went to our ward party. I was pretty proud that I was able to make mint chocolate chip cookies that actually didn't burn. Karlee met Santa and although she wasn't afraid of him, she was more interested in the candy canes he was giving out.

* Went to Penn's work party where Santa once again showed up, but this time he rolled in on a shiny red Peterbilt. Karlee was a little more into the whole process this time and told him she wanted a baby doll.

* Took Karlee to the mall to ride the Carousel. She loved it! The whole time she was yelling "Yee Haw!" and "Karlee's a Cowgirl!"

* Had dinner with some new friends in our ward. Karlee, Kenna and Jenna are all within a month in age and get along really well together.

* Went and saw a couple of houses in Frisco and Plano that coordinate their lights to music. Pretty cool displays!

* Were able to catch several days where we would go on walks to feed the ducks and to play at the park. It definitely made it not feel like Christmas and December, but it sure beats being stuck inside all day long.

* One day while Karlee was napping I painted my nails (which I rarely do). She saw them when she woke up and wanted hers painted too. I took the polish off mine today and when she saw them she got sad and asked what happened to my fingers. She now wants hers a different color every day.

* We were also amazed at how she immediately knew what to do when given Penn's smartphone to play a game.

* Monkey Karlee has been discovered sitting on top of her headboard in the morning several times.

* Penn has had a couple of days off work since both Christmas Eve and Christmas were on the weekend. We took advantage and joined my brother's family at Gattitown, which is a pizza buffet place that is similar to Chuck E Cheese with the arcades games and whatnot, but the pizza is actually edible. That night we took Karlee to her very first movie in the theaters. We took her to Puss in Boots for .75 cent Tuesdays fearing that if she refused to sit still we wouldn't be out much for the movie. She proved us totally wrong. She loved it! She sat on Penn's lap the whole time and was a little commentator. Now she keeps asking if she can go watch "Cats in Boots" on our TV. Guess we'll have to buy that one when it comes out. On the way home she kept saying "That was fun! Let's go home now."

Here are some pictures to go along with our list. I will recap Christmas Eve and Christmas in another post.

These girls crack me up!

Allred Family Pictures: Christmas 2011

2011-12-04T12:39:00.000-07:00

We went and had our family pictures done this weekend. I think they got some good ones!

We also had them get a few of Karlee by herself. Love this girl! Don't mind the fact that you can't see her bottom lip in any of the pictures.

Turkey Day Festivities

2011-11-28T22:22:00.001-07:00

For Thanksgiving this year we stayed here in Texas and enjoyed our Turkey feast with my brother and his family. We spent most of the morning playing outside because it was absolutely gorgeous outside. It has since turned into fall here and we actually had the heater kick on this week. Anyways, back to the feast. I've always had to just bring my green bean casserole and deviled eggs to Thanksgiving dinners in the past, but with just the two families I had to try my hand at a couple other side dishes. Brett & Kendra roasted the turkey, did delicious rolls, made the gravy and brought the cranberry drink. I made my green bean casserole, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, and made a pumpkin swirl cheesecake with a gingersnap crust. I'm proud to report that none of it burned and was actually all pretty darn good. We told the kids that the sweet potatoes were candied and they interpreted them as being candy and both of them gobbled them right up. Too funny!

The kids were ready for dinner before anyone else!

Brett carving the turkey (and nearly took his finger off in the process).

After dinner, the kids entertained themselves in Karlee's toy closet, Emery slept, the boys played Wii and the girls worked on some Christmas crafts.

I will admit, I felt a bit homesick but I'm so grateful that we have my brother close by. It will be just us for Christmas as well.

I had plans of going to a couple of places for Black Friday, but found that I could get the item I wanted for the same price on Amazon.com so being the person I am that does not like battling huge crowds just to save a few bucks opted to have someone deliver the items to my doorstep. I did go out on Friday morning with Kendra to Joann's to buy some fabric (ok a lot of fabric because I have a lot of projects I want to work on thanks to Pinterest). So my Christmas shopping is basically done and we can enjoy the next couple of weeks enjoying the Christmas spirit and doing fun things as a family.

We also decorated our house this last weekend. I'm am so excited to say that we finally have a fireplace to hang our stockings over! Karlee is so excited about the Christmas tree! It's exciting that she actually gets what is going on this year.

Fall Fun

2011-11-21T21:44:00.000-07:00

Around here, Fall consists of...

Swinging as high as she can yelling out "Superhero to the rescue!"

Testing out the "bumbrellala" in case it rains inside the house.

Taking our stale bread to "the beach" and getting swarmed by hungry ducks.

Preparing a feast for Penn on her picnic table. The leaf on the right was ketchup, the one in the middle is a hot dog.

If you can't make snow angels outside in the snow, improvise by making angels in your blocks complete with "swish swish" sound effects.

Posing for a picture of Penn's girls.

Going to the Balloon Festival that didn't have any balloons because it was too windy and still enjoying it by getting a first tattoo. She still asks what happened to her butterfly.

Going on magic carpet rides in the laundry basket.

Raking what few leaves we have so far in the back yard.

Just so we could do leaf angels.

Giving our furry friends giant hugs and kisses.

Getting creative on a yucky, rainy Monday night by doing a Thanksgiving art project to send to Grandmas and Grandpas.

Finally calling it a turkey and not a penguin.

Rockin out on "Mommy & Daddy's Big Girl Bed" as she calls it.

Letting Mom play hair dresser for a little while.

Getting the garden prepped for winter.

Entering a comatose state watching Tangled while mom had a phone interview for a job.

Trying to see if an elephant can really fly.

And finally getting some Zzzz's to help chase the yucky sickies away.

Lil Cowgirl

2011-11-09T15:26:00.000-07:00

My little Karlee bug is turning into a true Texan already. She wants to wear her cowgirl boots everyday (it was a must buy when I saw them), says "Yee-haw" a lot, and is constantly telling people "Karlee's a cowgirl."

I sure do love this cowgirl!

In other news, not a lot is going on. We went to the Hot Air Balloon Festival last weekend. Due to high winds, no balloons. Bummer. The weather has been wonderful and we've done a lot of swinging in the backyard and going on walks. On the docket for the weekend is we're painting our bedroom. So excited! Ordered our bedding online last week and it should be here very soon. Also have a 2nd interview for a job on Monday. Wish me luck!

A Day at the Beach

2011-11-03T12:36:00.000-06:00

Here's a little bit about the town we live in. Little Elm, TX is a fairly small town about 45 minutes north of downtown Dallas. It's definitely growing. To illustrate, in 2000 the population was 3,000. In 2010, the population was 24,000. We live on the far east side of the town. It's pretty new out where we're at. Once you get closer to the central part of Little Elm, you get some old town feel. One of the gems of this little Little Elm is that since it's located right on Lake Lewisville it has some amazing water views and this awesome little beach. Since it's still really warm here, we decided to take a picnic to the beach last Sunday. We were the only ones there. It was a lot of fun and Karlee loved the sand and the water. They also have some neat hiking trails that go along the shore line so we took a little walk along one of them.

It's a big lake!

I'm excited to explore the area we live in a little more and find more fun things like this!

Halloweekend

2011-10-31T21:35:00.001-06:00

The craziness that is Halloween has finally come to a close. It was really fun this year now that Karlee is starting to get it more and more.

We started out with our playgroup this week where they made orange playdough, learned about the color orange, and read Halloween stories.

On Thursday night we had a RS activity so it was a no time for cooking night so we did the Papa Murphy's Jack-o-lantern pizza. Let's just say it looked a lot better on the advertisement and they really skimped out on these. It was really thin crust and extremely greasy. Oh well. Live and learn.

On Friday, a lady from our ward invited me to go with her to her husband's work for their children's parade. He works at the JCPenney Headquarters. That place is huge and like a mall. Karlee was so excited to put on her bumblebee costume. Doesn't she make the most adorable bumblebee ever? I think so :)

I will admit, it was at this parade that I got the idea for our costumes. I set to work on them during Karlee's nap and had them ready by that night in time for our ward trunk-or-treat. It was a pretty quick event due to the fact that quite a few of our members decided to splurge and bought tickets to the BYU vs. TCU game that was being played in the Dallas Cowboys stadium. It's one thing I've learned around here, there are A LOT of BYU fans. You would think we were back in Utah. Anyways, 20 minutes and we were done. Karlee totally got a hang of saying trick-or-treat and thank you to everyone. What she did manage to do was get second from almost everyone. Who could resist a cute little bumblebee? Not many.

What was our costume you ask? Why we were beekeepers for our little bee. We wore painters coveralls with white spray painted straw hats and mesh netting around our heads sprinkled with little bee stickers. So simple!

The next morning, the kids (Penn & Karlee) decided they wanted to make a fort in the front room. I think this came about after Karlee jumped into bed with us and we were putting the covers over us saying it was a tent. That got my engineer of a husband's mind cogs cranking. Here is what they came up with. It is rather homey inside. Karlee likes to drag me in there to read books with her. She also loves to play the "boo" game where I sneak around outside and peek in and try to scare her. Obviously it doesn't scare her, just makes her giggle uncontrollably.

Saturday afternoon brought about painting the pumpkins we had bought. We decided to let Karlee go picasso on hers. You can tell that I'm a little paranoid about stained clothing so stripped down to a diaper she was.

Here are our finished pumpkins. Penn's are always cut so perfectly. Oh well. My cat is cute.

On Monday we went to my brother's neighborhood Halloween party and costume contest. I was there for the free food. We came home with 2nd place for best costumes and Karlee won 3rd place for kids under 5. Like I said, not many can resist the cute little bumblebee.

Here's the beekeepers with their little bee.

After the party, I went home to pass out candy to our neighborhood kids and Penn went with my brother to take the kids out trick-or-treating for a little bit. They made it up and down their street and that was just enough. Karlee was most excited about getting to go around in the wagon.

Trick-or-treat!

Karlee even managed some smooches from the devil doggy. I guess she also walked right in to someone's house to give their little doggy some kisses too. Not really shy is she?

Here's is some of the video Penn took of the kids at a couple of the houses.

Alas, the festivities are over. On to Thanksgiving and then Christmas time. Love this time of year!

Some House Pics

2011-10-31T20:39:00.000-06:00

We finally have a couple rooms in the house that I can officially say are finished!

First, I give you Karlee's "Big Girl" room. She was so excited when I was putting up the ladybugs. I decided I hate painting so I would just leave the walls as is in this room and use vinyl cutouts to accent the walls. Cute, no?

Here is a close up of the saying. I thought it was perfect for our little bug.

Here is the upstairs full bathroom, or Karlee's bathroom. I had two choices of rugs to use for this bathroom: one that was white with brown and this white one with the pinks and greens. I let Karlee pick. If she had her choice everything would be pink.

Here's the upstairs guest bedroom. Ok, this one isn't finished. Obviously it needs a good paint job. That will be done in a few weeks hopefully. The monkey is a little creepy. I do like the comforter though.

Here's the entryway. I'm excited to keep the table decorated with crafts I make for the different holidays and seasons.

And the living room. Thanks to my sister in law, we were able to buy most of the stuff she used to stage our townhouse from Ivory Homes for practically nothing. I love this room! The cat bed is to keep Widget from taking up residence on that chair and leaving her fur. It's worked well.

And the formal dining room converted into Karlee's play room. This is the perfect location since it is by the kitchen and our bedroom and there's the awesome closet under the stairs for her toys. The floor mats have been awesome at keeping play dough from getting ground into our carpet.

That's it for now. Hopefully coming soon is the Master Bedroom (needs painting and new bedding), Master Bathroom and Kitchen/Dining Room (these are done, just not clean at the time I was snapping pictures).

We love Texas and we love this house! We're so grateful for everything and everyone that made this happen for us!

My Parents Visit & Tulsa, OK

2011-10-30T10:31:00.000-06:00

Last weekend was UEA weekend for the schools in Utah so my parents came to town. They had actually planned this trip to visit my brother before we even knew we were moving out here. Even though it had only been a couple of weeks since they were last here, we were all excited to see them.

Friday was spent with my mom since my brother and my dad set to work on installing a surround sound in his house. When everyone else got home from work that night, we set out for Tulsa Oklahoma. My brother plays on a 30+ adult soccer league and they played in a tournament up there. We stayed Friday night and Saturday night in the Hilton. The kids had lots of fun and it was a good thing they put us at the end of the hallway on our floor. They were crazies! We had some excitement on the way up seeing a car trying to pass a semi in a construction zone only to plow right into the sign that alerts you to get over. Hope the person wasn't hurt, but kind of served him right. We got there at a little after 10 and Karlee was so wound up. We finally got her to crash at about 1130. Penn started the night sleeping with her, but then was tired of her kicking him so came into my bed. Well, at 730 am we were woken up to a thud and cries. Karlee fell out of bed. With a gooseegg on her noggin, she fell right back to sleep after Penn held her for a little bit. Poor thing!

Saturday we went to the first game and the kids had a blast playing in the leaves and in the goals on another field.

We missed the second game because Karlee decided she needed a nap so we went back to the hotel and had a nap with her. We went out to dinner for Kendra's birthday that night and took the kids swimming afterward. The pool there was indoor in a glass enclosure so we got to see the crazy storm they had. There was a tornado warning in effect not more than 5 miles from where we were. The rain came down harder than I've ever seen in my life. Karlee wasn't phased by it and went to sleep fairly easily that night. The next morning it was so foggy they had to postpone their game by an hour. Their team lost their game that morning, but still made it to the semifinals and were set to play on a couple of hours after finishing their first game. We decided to head out and ended up taking Carter with us so my parents could stay for the game. Luckily, we got this a majority of the ride home.

We played some games at our house that night and finished the projects at my brother's house the next day and they had to fly home.

It was a short trip, but we were so happy they could come and visit.

Texas State Fair

2011-10-30T09:41:00.000-06:00

Time to catch up a bit.

A couple of weeks ago we had the opportunity to go to the Texas State Fair thanks to free tickets from my brother. Overall assessment? Pretty much what you'd expect in Utah except probably on a much larger scale.

We started the evening by meeting Penn at the DART station in Carrollton so we could ride the train into downtown. Pretty much, you don't really want to drive into downtown if you don't have to. It's craziness. There's a train station right at the front gate of the fair park. Karlee was enthralled with the choo choo train.

After the hour on the DART, we made it to the park. It was pretty windy and a bit chilly. A nice lady came up to us and just handed us about $5 worth of tickets to use because she was leaving. Score! We walked around and made our way to the animals. That's my favorite part of the fair.

Unfortunately since we went just a few days before the fair closed, a lot of the animals had been cleared out. We did get to see a few horses, a giant pig, some sheep, and a cow. There were also some really cute baby animals out too.

After the animals we set out to find one treat for each of us. I really wanted the fried pineapple upsidedown cake, but could not find it anywhere after walking around looking for it for almost 20 minutes. I settled for a caramel funnel cake (so yummy!) and Penn got the fried peach cobbler. They did have some interesting fried items. This years winners were the fried bubblegum and fried salsa. Wasn't feeling up to trying either however.

We didn't stay too long because it would take another hour train ride to get home, but it was definitely a worthwhile experience and we had a lot of fun together!

Peterbilt Family Day

2011-10-15T20:26:00.000-06:00

Today we ventured over to Penn's work for Peterbilt's annual Open House for employees and their families. I was amazed at how they went all out for their employees. Just shows that Penn found himself a great company to work for. There was a semi-truck show, vendor booths, bounce houses, kid games, clowns, magicians, catered BBQ, and lots more! We also got to tour the plant. My brother and his family also came and met up with us. It was a fun filled day even though it was in the 90s and we were all roasting (seriously, I know we're in Texas but it is still mid-October). Can't wait to go again next year!

Making her daddy proud checking out a Peterbilt engine

All tuckered out from having so much fun

howdy y'all from the Lone Star state

2011-10-14T13:20:00.001-06:00

We've been having lots of fun in our new home in Texas the past couple of weeks. Here are some pictures of what we've been up to:

Karlee loves her playscape that is in the backyard. Her and Carter love to climb up into it and say they're pirate captains. What I didn't realize it had when we bought the house is a little sand box and a picnic table. Karlee would spend all day in her sand box if she could. She loves it.

This little monkey can climb up this whole climbing wall thing without the rope all by herself.

Last Saturday we ventured to Dr. Pepper ballpark with my brother and his family for a free pumpkin patch. Yes it was free to get in, but it cost money to get a pumpkin. We were kind of bummed about that, but the kids loved playing at the playground and in the bounce house.

When I would have to put Karlee in timeout I used to just put her in her crib. Well, the crib didn't make the trip here yet so the corner has been her timeout. Problem is she is smiling while sitting in her corner.

We have a really awesome storage closet under our stairs that we have used for all of Karlee's toys so our house doesn't seem like a hurricane hit it every day. It's worked out great and Karlee loves her toy closet.

Since we have no use for a formal dining room, we decided this would be the perfect space to let Karlee play. Here is our set up (except I took the tent down for now and the table is where the tent was). It's in a great spot in the house too.

Here's Karlee trying out her scooter. She's getting better at riding it.

Super Karlee is flying. Her latest obsession is making us tie a blanket around her neck like its a cape so she can be a "super hero to the rescue". Such an imagination.

She's also getting better at letting me do her hair. Now if it would just grow a little bit faster and if she would let it stay done for more than 10 minutes we'd be in business.

Last Monday, Karlee and I went with my brother and his family to the Dallas Zoo since it was a holiday. All the kids in Texas get school off too and they call it "Fair Day" so they can go to the state fair. That said, the zoo was not very crowded. We ended up getting a membership because it is an awesome zoo and it's actually good weather here for more than a few months out of the year so we'll definitely get some use out of it.

They have a kids zoo area and they let the kids go in and pet the goats. Only embarrassing part was Karlee was inspecting each goat's rear end for poop.

Karlee getting some goat loves.

That snake gives me the heebeegeebies.

Another cool part is you can feed the giraffes. Karlee liked saying "here giraffey giraffey giraffey, come get your foodies".

I was unable to capture the part where the giraffe actually licked Karlee's face.

Back at home, Karlee has also picked up an obsession with play dough. She likes making purple snakes for Piggy's lunch.

And this little guy was found in Karlee's sandbox. She was so excited for me to come see it. She came in yelling, "Mom. Come look. It's a frog. A big frog."

We've also been able to spend some time with my brother and his family. Karlee loves to play with her cousin Carter and asks for him every day.

All in all, we've been having lots of fun. We've made some friends through our ward and they always have something planned for the kids to do so that's been fun. Karlee's been sick the past couple of days so we've kind of laid low. Excited for the weekend to go to Peterbilt's annual family day. Karlee will love seeing the big trucks.We've finally been able to get Karlee to say that "daddy works at Peterbilt" instead of saying "daddy's workin in Texas" all the time.

The Big Move

2011-10-14T12:27:00.000-06:00

I want to start out saying that I am ever so glad that the whole home buying process is over and done. What a crazy nightmare! It totally took us by surprise because when we bought our first house things went so smoothly and it was easy. They aren't kidding when they say things have tightened up. To start, they wouldn't let us count the money we receive from renting our townhouse out as income, only as debt. So even though we can easily afford our house on just Penn's income, our debt-to-income ratio was way too high because they were factoring in another house payment. Didn't seem to matter that we were putting 20% down on the house. Things did end up working out, but it just kept seeming like we'd get over one hurdle and another one would pop up. The most stressful part came at the end when we found out due to some weird law, our closing would be delayed a day. So 2 days before we are set to head out to Texas, the sellers are saying they won't move out until the following Monday when in fact they were under contract to move out on Friday. It was this huge back and forth (which I still believe was mostly fabricated by our realtors). We had so many arrangements made including truck rental, hotel reservations, my parents flight home, etc. It was crazy stressful. Our realtor was telling us to not be surprised if it ended up in mediation. We finally got word on Thursday night that they would be out on Friday. Phew!

We headed out bright and early Friday morning with Penn (he flew home to drive back with me), Karlee, and Widget in tow. I wasn't sure what to expect from either Karlee or Widget. Both did fantastic! Best $20 I spent was on a mounting device for the headrest that I could put my iPad into so she could watch movies. We rented a few off iTunes and that kept her happy the whole time. We drove from 730 am until 1000 pm with a few stops here and there. We stayed the night in Salina, KS. Karlee was wired and ended up bunking with us in our bed because the crib they had was way too small for her.

We started up bright and early again on Saturday and pulled into Little Elm, TX at about 230 pm. The drive really wasn't terrible. Only bad part for me was I had a cold so it wasn't much fun being in a car for that long, but we all survived and were greeted by my brother and his family at our new house.

We got everything moved into the house really quickly thanks to a bunch of guys from our new ward showing up to help. Even during conference weekend. We're just about unpacked. Just have a couple of rooms to paint and a few furniture pieces to purchase and we're set. We love the house and all the space!

Our Final Days in Utah

2011-10-11T22:25:00.000-06:00

I'm determined to get my blog caught up.

Over the 4th of July we moved into my parents basement. Once Penn moved to Texas at the end of July, I was ever so grateful to be there. My parents helped out with Karlee soooo much! When they went to Africa for 10 days, I got to truly see what it was like to be a single parent and boy was I so happy when they got back (I think she was too).

I can't even begin to list all the wonderful things they did for me (us) while we were there. Karlee still asks where Grandma and Grandpa are. We're lucky that they had already planned a trip out here next weekend before we even knew we were moving out here.

Here's a few things we did before the big move:

Playing at their neighborhood park

Taking naps on the "big girl bed"

Stealing grandpa's socks and putting them on.

Watching movies in the "baby seat"

Making "silly face"

Grocery shopping with a bug sized cart. (she was rather dangerous with that thing).

Practicing her piano skills

And more park time.

We miss everyone in Utah, but are absolutely loving it here in Texas. More posts to come about the move and what we've been up to our first week and a half here.

Another Karleeism

2011-10-11T20:32:00.000-06:00

This one had me rolling tonight. She walked up to Penn and said "Daddy, you toot tooted! Bless you butt!" Where does she get some of the stuff she comes up with? (for the record we refer to it as a bum in our house).

:(

2011-10-08T17:18:00.000-06:00

Just a quick update since I finally have internet after living here for almost a week. Today I had my first ultrasound and it wasn't as wonderful as I had envisioned. They were unable to find a yolk sac or heart beat and I was only measuring at 5 weeks 3 days when I really am 6 weeks 3 days today. Therefore it has been confirmed that the baby has stopped growing and this is not a viable pregnancy. I'm so heartbroken for my sister right now. I thought for sure we had made it past the hard part, but apparently the Lord had other plans for this baby. Please keep my sister and her husband in your prayers at this time.

To Be Continued...

2011-09-24T21:42:00.002-06:00

Continuing on.

If you haven't read the post below, you need to first otherwise you very well could be confused and misinterpret the following post.

Where was I. Oh yes, the torture that was bedrest. Indeed it was. I flew home to Utah on Monday September 12th and went right back to work. The hardest thing about being home was that doctor's orders were no lifting anything over 10 pounds until I had the pregnancy test which wouldn't be until September 20th. That includes my little 25 pound 2 year old of a Karlee. I tell you it was heartbreaking to have her say "mommy I hold you" and I couldn't pick her up. It was a good opportunity to get her taking naps on the big girl bed and also getting pretty independent in other areas. She figured out how to climb into her car seat and up into her high chair. Now all we here from her is "I wanna do it!"

On Wednesday September 14th, I started feeling off. My back was killing me, I had cramps, and I just felt Blah! I wasn't going to take a hpt until I was at least a week past the transfer. Friday morning came and I cautiously took my first test. I left it in the bathroom and went to get ready for work and then came back. Wouldn't you know it was the most glorious sight ever. That second line was ever so faint that I wasn't completely convinced at first. So I tested again on Saturday. A little darker :) Sunday was a digital and well that confirmed things for me.

I broke the news to my sis that night and I thought how I did it was pretty cute. I told her I needed to text her some cute pictures of Karlee, so I sent her a couple and the above picture was the last one I sent her. Needless to say we are all so excited. Odds were definitely not in our favor, but miracles do happen.

I had my first blood test on Tuesday September 20th. HCG came back as 116. On Thursday September 22nd I had a redraw and HCG came back as 217. So things are looking really good so far. I have my first ultrasound on October 7th and another one on October 21st and then I'm released to my regular doctor. I have to continue medication until the end of the first trimester. This involves daily shots in my rear end with a 22 gauge needle (I'm not sure if that's exact, but the needle is crazy huge), estrogen patches, and lots of pills and vitamins.

As of today I am only 4 weeks and 4 days. I'm crazy tired needing a nap every single day. Thank goodness my child still likes to take long naps. Also grateful that watching movies has been Karlee's latest obsession and they have served well as a babysitter from time to time during the day. I'm feeling great so far so let's hope it stays that way.

So now the question is, how do I respond in the future if people ask if I'm pregnant? Do I provide humor by saying "Yes I'm pregnant and No the baby isn't mine" or "Yes I'm pregnant and my husband wasn't even there when it happened"?

Why Private? Here's the background story...

2011-09-22T21:01:00.003-06:00

This is my sister Jen.

Jen is the most caring, generous, persevering, smart, funny, kind, loving, awesome person I know.

I guess you could say she's my hero. I definitely look up to her a lot.

Many years before the idea of me ever came along, Jen was brought into this world. There were some medical complications that had to be dealt with immediately. She was strong and was able to endure the many, many surgeries that ensued for many years. Through everything, she has maintained such an amazing attitude and demeanor that has brought her much success in her life.

One of those medical complications from her birth would result in her being unable to bear her own children. Being a mother, it's heart-wrenching to think about.

During my pregnancy with Karlee, I tried really hard to never complain about the aches, pains, and discomforts I was feeling. I tried to feel grateful for the blessing I was given and realize that there are many women out there that would do anything to feel what I was feeling.

After Karlee was born, I was overwhelmed at the joy she brought to my life. She was truly a miracle. I wanted Jen to be able to feel what I was feeling so badly. I prayed and prayed that there would be something that would allow Jen and her husband to become parents and witness the joy I was feeling. Slowly over the past year, I've received some answers to those prayers.

Over a year ago, Penn and I began discussing offering help to my sister and her husband by way of gestational surrogacy. By definition, it is when a female host is implanted with an embryo to which she has no connection, and carries the resulting child to term. After birth, the gestational carrier turns the child over to the biological mother and/or father to raise. After talking about it quite a bit, we were committing to pursuing this. The question was when. Initially, we thought we would have our kids first and then do this. Looking into it more, this wouldn't work for a lot of reasons.

Last year, we were trying to get pregnant with baby #2 for a couple of months. Nothing was happening. I was getting frustrated because Karlee happened so fast. I kept thinking we really needed to pray about being blessed with a baby, but every time we prayed the words just wouldn't come out. It didn't feel right for some reason. Then the dreams started. The dreams were about us going through with the surrogacy immediately. At first, I thought this is crazy. Now. But the dreams kept coming and an overwhelming feeling that this was the right path came. It didn't freak me out. It just felt right. So I told Penn and he agreed that we should follow what I was feeling.

We discussed this with my sister last October. Needless to say, she was more than grateful. From October to January we were rushing to get legal documents arranged and get set up with a clinic here in Utah. We did an IVF cycle toward the end of January that ended up being unsuccessful. It was a difficult time. Lots of things went wrong and should have been handled differently. From there we decided to give it one more go and switched to a clinic in Denver, Colorado due to its high success rates and national acclaim. Well, things were definitely slower than I had hoped for. I found myself frustrated on more than one occassion because I felt that the longer they delayed us, the further apart Karlee would be from her next sibling. Then out of nowhere I felt calm about it and decided to continue on to see it through.

Well, the time to attempt IVF cycle #2 came the week of September 4th. The cycle seemed to be going well, but for some reason when the retrieval happened, they were only able to retrieve 2 eggs. Only one little egg was able to fertilize and it was a waiting game to see if that little egg would even be worth attempting to transfer. Emotions were high during that week, but I still felt good about it. It only takes one I kept saying. That little egg turned out to be a little overachiever. It was a 14 cell egg on day 3 (8 cells is considered the norm) and it was a grade 4 (which is the best). We did the transfer on Friday September 9th. After the transfer came 48 hours of mandatory bedrest. Talk about torture! I hated it. I was so happy to get back to work and some sort of normalcy.

To be continued....

Reminder: Going Private SOON!!!

2011-09-17T20:44:00.002-06:00

If you haven't sent me your email address, please do as soon as possible! I would like to make this blog private this week!

HOM*E

2011-09-12T15:15:00.000-06:00

So I realized that I never did do an update on our housing situation. After having our townhome on the market for just a few weeks (and a really AWFUL realtor) we decided to pull it off the market and try to rent it out. We came to this decision because right now the vacancy rate is at a 20 year low so we had a good chance to rent it out for a good price. We also would rather put our money towards a better down payment on a new home in Texas where real estate is unbelievable instead of throwing it to the bank to pay off our existing loan. So I posted it on KSL.com and within 24 hours we had 2 offers to rent it for top dollar. We ended up renting it out to a single girl who just transferred to HAFB from Florida. She is the nicest girl and I'm not worried one bit about her. Our home is in good hands for at least the next 3 years with her. After that we may look to selling again. Who knows.

So that taken care of we ventured to Dallas over Labor Day weekend with the sole purpose of buying a house. A realtor's dream right? Our realtor down there has been fabulous! She took Penn through about 10-15 homes the weekend before we got there and then took me through about 10 homes. By Saturday morning we had narrowed it to 2. A new construction and an existing home. While the new construction was really nice and had all the energy efficiency and modern touches (not to mention a walk in closet the size of my current bedroom), the builder wouldn't come any further down on his price. That and it had a kitchen that was probably barely bigger than my kitchen in my townhouse and they hadn't even started construction on the other side of the street so we'd be dealing with listening to hammering and salsa music all day for the next year or so. The other home was already $25,000 less and had a couple features that we just couldn't pass up, like the beautiful kitchen and awesome backyard.

We put our offer in on Saturday morning and had a counter by Saturday afternoon. With a few throw ins like the playscape and the fridge, we took the counter and have been so happy with our choice. The inspection came back with only a few minor fixes and that's it. So, we've been busy gathering documents for our lender and are set to close on September 28th! I'm seriously so excited! We're in an exemplary school district, the neighborhood is full of amenities (4 pool areas, splash pad, fishing ponds, and a 2.5 mile walk/bike trail around the ponds to name a few), and we're not too far away from my brother!

Anyways, I won't bore you with any more details. Here's our soon to be new home!

The pagodas have little misting tubes affixed for those hot Texas summer days!

Entry way. The fish tank is not staying. They would all end up dead in my care.

See what I mean! Fabulous kitchen!

Master Bedroom.

Loft Area

Family Room

Formal Dining (will probably be Karlee's toy land actually)

We will have plenty of space for guests so you're all more than welcome to escape the snowy Utah winters to come visit us.

Going Private

2011-09-10T08:48:00.000-06:00

So many of you may or may not know that I had another private blog going for a while documenting some stuff that I didn't want the entire www able to see. Well, I've been severely lacking at keeping that blog going so I've decided to just make this blog private so I can continue to document the private stuff.

That said, I need your email addresses so I can send you an invite! I don't care if you're a friend of a friend of someone's sister. If you like to read my blog, I'd like for you to be able to keep reading. Leave your email address in a comment and I won't publish it for your privacy.

I will probably make it private as of Sunday September 18th.

Labor Day Travels

2011-09-06T22:52:00.000-06:00

We've been looking forward to this weekend for 6 weeks. Why?

We went to Texas to 1) See Penn!!! 2) Go House Shopping (more on that in my next post)

I ended up taking the day off on Thursday since we would need to leave for the airport for our flight at noon. I'm glad I did because Karlee came down with croup again (second time she's been sick since starting to go to daycare less than a month ago.) She was up coughing most of the night and running a fever. I was nervous that we weren't going to be able to go, but her pediatrician just had me follow the same medication regimine that he did a couple of weeks ago and it really seemed to help almost immediately.

The flight out there consisted of a flight to Denver, a 2 hour layover, and then a flight into DFW. Karlee slept the whole first flight. We even were the last ones off the plane because she was still zonked. We decided to get some dinner at the airport and somehow unbeknownst to me ended up outside of the security area. So we go to head to our gate at about 530 and were surprised to find that we had to go through security again! Mind you our flight was set to board at 5:40. We did make it and I now know that you stick to your own terminal in that airport.

The leg from Denver to Dallas was actually great. The iPad was the key. She was able to watch her birdie movie (Rio) and some Backyardigans and was really good the entire flight. Only had a few cranky moments when they said she needed her seatbelt on and she wanted to look out the window. When we met Penn at the airport she was so excited! She couldn't quit saying "daddy daddy daddy". The girl was wired until about 11 pm because she was so excited about everything.

On Friday, my brother and his wife kindly kept Karlee all day so I could go out with our realtor and look at houses. We went nonstop from 1030 am until 5 pm. It was all worth it still. We went out to dinner that night at a yummy mexican restaurant. The funniest moment of the night was when Karlee got her burrito dog (seriously it was a hot dog wrapped in a tortilla). She unwrapped it, yelled "Hot Dog", and proceeded to hug it like it was a doll. So funny!

On Saturday, we spent the morning with our realtor and picked the house we wanted to make an offer for. We were able to get a counter offer about an hour after submitting our original offer and we decided to take the counter. I'll do another post on the house later. We had fun getting some good baby Emery time in, playing with Carter, and just hanging out with my brother and his wife. We're so excited to get to live so close to them soon. Karlee and Carter really got along well considering they are both 2 years old. It's funny to think that even though they are 10 months apart, they will be starting Kindergarten at the same time.

Sunday we went to church at my brother's ward and just took it easy the rest of the day.

Monday we had to be at the airport by 530 to catch our 630 am flight. Karlee slept the whole first leg to Denver and was really good on the other flight. So happy she was a good little traveler.

It was fun to visit, but we sure can't wait to permanently move there and be a complete family again!

Trip Down Memory Lane

2011-08-28T22:48:00.000-06:00

Last Monday I took the day off work and kept Karlee home from daycare so we could meet up with a couple of my roommates from my freshman year at USU. Out of the 4 years I went to USU, I've been able to stay in contact with these girls the most. It was fun having our kids play together.

We started off the day by meeting at a park and letting the kids run around and play while we sat in the shade and chatted for a bit. We then ventured to a favorite restaurant that we enjoyed many times during that year, Frederico's.

After that we went over to the Logan temple grounds. This was the first time I've taken Karlee to the Logan temple. Just a little over 5 years ago, Penn & I were married there so it was fun to take Karlee to a place that holds a special place in my heart. Who knows if we'll ever make it back there. I only wish we could have done a temple session there before we moved.

After the temple we made a final stop to the bench. This bench was visited quite a bit during that year because the view is absolutely breathtaking. It's a perfect view of the Cache Valley and also a great view of the temple. The kids also kept themselves occupied by finding a grasshopper.

Karlee was out before we even left Logan and slept the whole way home.

I was so glad I got to spend some time with these girls. Stacy came up from Arizona for our other roommate Aubrie's wedding. I unfortunately was unable to go to the reception due to us having to move everything out of our house that weekend and just plain running out of time to fit everything in. I am sad I was unable to see everyone there, but so grateful I got to at least spend some time with some of them beforehand.

I have some really great memories from my first year of college and I will never forget these girls and their friendship. They will never know how much they did for me that year.

Me and my girl

Stacy and her 2 cute boys Liam and Eli

Cindy and Lyla

The kiddos at the temple

Checking out the grate.

The grasshopper

Touching the temple

Island Park

2011-08-24T23:07:00.000-06:00

Last weekend, Karlee and I ventured up to Island Park, ID for the Allred Family Reunion sans Penn. Penn's parents had rented a cabin for the siblings and their families to come enjoy for a week. We were able to make it up there for 3 days. It was a bit of an adventure with Karlee's mosquito bite chaos mentioned earlier. In the end, we enjoyed being able to float the river and see 6 moose and also go to Yellowstone and see the hot pots and Old Faithful. I actually have never been there so it was rather amazing to see. We also played lots of games, ate good food, went swimming, and Karlee oogled over baby Audrie and entertained us all. It would have been a lot more fun with Penn there, but we were glad we could still support his family by going.

Oh, and Karlee is not a very fun bed mate. She totally forced me off the bed by morning one night.

Poor Bug Bitten by a Bug: Round 2

2011-08-23T23:05:00.000-06:00

It's official. Karlee is pretty severely allergic to mosquito bites. On Wednesday night she got bit on her foot and her thigh by mosquitos and boy did she have a reaction. I got a call at work from her daycare on Thursday saying she was really upset and her foot was extremely swollen. They weren't kidding. We were set to head out of town just a few hours from then so I called her doctor to see what I should do. Last time they prescribed us an antihistimine and that was it. Well, as luck would have it her doctor doesn't work on Thursdays and the doctor on duty had left for the day by 3 pm. They told me my only option was to take her to instacare. I knew going there we would have to wait for like 2 hours and they would just tell me to give her Benadryl so we decided to head out of town without the instacare visit.

When we finally got there she was pretty upset about her itchy "skeeter bites". I gave her a dose of Benadryl secretly hoping it would make her super sleepy so she would go to bed. I set up her pack n play and she basically tossed and turned and cried every time her foot hit the side of the pack n play. I finally brought her in to bed with me at 2 am and got her to settle down enough to sleep. She only wanted to sleep on me so that was a tad uncomfortable. She woke up at 5 am in pain again so I gave her another dose of medicine and she slept on me until 11 am.

The next morning I noticed her foot had swelled to probably 3 times its normal size and had developed several nasty blisters. So we treated the blisters, wrapped her foot, and kept a sock on it to help retain the swelling. She limped around, but at least she was attempting to walk on it. The swelling didn't subside until Sunday morning. She still has a lot of bruising on her foot and thigh. It's crazy what a little mosquito can do to my little girl. Let's just say I'm a little paranoid about having her go outside when the sun starts to go down for fear of those pesky bugs.

Here's the evidence. I'll warn you that it's kinda gross.

Little sausage toes

We couldn't fit a shoe on her foot for a couple of days.

Yucky!!!

We're so glad that Karlee is ok now. It's really a scary thing to see her react to the bites so severely.

Lately...

2011-08-23T22:50:00.000-06:00

We survived being alone in my parents house for 10 days while they were in Africa. We had to get creative on things to do to keep us occupied.

Karlee got her birthday present from us finally. We bought her a slide that she can use in the backyard. She absolutely loves it and loves making all things have their turn going down it (ie Widget and her Piggy).

She has also made good use of her water table she got for her birthday as well.

And out of nowhere she has been telling me she needs to go potty and wants to go sit on the big girl potty. I'm kind of delaying potty training because her doctor thought she would just regress when we move to Texas. It is nice to know that it probably won't be long after we move though. I'm really in no rush actually. Whenever she's ready we'll work on it.

One Saturday we joined cousin Bubbers at the Dinosaur Park in Ogden. Karlee loved the "big dinosaurs" but not nearly as much as B.

More posts to come from our fun adventures the past couple of days...

Where's Daddy?

2011-08-10T22:33:00.000-06:00

I just had to share this short video clip. Karlee will sit in the back seat of the car repeating this over and over.

When she mentions she wants to see daddy on the picture it means she wants to Skype with him.

My Utah Bucket List: Mountains

2011-08-09T22:17:00.000-06:00

So one of the things I'm going to really miss about Utah is our beautiful mountains. Yeah, they pretty much don't exist in Texas. Last week I joined my brother, nephew Bubbers, my mom, and Karlee up at Snowbird. And enjoy the mountains I did. We got to ride the tram up to the top of the mountain and the views were gorgeous. I was surprised at how much snow is still up there in August! After the tram we took the kids on the Alpine Slide. I'd have to say the scariest part was riding the lift up to the top with a 2 year old yelling at me that she wants down. Afraid it's a bit of a drop sweetie. She was so cranky until it was our turn and then she went from cranky baby to super happy excited baby. She was all smiles yelling "wee!" and "yee haw!" (she's already getting some Texan in her and we haven't even got there yet). When we got off she ran to the line for the lift yelling "again, again!" Yeah, probably not another time Karlee. Especially when it cost me $10 for myself and $5 for her to just ride on my lap. It was fun nonetheless. We then ventured over to a restaurant up there to dine on all you can eat spaghetti. With the kids meals running at $10 each, I shared with Karlee. The waiter was pretty rude to us. The second we said we'd just have water, our service ended. Bleh! Anyways, we had a blast and it definitely fulfilled my need to experience the mountains for my Utah bucket list. Any other suggestions I should add?

Karleeisms

2011-08-07T12:49:00.000-06:00

Karlee is seriously the funniest little girl and surprises every day with the funny things she says. I figured I would record her "Karleeisms" on my blog so I can remember some of the funny things she comes up with.

In church today, when the deacons started to pass the sacrament Karlee yells out "I have some water please!" Also upon seeing a picture of the Bountiful temple on the program, she says "Castle!" I guess you could call it that :)

A Confession

2011-08-05T21:36:00.001-06:00

On Wednesday I headed for the train station as usual in the morning, but I was running just a few minutes late and ended up missing the train. So I drove in to work.

On Wednesday afternoon when I got off of work, I followed my usual routine of heading to the TRAX station and getting on the FrontRunner to head home at 4:15.

I enjoyed a nice conversation with Penn on the ride home along with getting caught up with my emails and whatnot.

Then it hit me.

Refer to first paragraph.

Oh geez!

So I shamefully call my mom and have her load the Karlee bug into the car to come pick me up from the train station. We went home and had dinner and then (fearing my car would get towed being parked in the Gateway parking garage all night) we all hopped on the train for a ride back into Salt Lake to pick my car up.

It actually turned out to be the perfect evening activity to keep Karlee happy. She absolutely loves "choo choo trains" and for sure let everyone know it the whole ride there. Luckily there were only 3 people in the car we were in. The train host was thoroughly entertained. Karlee would dance and squeal and talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. The one Karleeism that just about had me and my mom in tears was when my mom sniffled her nose so Karlee promptly responded with a "boogers." My mom thought she had boogers so she handed her a tissue. She then proceeded to wipe Piggy's nose while saying "boogers" then she pinches the tissue and yells out "Got it!" So. Funny.

Anyways, please don't laugh at me. I've already been tormented by older siblings and a husband. It was a long day ok.

Anyways, for the next 10 days it's just me and the bug since my parents are going to Africa. I think another train ride might fill our time. Please send ideas of fun Utah things we need to do since our time here is growing shorter. If you want to join us we would love that too!

Karlee's 2nd Birthday

2011-08-04T23:19:00.000-06:00

Karlee's birthday fell on a Sunday this year so we decided to keep things low key and simple. Oh if only that were how it ended up.

We started the morning with Karlee's favorite breakfast of chocolate chip waffles and peaches. We got Karlee all dressed up in her cupcake dress for church and headed out. She would tell everyone it was her cupcake dress. Here are some funny Karlee stories from sacrament meeting (we always end up with a few every week):

Karlee has a hard time talking in a quiet voice. She gets excited and her voice and sound effects get loud. We found once we were able to get Karlee to whisper if we told her a baby was sleeping. We did this and she looks around and asks "Where's the baby?" A few minutes later a lady walks in and sits on a row a couple behind and to the left of us. Karlee immediately responds with "There she is!"

Later in the meeting I saw Karlee crouching down in the aisle and I asked her what she was doing. She grabs my hand and says "Diaper change mommy" so I take the cue and head with her for the changing room. As we're coming back, the lady with the baby mentioned before was on her way down the hall with her little girl who was probably like 5 months old. Karlee says "That baby is in timeout!"

Even later in the meeting we're trying to get Karlee to be quiet again so we try the baby is sleeping card again. Karlee immediately responds with "Baby not sleeping, baby in timeout" since the lady still hadn't come back. I had a hard time holding in the laughs. She seriously cracks me up.

Anyways, bad story of the morning was when I went to pick Karlee up from nursery I was informed that a little boy had bit her. She had top and bottom teeth marks on both sides of her hand. Nevertheless, she was a tad emotional and grumpy so it was an early nap for her.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

Later after a long luxurious nap, we went outside to play for a bit until it was time to start dinner. Karlee has this new thing where she'll just lay down on the ground in the most random places. It was the deck this time.

Nonetheless, she demanded the dress came off because it was now dirty and when I went to go get her a new shirt and pants she tells me "no shirt, no pants, naked" As you wish my dear.

For dinner that night, we invited over my brother and his family and we had a Karlee's Favorite Foods Feast. The menu consisted of: chocolate milk, honey bbq chicken nuggets, meatballs, strawberries, carrots, corn on the cob, pickles, goldfish crackers, and fruit snacks. She was loving it and was having a hard time picking which food she wanted to eat the most so she pretty much took a bite of everything on her plate before deciding what she wanted to eat all of. She was especially enthralled with eating with a toothpick. It's the simplest things really.

After dinner, we got Penn and my brother's family in Texas on one Skype and my sister and her husband on the other Skype to watch the party. Let's just say that was a tad chaotic. Karlee and Brendan were running around squealing like crazy kids. Karlee loved all of her presents. She got a princess CD player toy thing, a skirt, a water table to play with outside (thinking this was a great investment for Texas), and we ordered her a slide that she can use both inside and outside.

Karlee blew out both of her candles and went to town on her cupcake we got from the Sweet Tooth Fairy. I think I ended up eating 3, they were that good. Karlee just liked the "cream" and totally skipped the cake part. Too funny. Fortunately, she still crashed at 9 pm that night even with the loads of sugar.

Sticky!

It was a Happy Birthday indeed for our Karlee Bug! It still feels weird when people ask how old she is and I can tell them she's 2. Love my baby girl lots!

Random July Happenings

2011-08-04T20:23:00.000-06:00

The end of July was a pretty chaotic one. So much happening all at once. Here are some random things that went on:

Karlee's Rockin Out

Coloring outside. Must be on belly to color.

Karlee got to go spend the morning up in Bear River with Penn and his parents the day we left for Texas. It was great that he was able to do lots of fun things with his little girl before he left.

On July 19th my work had a party at the Bees game. It also happened to be the same night as my brother's work party so Karlee and Bubbers got to ride the little train together.

We were also able to go over to Penn's brother's house for a BBQ and Karlee hung out with her baby cousin Audrie while watching Curious George.

We also celebrated Bubbers' 3rd Birthday. There was ice cream, bouncey houses, and fireworks for the celebration.

Five Years

2011-08-02T08:00:00.000-06:00

Five years ago today I married my best friend. While I've been working this summer, my coworker has been planning her wedding and I've been able to reflect a lot about our engagement and wedding and married life in general. Here are some of the things I remember:

We only officially dated for 5 weeks before getting engaged. Some might think this is way too quick. In our case, I had dated a lot of different people and when I met Penn I just knew he was a keeper. I didn't need months and months of dating to convince me of that.
We kept our wedding very simple. I wanted to share the day with just our closest friends and family. We started the day with a luncheon at Hamilton's in Logan, UT. The food was wonderful and the atmosphere was fabulous. We were then sealed at 4 pm in the Logan Temple. I was the only bride there. After pictures, we were done. No reception. Still to this day I don't have any regrets about that decision.
I forgot to take Penn's ring out of my locker when we did the sealing, so we did a quick exchange of the rings in the lobby of the temple.
Penn had a black eye for our wedding. He decided a few days before we got married to catch a baseball with his face. We had offers to cover it up with makeup on our wedding day, but I thought it would be a great story to tell and that it would be kinda weird to have my husband wearing makeup.
On our way to SL after the wedding, Penn's car started shaking violently as we were entering Sardine Canyon. I was so freaked out that his car was breaking down. We pulled over and got out to see if we could figure out what was going on. That's when I saw the fin. Our car decorators had put two giant dead fish (with their heads on mind you) under the hubcaps of our car. So gross!
Penn's parents gave us 2 nights in their timeshare at the Kimball in downtown SL for our wedding night and the night after. We were woken up at 630 in the morning to jack-hammering because they were breaking ground for the now new church history museum.
I hated our photographer for our wedding. That is my only regret. I think he set me off when he asked me where I would like people to stand for pictures. We got some good pictures, but I was totally stressed out about the situation.
Our honeymoon was a cross-country road trip with my brother and his wife and my parents. Sounds awesome huh? It actually really was. We were in our own car and own hotel rooms. Once we arrived in Williamsburg, Virginia we got to do a lot of vacation things on our own. The drive there was great for us to talk and have fun as a newlywed couple.
Our plan was to come home from our honeymoon and live with my parents for a couple of weeks until we found a place to live. We didn't want to pay a full months rent since we were gone on our honeymoon for almost 2 weeks. We lasted 1 day in my parents house before finding our first apartment. We lived in Murray, UT in a 1-bedroom apartment for just over a year.
In the past 5 years, Penn has been a student for all 5 years and I was a student for 2.5 of them. The new stage of neither of us going to school has been great so far.
When we got married our goal was to have our first baby in May 2011. Karlee was 21 months old when we reached that date.

These next 2 months will be trying times for our marriage. It will be really hard to be away from each other, but I think that we have a strong enough bond that we'll make it just fine.

I love you Penn and look forward to spending the next 5 years....and the next 5...and the next 50 years to come.

Happy 2nd Birthday Karlee!!!

2011-07-31T09:11:00.003-06:00

Newborn

1 Year Old

2 Years Old

Dear Karlee,

I am still in shock at the fact that you are a 2 year old. I honestly can't remember life before you. You are such a joy to us and such a blessing to our family. You are such a smart child. I'm baffled daily at how much you know and can do. I love that you can communicate with us with so many words. You're talking in sentences and you have such an amazing memory. You shout "shopping!" whenever we pull into the parking lot at Kohl's and "hot dogs" when we pull into the Costco parking lot. You love other kids. I've been told that in nursery when all the other kids are crying for their mommies and daddies, you bring them a toy to help them feel better. You rarely take a toy from another kid, but when someone tries to take a toy away from you, you fight back. You're a good little eater, even though it's usually not a lot. You still love green beans, peas, and carrots for snacks. You're a good sleeper, even though you still like to sit in your crib and talk for a long time before falling asleep at night. You're a night owl just like your mommy and daddy. You still sleep with your beloved "piggy" and also "cow" at night and nap time. "Piggy" is looking a bit ragged these days, but I doubt you will give him up until he's bare threads. You love to dance a lot. Your favorite shows are "ardigans" (Backyardigans) and "Mouse" (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse). Other than those 2 shows, you don't really watch a lot of TV. You just love to be outside. You love to play on grandpa's putting green in his backyard and kick the golf balls around. That makes your mama happy. I see soccer in your future for sure. Pretty sure you're right-footed too. You love to color and you have to be laying on your belly when you do. You love to tickle people and when you do you say "tickle tickle" in a really high pitched voice. You also love to play "I'm gonna get you" with everyone. I think you're ready to start potty training, but the doc said it would be best to wait until we finish moving. Ok with me. I really don't mind the diapers. You love babies and still love to swaddle anything with anything. You're a total daddy's girl, but have been doing really well with him being gone this past week. You're a big helper and love to help grandma and grandpa with yard work and house work. I could keep going on about how wonderful you are. I love you Karlee and am so glad I was given the opportunity to be your mom.

Love, Mom

Road Trip

2011-07-30T21:09:00.000-06:00

I have to admit that I didn't take any pictures on our road trip last weekend. Oh well!

Penn's first day at his new job was set to be July 25th. It worked out perfectly because it would be a holiday here in Utah so I could go with him and then fly home on Monday and not miss any work. We ended up leaving right after I got off work on Friday. I made a reservation for the first night in Denver, Colorado, about a 7 hour drive. The drive was a lot of fun. We were able to talk about a lot of things, and for the first time in my life I was actually interested in all the different brands of semi trucks we passed. We pulled into our hotel right at midnight. I totally scored a deal on priceline for this hotel. The bed was really nice and it had a huge TV.

On Saturday we were set to stay in Amarillo, Texas. I had read reviews on our hotel and we really weren't in any hurry to get there. The less time we had to stay in the room the better. Crazy that the room was more expensive in Amarillo. Anyways, we hit up a true Texas steakhouse for our "anniversary" dinner since our 5 year anniversary is August 2nd and we won't be together for it :(. We then walked to the theater that was right next to our hotel and saw Transformers III in 3D. The 3D was cool; the movie totally sucked. Neither of us slept well that night because our bed felt like we were laying on a piece of plywood. Actually, plywood might have been more comfortable. We eventually crashed and ended up sleeping 2 hours longer than we had planned.

On Sunday we made our way to Frisco, Texas where my brother lives and where Penn is living until Karlee and I can join him. They planned a wonderful BBQ with fajitas and other yummy food. We played games that night, got Penn ready for his first day at work, and played with the kiddos. It was fun meeting my new neice, Emery. The first time I met Carter he was 2 months old so it was great getting to hold her at just 2 weeks old. She's a sweetheart!

Monday I sent Penn off to work. It would be the last time I would see him for almost 6 weeks. I hung around with my brother and sister-in-law that morning and then headed to the airport. I missed my Karlee bug, but she caught a cold while I was gone so I didn't miss her too much :)

So here we are, almost a week gone by. It's been an adjustment to being a single parent. Thank goodness for modern technology and things like Skype and picture/text messaging. We talk to Penn every night. I'm also very grateful for my parents. They've been a huge help with Karlee. It was really fun to spend a lot of time with my girl today, but I sure missed Penn. If I can make it through these next 2 months, I can make it through anything I think.

two year photo shoot

2011-07-26T23:00:00.001-06:00

A couple weeks ago we met our friends/former neighbors/photographers in Sugarhouse to do some pictures of the Karlee since she'll be 2 in just a few days. I seriously have a hard time picking pictures when they take them because I love them all. Enjoy!

www.rjsnowphotography.com

On the Market

2011-07-21T22:00:00.001-06:00

Our house is officially up for sale!

We are completely moved out and my very talented sister-in-law came in and worked her magic staging the house for us. Seriously, I think it looks amazing and I'm wishing I could keep a lot of the stuff she used. So here are the specs if you know of anyone looking for a place in the Layton area:

$128.000

1402 square feet

Built in 2003

3 Bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

Tons of upgrades include:

Brand new laminate/wood flooring throughout main floor w/ 5 inch baseboards

Kitchen upgrades: new hardware, new over the range microwave, new sink/faucet

New light fixtures/ceiling fans throughout

New paint

Great location within the neighborhood (semi-private backyard away from street, close to pool, east facing backyard is great for evening BBQs in the summer)

HOA includes complete landscaping, snow removal, water/sewer/garbage, access to pool/clubhouse, and homeowner's insurance.

Front view

Front entryway/hallway

Kitchen

Another view of kitchen

Living Room

Half Bath

Dining Room

Bedroom #2

Bedroom #3

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Here's hoping for a quick sale!

Family Reunion 2011

2011-07-19T13:24:00.000-06:00

The Annual Thornock Family Reunion was on July 9th this year. Our family was in charge of putting it all together. It was a lot of work since half our family lives out of state. I basically organized the whole thing when I wasn't working. It turned out pretty good, but I was more than happy for it to be over. We held the event at the Layton Park in one of their covered boweries. Here's what went on:

Breakfast was my favorite idea. We did a pancake bar. Each person got a cup of batter and then they got to add whatever mix-ins they wanted. We had everything you could think of. I settled on raspberries with white chocolate chips and crushed pecans and whipped cream on top. So good!

Then we had a bounce house with a slide and a bungee run delivered for everyone to play on all day. Everyone had a lot of fun on these. Unfortunately my dad had too much fun and ended up tearing his hamstring on the bungee run. Poor guy still stuck it out for the rest of the day.

We also had the unfortunate event of there being lane closures through Bountiful so a bunch of my cousins got stuck in traffic for 2 hours and they were in charge of lunch. Boy was it sure good when it got there because we were all starving.

Some of the family went over to Surf n Swim to go swimming in the afternoon. Penn took Karlee home to take a nap because she wasn't getting a little ornery. When he got back we had the "Sugar Stomp" which is a rendition of a cake walk except everyone could bring anything sugary to be the prizes. We also had a silent auction with some great prizes.

That evening the rain came pouring down, but luckily we were in a covered bowery where you could enclose it to keep the rain out. We had pulled pork burritos for dinner that turned out so good.

We were so tired by the end, but it really was a great time to see family that we don't get to see very often and that we probably won't get to see for several years after we move to Texas.

4th of July Weekend

2011-07-18T13:04:00.001-06:00

I'm finally getting around to getting caught up on my blog. The 4th of July weekend was crazy, extremely busy, and really not all that fun this year. We moved out of our house that weekend so it was pretty chaotic. Our wonderful friends the Granges gave us the biggest help out of anyone by offering to take Karlee that Saturday morning. We were able to get a lot done without having to wrangle the Karlee bug.

We took a break on Sunday to celebrate my 27th birthday. It wasn't the greatest birthday, but it wasn't the worst either. I warned my sister in law whose baby was due July 7th to keep her in until after the 4th because with all the festivities and whatnot that go with the 4th, my birthday always seemed to get overlooked. It also didn't help that it was the hottest day of the year that day and it was also fast Sunday so I ended up with a massive migraine that whole day. I was still spoiled. I got a call from all of my siblings and even a "Happy Birthday Mommy" from Karlee. Penn got me my iPad for my birthday and also surprised me one day when I got off the train to find my car had been completely detailed and new CDs of my favorite band were in my CD player. I got some cute Anthropologie clothes from my sister and some iTunes gift cards from my brothers so I can buy books on my iPad. My parents got me a GPS so I'll be able to find my way around Texas since there aren't any mountains to help direct me where I'm going. I'm sure it will come in very handy.

On Monday, Penn & my Dad went to work on some projects we had to do to the house. They painted our bathrooms, patched holes in the walls, and finished our baseboards. My mom, my grandma, Karlee and I decided to have a girls morning. We went to breakfast at Village Inn and then went swimming. Karlee went down for her nap and we worked the rest of the day on the house. We wanted to go to the fireworks, but were so tired that we decided not to. Turned out to be just fine. We had some of our own fireworks that we lit in the backyard. Karlee loved the "firerks", especially the sparklers. Shortly after our little fireworks show, the neighbors all started their shows. They were better than the shows the city puts on. I think they invested several hundred dollars in fireworks each. They went on until after midnight. Karlee loved them. Every time one went off she would ask us if we heard it.

So that was our 4th. Nothing spectacular, but great to be able to spend it with our family.

Karlee is all-american. Her new favorite food is corn on the cob and she loves to eat it right off of the cob. She could down 3 ears if we let her.

So cute in her patriotic church dress.

Two Year Stats

2011-07-17T13:02:00.000-06:00

We took Karlee in for her 2 year checkup a little early due to our insurance changing to Texas insurance at the beginning of August and not wanting to pay out of network charges just for a well visit. We'll really miss her pediatrician. Dr. Reese has been so wonderful to work with and Karlee just adores him. If anyone is looking for a pediatrician in the Bountiful area, he's one I would highly recommend. Anyways, here's where our little miss measures up:

25 lbs 4 oz (35th)

32.5 in (23rd)

49.5 cm (94th)

It's crazy to think that in one year she has only gained 4.5 pounds and only gotten 3.5 inches taller. She's such a busy child that's it's completely understandable.

We love you Karlee bug! Can't believe you'll be 2 in 2 weeks!

Deep in the Heart of Texas

2011-07-01T21:30:00.000-06:00

So I know it's been a while since I've updated. Believe me we've been busy! Although I don't have a ton of time to go into detail, I'll update you on the important stuff.

1. We're moving! Once we decided to have Penn start looking for jobs outside of Utah, we felt it best to consider selling our house. We didn't want to deal with the stress of trying to show our house with a crazy Karlee and all of her "stuff" so we decided to move into my parents basement and then list our house to sell. We thought we had hit a huge snag when we found out our neighbors practically gave their house away (for no good reason really). We've decided to still proceed with selling. If you know of anyone looking to buy in Layton, they'll be getting a great deal on a nice townhouse so send them our way :)

2. Penn got a job! That's right folks. Penn got offered a job as a mechanical engineer with an amazing starting salary with Peterbilt Motors in Dallas, Texas. What does Peterbilt do you ask? They build BIG semi trucks. That's about all I know. :) He'll probably start work around the first of August. I'm going to be staying in Utah until I finish my job at the end of August and then Karlee and I will join him in Texas. The real estate market is really great down there right now so we'll probably be looking to buy a house house (no shared walls for us anymore!). My brother and his family live down there already so we're really excited to get to live closer to them.

So once life gets a little bit settled down I'll go back to putting cute pictures of Karlee and all of her antics up. She's turned into the craziest, funniest little girl. I love it!

Stay tuned!

Up Up and Away

2011-06-12T14:03:00.002-06:00

Penn is a hard one to buy presents for. So for his birthday this year I saw a deal on Groupon for iFLY in Ogden. The deal was for 2 1-minute flights each, 2 t-shirts, and 2 DVDs of our indoor skydiving experience. It was seriously such a blast! I loved it!

The most awesome part is we got a coupon to go back and do a 3-minute flight for $30 each. I'm thinking we might take up the offer and go again sometime.

Poor Bug Bitten by a Bug

2011-06-11T21:39:00.001-06:00

Poor Karlee Bug is all I can say! We went for a walk on the trail behind my parents house on Thursday evening, apparently she got a mosquito bite, and here's what we have two days later.

This is from Friday afternoon. And yes that is a giant scab on her nose. The girl plays hard. Anyways, notice her eyebrow and it's a little puffy.

This is from Friday evening when I got home from work. It's swollen quite a bit in just a few hours. We were advised to give her some benadryll to see if that helped with the allergic reaction she was having to the mosquito bite.

And here she is on Saturday morning. Obviously a lot worse, prompting a visit to Urgent Care. Her spirits were definitely high and she wasn't bugged by it that much. I think she was a little concerned when she woke up and only one eye opened though.

We got some prescriptions for an antihistimine and an anti-itch/anti-inflamation and already her eye is able to open a little bit.

So if you see her tomorrow, you now won't need to worry that we're bad parents :)

Penn's Birthday, I Mean BirthWEEKEND

2011-06-05T14:39:00.000-06:00

Penn had his 28th birthday on Thursday. The festivities kind of got out of hand and it turned into more of a birthweekend instead of just birthday. Oh well. He deserves it.

On Thursday, his parents came down and took us to Boston's for dinner. We totally lucked out by going early because I totally forgot that it was Layton High's graduation that night and once we got up to leave it was super busy.

After dinner, we went over to Boondock's for a game of miniature golf. We did this last year for Penn's birthday as well. Let's just say it was a lot easier corralling a 10 month old than it was a 22 month old.

I can't believe she used to be so chubby!

She was EVERYWHERE! Probably not the best activity to take an almost 2 year old to. Maybe next year.

On Friday, Penn & Karlee went swimming during the day and then we met up at Krispy Kreme's (which is just up the street from our house) on my way home from work for a free doughnut. Karlee was loving watching the doughnuts being made.

Friday night we went bowling with my parents and my brother and his family. They put all 6 of us on one lane so it took quite a while to get through 2 games, but the kids made it. Karlee kept busy eating some of the popcorn Bubbers shared with her and dancing in the lane when the galactic bowling started.

On Saturday, I decided that Karlee & I needed a girls day. It's been really tough not being able to be around her. We left Penn to have some free time to do whatever and we went over to my mom's house to have a bath, take a walk, get some lunch, and go shopping. After her initial freak out wanting her daddy (have I mentioned that she is such a daddy's girl) we had a really good time together with grandma and grandma "grape" as Karlee calls her.

Penn in the meantime was able to fix up our little plant area in our backyard. I'll post a separate post on all our updates we've done on the house (as soon as I find time to clean it enough to take some good pictures :)).

After Karlee took a 3 hour nap (girls day really wore her out!) we headed up to Bear River to go 4-wheeling at his parents house. We just rode over by the river, but couldn't go too far because it's crazy full this year. Karlee loved being on the 4-wheeler, but doesn't like being held so when we went down hills she wasn't too happy about us holding on to her so she wouldn't fall off. She also liked playing on their swing set they have in their yard.

We made our way over to the park before heading home.

Hope it was a super happy birthday Penn! I know your wish is to get a job so hopefully it will be granted soon!

Memorial Day Weekend

2011-06-03T09:10:00.002-06:00

Once again for Memorial Day we were homebound. I distinctly remember Karlee being sick last year and she kept the tradition up again this year by coming down with a cold. At least it was only a cold this year. I think last year she was on ear infection #5 (#3 for the month of May). Anyways, with all of the rain our backyard common area turned into a bit of a lake and we had a couple duck visitors come take up residence. Karlee had fun going out and feeding the duckies some of her bread.

On Sunday we had an indoor BBQ with Penn's family and then went to visit the graves with my family. Karlee kept trying to steal flowers from some of the graves to give to me. She was also fascinated by the pinwheels on some of the graves and loved going and smelling all of the flowers.

We did get a smidgeon of sunshine so we went out and played on a blanket in the backyard.

And after taking a walk in the park, we took Karlee out for her very first ice cream cone experience. We probably should have told the kid who made it that it was for a toddler so he didn't make it so big. Oh well. It was pretty funny and lifted all of our spirits.

The video is a little bit long, but pretty funny stuff.

Changes

2011-06-01T20:58:00.000-06:00

The past week has definitely thrown us for a loop. Last Wednesday Penn found out that his company, who was going to continue his internship until the end of August, decided they didn't have the money to do that anymore and he would be out of a job as of May 31st. No severance. Just thanks and best of luck. Nice. Up until a month ago, we relied on Penn's income solely so I could stay home with Karlee. I agreed to work this summer to help my old coworkers out with some maternity leaves. We planned on using the money I earned to pay off student loans. I didn't have to work. Oh how life throws you curve balls. Now I do and I'm really grateful that I made the choice to help out my friends. I'm not saying that I'm absolutely loving working full-time again. I miss my girl terribly. I miss being able to have hobbies. I miss the freedom to run errands when I need to. I miss taking Karlee to the pool and the mall and wherever we wanted to go. But I am grateful. I'm grateful that we're not having to struggle financially because of this. So where does that leave us? Well, we've expanded our employment search to the far reaches of the country. Yep, there is a high likelihood that we will be moving out of state in the near future. It's kind of exciting to think about....and scary. The most important thing is that Penn gets a good job that is a good start to his career. We've found a lot of different opportunities in various locations so we're hoping that something works out here soon. Until then, I'm back to being a train riding working woman and Penn gets to play Mr. Mom. I get these sent to me throughout the day to help out a little bit.

Lazy Saturday

2011-05-23T21:57:00.000-06:00

Gotta make sure the baby gets fed.

Lounging with Daddy

Watching the iPad while eating some oats.

Sounds like a great Saturday morning to me!

rollin

2011-05-20T15:19:00.000-06:00

Love these 2!

what's going on

2011-05-19T14:27:00.000-06:00

Lots of activity around the Allred house. We're loving having just working daddy instead of working/studying daddy. Penn had his first job interview last week at a company called ES3. We're really hoping it works out because their office is literally 2 miles from our house. The company has federal contracts working on landing gear with HAFB. I've been loving working part-time. It's really a great balance for Karlee and I. June & July will be a little bit harder because I have to work full-time hours, but we will make it. She'll get some good time in with Grandma. After that they're considering keeping me on as a part-time employee. I think I would really like that so we'll see what happens. We already have a spot for Karlee at a couple of preschools. Other than that we've been busy doing some home improvements. Our kitchen makeover is just about done. We ditched our microwave that has had only half of the buttons work for the past 4 years due to the outlet shorting out one day and put in an over the stove microwave. Yes, you know you're an adult when you're super excited about getting a new microwave. We're also putting in new hardware on all of our cupboards and putting a chandelier in our dining room. That just leaves a couple of bathrooms to paint and redecorate and some bushes to plant in the back and we're done doing house projects. Might need some ideas to keep Penn busy seeing as we're probably stuck here for a while until the housing market improves a little bit. Karlee has really become more of a little kid instead of a baby lately. She is so much fun (for the most part) right now. She doesn't ever quit talking, however. I would say her vocabulary is over 200 words now. She is starting to do 2-3 word sentences too. The latest favorite of mine is when she burps she giggles and says "Excuse you!" Love it! Anyways, here's some pictures of her lately.

Lounging around watching "Mouse" (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, her absolute favorite show and only show she watches)

Went to the carnival at Grandma's school.

Attempted to play some guitar.

Went down the blowup slide with Daddy.

More Mouse.

Just being cute.

Longboarding with Daddy.

Wee!

Sun!

Outside with bubbles.

More outside watching the neighbors play baseball.

Running away from our next door neighbor boy. This kid, for being as small as he is, is sure capable of making a ton of noise. Penn calls me an old curmudgeon because it seriously bothers me. Hence why I can't wait until we can get into a house with no shared walls.

So that's that. Happy Spring! Let's get some sunshine for more than a day or two please!

Diaper Trike

2011-05-18T14:25:00.000-06:00

So I saw this idea one day while I was perusing Etsy (I say perusing because I don't think I've actually ever bought anything off there, just got ideas for things to make myself). Anyways, I came across these:

I thought they were so stinkin cute. Now I just needed someone having a baby so I could try my hand at one. My friend, and boss, Julie was the lucky recipient.

Here's the final product:

I made the 2 blankets that hold it together. It is also complete with a fat biker chick. Thank you Easter stuffed animals. I also included some onesies and bows that I made in the bags on the bird's back. There's a few things I would do different next go around, but overall I think it turned out super cute.

Bubbles

2011-05-09T14:07:00.000-06:00

It's the simple things in life really.

my day

2011-05-08T20:32:00.000-06:00

I will admit, up until about noon today it wasn't looking to be a very Happy Mother's Day for me at all. I had a bad dream that I don't remember but woke me up in panic mode, had another hives breakout (5th in 2 weeks, 2nd in 2 days...still unsure what they're from), hit my shin really hard leaving a giant swollen lump on my leg that I can guarantee will leave a huge bruise, were late for church, Karlee threw a fit when I went to take her to nursery because she wanted her daddy, and our primary kids were rotten today even though we only had three instead of the usual nine.

But, when I got home from church Penn & Karlee had made me a card (Karlee colored it) that had the sweetest note from both of them and an iTunes gift card to spend on apps for when I get my iPad2 this week (so excited!). Karlee took a three hour nap and was so cute the whole night over at Gma & Gpas. Dinner was delicious. My mom loved her gift from us (we're getting glitter toes done together). We got to talk to my brother and his family on Skype. And now I get to spend the rest of the night watching my DVRd shows from the week that I haven't got to yet.

Even though it didn't start out so wonderful, I felt appreciated on this day and oh so proud to be a mother.

The Day My Life Changed Forever...The Day I Became a Mom

Reasons I Love Being A Mom

2011-05-08T13:42:00.001-06:00

1. Whenever I (or anyone else for that matter) asks Karlee to say Thank You she says "Thank You Mama" regardless of whether she's thanking me or someone else.

2. Whenever she gives kisses she has to first give them on the lips with a big "mwah" and then she says "cheek" and "cheek" to kiss both cheeks.

3. She is so motherly already. In fact, today at church she had a wet wipe and was swaddling her sippy cup saying "sleepy baby."

4. She has the most infectious laugh. Every time I hear I just have to smile.

5. After just a short warming up period, she is so friendly to everyone she meets.

6. Whenever we drive down a big hill, she says "weee!!!"

7. She is such a big helper. I'm attempting to grow some plants in pots in front of our house, so I bought her a little watering can and she gets so excited to come help water the plants every day. She is also very good at fetching things for us.

8. She goes anywhere I need to go usually without a fuss.

9. She is already so smart. We've recently perfected counting to ten. She loves getting to the number ten and yelling it really loud while throwing her hands in the air.

10. She fills each and every day with so much joy and gratitude that I was blessed with the opportunity to be her mother.

I could keep going and going, but I'll stop at 10.

I love you Karlee Bug!

Thank you for letting me be your mommy!

Dad the Grad

2011-05-07T19:58:00.000-06:00

You got that right! Penn has finally graduated!

May 6, 2011

(sidenote: I graduated with my Bachelor's on May 6, 2006. Pretty cool huh?)

Anyways, What. a. Day. or Days I should say.

We started the night before by going out for sushi at The Happy Sumo with our good friends Audra & Trevor & their little man Andrew. Love the food there, but never had a very good experience with the service. That night was no exception. Took an hour just to get our appetizers. Thank goodness they seated us outside and the weather was beautiful so Karlee could roam around a little bit. The food was fabulous so in the end we were all satisfied.

On Friday morning, I told Karlee we were going to see Daddy graduate and we were going to ride the train in to see him. I heard nothing but "choo choo train go now" for an hour until we left. We met up with Penn's parents at the Frontrunner station. Karlee loved being on the train. We've been a few times before, but she was too young to probably remember or even care.

I totally came prepared for keeping Karlee entertained during the ceremony. She was SO good through the whole thing. I was amazed. Not only did she endure the hour train ride, but a two hour graduation ceremony on top of it. She didn't get upset or cranky once during the whole thing and didn't even try to get out of our aisle. The ceremony started at 11:15 and got over by about 1:15.

Walking in to the arena. Lookin' sharp!

Mouth full of crackers.

Grandma on the other hand did the smart thing and took a snooze during the opening speeches. Seriously, engineers are not meant to be public speakers. Actually, while looking over at the mechanical engineering graduates, a majority of them had their phones out playing games or texting. Seriously, boring. While Grandma was sleeping, Karlee kept looking over at her and giggling then would turn to me and say "sleepy Grandma." She also kept leaning over the chair in front of us and looking at the guy next to it and saying "Daddy" because the guy was bald. When the graduates came in to the arena, Karlee got super excited and was clapping and saying "daddy" the whole time.

After the ceremony, we went outside to snag a couple of pictures before heading home. Karlee was getting pretty tired by that point.

Hat

After pictures we headed home and were finally able to get Karlee down for her nap at 2:30. She slept until 5. While she was asleep Penn went to lunch with his parents while I stayed home with the snoozing Karlee and got a few zzz's in myself. But the festivities didn't end there. We were invited to a graduation open house bbq of one of Penn's friends who graduated with him so we enjoyed going up to a park in NSL. Karlee kept herself quite entertained with her "boon."

It's been a long road to get to this point, but we're so happy it's finally here. When I met Penn he wanted to be a physical therapist, then a chiropractor, then a psychologist, then a respiratory therapist, then I finally got tired of the constant career path changes so I sat him down and had him tell me what he likes to do not considering the potential career path. He told me he likes to discover how things work and how their made. I asked him why he doesn't do engineering. His response was he didn't want to be a nerd. Well, everyone basically turns out to be a nerd when they get older. Nerds run this world. Nerds are able to provide for their family. It's ok to be a nerd. So he tried out engineering classes and hasn't looked back since. I'm so proud that he's found a passion in life. I'm excited to see where his knowledge takes him. I'm happy to say that I was a big part of this accomplishment as well. I felt it important for him to get his degree done quickly so I worked full-time so he could focus on school and only work part-time. It was hard, but worth it in the end. There were many days where I was a single mom (or so it felt), but he did his best to make up for it in other ways.

Congratulations Penn! You're officially a BS-er!

Busy, Busy, Busy

2011-05-05T14:41:00.000-06:00

The past couple of weeks seem to have just flown by. On Monday April 25th I started back to work part-time. I'm covering for some maternity leaves at my old work so for now it's just temporary. We figure with the money I'm able to earn from working this summer, we'll be able to completely pay off Penn's student loans and also have some to put in savings for a future down payment on our next house. My neighbor so kindly offered to watch Karlee in the mornings for the first 6 weeks and it's been so nice to not have to worry if she's being taken care of like I did when she was in day care before. She has a little bit of a hard time letting me leave in the mornings, but apparently it's just a ploy because the second I'm gone she stops crying and is happy the rest of the day. She just wants me to feel bad about leaving. My friend has a 7 month old little boy so Karlee has loved being around a baby. We got a double stroller so they've been enjoying going on walks in this lovely weather we've had the past couple of days. The one thing I really stressed about before going back to work was the fact that Karlee liked to sleep in until 8 or 9 and take a nap at 1. With my schedule, she has to wake up at 715, but still can't take her nap until 1. The new schedule has actually been great. She's pretty tired when I get home so she falls right asleep for her nap (and it lasts from 2.5-3 hours now) and finally after almost 5 months she goes to sleep within a 1/2 hour of us putting her to bed at 8 (she was taking upwards of 2 hours to fall asleep at night before). It's been so great!

As for work, it seriously feels like I was just there working. I've picked everything up really fast, like I haven't even been gone for 11 months. The only thing I've struggled with is there are so many new faces that I don't know. I'm sure I'll get to know them eventually.

We've got a lot of exciting things happening this weekend so stay tuned!

Karlee tries to get a drink straight out of the bathroom faucet after brushing her teeth.

This entertained her for a solid 30 minutes.

The video is what I go outside to find Penn and Karlee doing. No wonder she has no fear!

Easter Sunday

2011-04-24T20:56:00.002-06:00

Easter Sunday was absolutely wonderful. We started off the morning with church and Karlee got to wear her dress that I made for her. I think it turned out super cute and the way I did the straps it will be wearable next year most likely. Karlee decided to sleep in until 5 minutes to 9 so we popped a waffle in the toaster, chopped up a pear, and she enjoyed her breakfast at church.

Giving us a little Marilyn Monroe

After church, it was so pretty outside we decided to have lunch out on a blanket in the backyard. Karlee enjoyed her grilled cheese, gogurt, and grapes. She especially enjoyed feeding Penn & I grapes.

After our experience with our primary class today (seriously, the kids must have had jelly beans for breakfast because they were so bad today) we decided that we're going to teach Karlee that the Easter Bunny doesn't come until you go to church. So after her psuedo-nap (that lasted all of 20 minutes today...darn cough!) we let her come down to see what the bunny brought her. She got some sand toys, a stuffed bunny, her bee basket was filled with fruit snacks, a movie with some of my favorite classics (American Tale, Land Before Time 1, and Balto) and she got a baby doll with stroller. The girl was in heaven!

She's already so attached to her baby doll.

Then we did a makeshift egg hunt for her in my parents backyard. All of us have been sick the past couple of days and I was out of town on Thursday and Friday so we kinda just threw this together. It worked out great. She loved picking up the eggs and yelling "egg!" every time she saw one and then putting them in her bee easter basket (aka purse as she called it).

We learned a very important lesson as parents today and that is to make sure that Karlee is taught that Easter isn't just about bunnies and candy and gifts, but about the resurrection of our Lord and Savior.

Happy Easter to Everyone!

Design Day 2011

2011-04-20T14:15:00.000-06:00

This was Karlee at Design Day 2010.

And here we are at Design Day 2011

It was fun to take a trip up to the University of Utah yesterday to see Penn's senior design project on display. I wouldn't be able to tell you all the details of his project, but in a nutshell it's a device that uses the waves of the ocean to generate power through use of a buoy. It's a pretty awesome concept and it may just go into production if they're able to test it thoroughly. Only thing with the testing is it costs $10,000 to rent the facility at Oregon State University that has a wave generator. Don't think we have that lying around anywhere. Anyways, it was cool to see what they've been spending so many hours on over the last 2 semesters. Karlee also liked riding in a couple of different vehicles that were developed by other teams and also really liked the plane that will be in the Red Bull Flugtag competition. Next stop: Graduation!

Reminiscing

2011-04-18T22:52:00.001-06:00

Recently I came across a totally awesome deal on this little contraption. It's a portable photo scanner. I have a plan for it, but can't detail it here because the person it's for reads this blog and I don't want to blow the secret.

Anyways, to test out my new contraption I pulled out some old photo albums from my freshman year in college. I probably spent an hour just looking through the pictures. Brought back some great memories.

Man, we were so cool back then! It seriously doesn't seem like it's been 8.5 years.

Free time?

2011-04-16T13:55:00.001-06:00

What do you do with your free time? Here's what Karlee does...

Snuggles with a favorite furry friend. (btw, she can now say Widget and it's one of the cutest things ever)

Practicing the golf game.

Taking some tips on her swing from Grandpa.

Discovering the most awesome park for short legged kids. Mom doesn't have to worry about her falling anymore.

And reading good books.

Must not forget to share. Give em' a read Widget.

Gotta keep busy!

Fun Weekend

2011-04-11T07:51:00.000-06:00

Despite the non-stop snow/rain/hail/doesn't matter what it was it because it completely sucked, we managed to have some fun. My mom was off work all last week for spring break so we got to have some fun "Gamma" time. On Friday we decided to take a walk, but due to the aforementioned precipitation we had to pick an indoor location. The mall it was. It's dangerous to take walks there. They basically end up turning into less walking and more perusing. After a few purchases and my traditional purchase of a large lemonade from Chik-fil-A, we headed back to watch Tangled (again). It held Karlee's attention for a good while, which doesn't usually happen unless it's Mickey Mouse. She would laugh every time she did something with her hair. Our visit also had to include some cuddle time with old Mr. Bud (my 16-year old cat). He's such a patient guy with this crazy munchkin.

On Saturday, we were able to get Karlee's twin bed and dresser moved into our spare room from our storage unit (aka my parent's basement). I'm not quite done organizing the room, but when I am I will post pictures. We decided to move it over now even though she will likely remain contained in her cage (crib) for some time still because there are often times that the couch has been used as a bed due to inability to sleep due to snoring issues, etc. Plus, I can slowly get her used to the bed before we make the official switch down the road. It currently is sharing the room with my craft room. After we got all that moved, Karlee was a big help with some of our Saturday chores. Even though vacuuming the rug took probably 10 minutes more than usual, it's cute to watch her want to help.

After Karlee's nap, we joined our friends Levi & Camille for some good ol' bowling. Usually when we've taken Karlee bowling she just runs around and we have to take turns chasing her. This time she was mesmerized by the balls. We quickly figured out she's pretty strong too because she managed to pick up an 8 pound ball and bring it to us. It was cute watching her practice throwing the ball after everyone's turn. We're also excited that our friends are pregnant with a little girl due in August! They've lost 2 babies the past 2 years so we're so ecstatic for them.

I don't have any pictures, but we had a birthday party for my dad on Sunday. Karlee and Bubbers were so cute together. They would run around in circles chasing eachother, pretended to wrap up their "babies" (Piggy & Chilly Willy the penguin) in beach towels, and we all definitely enjoyed some strawberries and angel food cake.

And there you have it.

Crazy Kid

2011-04-07T13:22:00.000-06:00

Karlee is an interesting critter. Not only does she have a thing for sniffing tails (reference previous post about Piggy), but she has an interesting definition of what she calls a "hat"

The newest runway fashion...blue colanders for hats.

or when it's necessary to wear a "hat"

She demanded she wore her hat all during breakfast.

and she kisses goats.

We love her anyway!

Start Em' Young

2011-04-02T23:23:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, Gma & Gpa T introduced Karlee to a little thing called Yardwork. That thing I've been blessed to have been away from (for the most part) for the past 9 years (and will be for a few more, thank you HOA for doing it for me). Hate to say it, but she really had a lot of fun with her "sovel" and "buckit" in the dirt. Only thing she hated was getting dirt in her sandals. She immediately demanded to take her shoes off to remove the dirt.

Attempting to cover her pants in dirt. Little stinker.

Working alongside Gma & Gpa

Here's hoping Spring decides to come visit again soon!

This Little Piggy...

2011-04-02T08:33:00.001-06:00

This is Piggy, Karlee's bedtime buddy and favorite stuffed animal. In his 20 months as her friend, he's been "loved" on a lot. As you can see, he's looking very "loved". So before they discontinued making this animal, we bought a spare for the day when the first Piggy falls apart from so much love. It's amazing how worn out he looks in such a short amount of time.

The tail is the most worn out part. Karlee has a thing for tails. Every stuffed animal gets picked up by the tail. If she picks it up any other way, she'll turn it around to hold it by the tail. And for some strange, and very odd reason, Karlee likes to sniff Piggy's tail. It's soothing to her, I suppose. Very odd.

These Days

2011-04-01T08:33:00.000-06:00

This last week with all the crazy weather we've had here we've had to be creative on activities to keep us busy.

Like playing dress up...

and posing...

and coloring with Daddy...

and trying to fit in a box...

and practicing our CPR skills...

and trying on shoes.

My creativity juices are running low. Thank goodness for the warm weather the past couple of days.

Bedtime Ritual

2011-03-22T21:19:00.000-06:00

Every night Karlee gets to have "stories" with Penn. Her face just lights up when he asks if she's ready for stories. She gets up from whatever she's doing and heads upstairs. Her favorite book is Goodnight Gorilla. She practically has the thing memorized. I wanted to record it because her reactions to the book are just too cute! Enjoy.

Ready for Summer?

2011-03-22T07:57:00.001-06:00

I'd say this girl is!