Boo At The Zoo

We went to Boo At The Zoo Saturday morning. This was our 3rd year going. The previous times we froze our toes to the bone and learned that you have to get there at about 8:30am if you want to park in the actual Zoo parking and not walk a mile to get there. We had fun the other years, but nothing like this year. I think the gates open at 9am, but they always open them earlier. By about 9:30 we were able to start taking off coats and by probably about 10 or 10:30 it was beautiful out. It was really nice for the kids not to have to wear warm jammies under their costumes like most years in Colorado. The kids really liked going trick or treating and getting to see the animals. After a few stations Noelle finally figured out how to go up to the employees to say "trick or treat" and put her bag out. We had a picnic lunch and walked just a little more before Adam was done. That is much longer than we lasted previous years. We all had such a great time and can't wait for more Halloween fun this week!!


We also went to Beth's annual Halloween party Friday night. We always have fun and so do the kids. Adam and Noelle got to play with Ethan and Mary while Justin and I pretty much relaxed for a couple hours.

Such a cute little Piglet!

The handsomest Peter Pan ever (although he did get called Robin Hood several times).

Mary, Noelle, Ethan, and Adam

They were sword fighting but stopped for a quick pic.

Such a handsome boy!!

I'm not usually very impressed with pictures taken by a school. But last years turned out so great (we had NOT ordered it, since you have to pay and order beforehand) that we decided to go for it this time. I am sooo glad we did, I LOVE it! (And yes, his hair is spiked with white gel, we have gel in several colors that he uses on special occasions.)

Mommy's little helpers

The kids love to help us cook, especially baked goods! And I guess you could say I've had the baking bug the last couple of weeks. We made Banana Bread last weekend and Coffee Cake Friday night. Noelle helped me make Oatmeal Raisin Cookies this morning. We cooked 6 to enjoy for snack this afternoon and froze the rest in balls so that we can cook just a few at a time later on. Adam and I made Chocolate Chip Cookies this afternoon. We are freezing all of them in balls for later. I also want to make another Coffee Cake in the next few days, since we ate the first one in less than 24 hours. I'll add that we had help from a friend who was visiting.

Oops, a few oats missed the bowl!!


Adam loves to crack the eggs, and he is really good at it.


We had so much fun together!!

Could have been worse

I got a call from Justin about noon on Saturday while I was at MOPS. When a phone call starts out "Charlotte, this is important!" you know something is seriously wrong. Apparently Noelle decided she needed some vitamins and sat at the table and ate Adam's vitamin, a vitamin c capsule (opened it and spilled most on table), a Claritin, and chewed up and spat out one of my prenatals. Justin, Adam, and I use 7 day pill boxes because otherwise I would never remember when or if we took out vitamins. We (used to) keep them on the dining table in a wooden bowl with the napkins so we remembered to take them every night at dinner. Now, she has sat at the table in my spot daily for months and has never tried to play with the pill boxes, until Saturday. I told Justin he needed to call Poison Control immediately and he did. Thank goodness for that sticker with the number on the phone and a magnet on the fridge. At that point he had no clue how much of what she had managed to ingest. Poison control said she would be fine since she ingested so little, apparently she would have to eat about 10 prenatals and 30 vitamin C before it would hurt her. They told him to give her some milk and crackers to soak up what she ate in her belly. She is fine and we are very thankful it didn't happen on a Sunday night or Monday when there would have been 6-7 days of pills in the boxes. Needless to say we are no longer keeping the pills on the table. I'm sure we will forget more days than before, but Noelle's health and life are too important to have it any other way. We bought a box to put the pills in that is tall enough that she can't see what is in it and are keeping it up on the counter where she can't reach.

Grandpa Ron's Birthday

We went up north to celebrate my dad's birthday Monday night. The kids always love going to grandma and grandpa's house, especially now that we don't get to see them as often. We enjoyed chili and homemade chocolate cake, yum! Ever since Adam was a baby he has gotten gifts at every birthday celebrated at grandma and grandpa's house, regardless of who's birthday it is! So Adam got a guitar and Noelle a monkey with it's own cage, it even talks! They both loved the presents!! Uncle Merle brought a bag full of neat toys to play with too. The kids had a blast chasing a remote controlled helicopter and hovercraft around, as well as a mechanical cockroach that walked around.

Also, their Papa Greg's birthday is today, HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAPA!!

I had to go buy Noelle some onesies today. Now she has figured out how to undo her diaper while dressed! I went to get her out of quiet time in the play pen, time out because she kept yelling at me, and she had her shirt off and her diaper undone. At least her pants were still on. Right before bed she tried taking her diaper off again while in her footie pj's. I decided it would be a good idea to start wearing the onesies tonight.

I forgot to mention how Noelle smushed her finger last Friday. She was in her closet trying to close the door and ended up with her pinkie in the bi-fold door. Of course every time she tried to pull it out it just got squeezed even more. I heard her crying and couldn't figure out why she wouldn't come to me. Well duh, SHE COULDN'T!! Poor kid, her top 1/3 of her pinkie was completely flat. I thought for sure we would be going to the ER or something. Amazingly though it has NO damage. No bruise and no marks on the fingernail, which is fully intact. I now wish I had taken a picture but I was just so worried that it was going to be damaged badly it hadn't occurred to me.

Noelle bares her backside

Noelle just doesn't like bedtime. She usually does great up until we actually tell her to go say goodnight to Adam and whichever of us wasn't reading to her. She usually starts screaming instantly and yelling "NO". It all started when we took her out of her crib and into a toddler bed soon after she turned a year. Since then she has gone back and forth between the toddler bed and a playpen. She is currently in the playpen because mommy decided that spending 30-60 minutes each night getting her to stay in bed, with her screaming or laughing at us the whole time, was just too much of a stress right now. (I really wouldn't care about her staying in the bed except that Adam shares a room with her and she opens the door and comes out.) She has been very mad at us at bedtime this last week. We finally decided to not even go in her room anymore so that she wouldn't be getting that attention from us. Last Tuesday when I went to tuck the kids in before going to sleep myself I had quite the shock. Noelle was asleep on her belly with only her pajama top on, no pants or DIAPER! I honestly couldn't stop laughing and went to grab the camera for a picture before even thinking about how to handle the situation. Once I finally controlled my laughter I had to figure out how to diaper a kid sleeping on her belly. Thank goodness she hadn't peed yet! We keep pull-ups around for when we are out so I decided the best thing to do would be to slip one of those on her. She was even nice enough to lift her pelvis for me. For some reason it never occurred to me that she would do it again. Wednesday night she only took off her pants, but Thursday she went for the diaper again. This time she had peed, in TWO places, before I did my nightly tucking in. Noelle is no longer allowed to wear two piece pj's to bed, only zippered footie ones. The girl sure keeps me on my toes!!

Time to try something new

Life has been so crazy and overwhelming lately that I have decided I need an outlet! I am one of those people who actually has conversations/arguments in my head with people and that's how I "get over" things that are bothering me. So obviously I tend to keep things holed up in me and then they fester and I am in bad shape. (I'm GREAT at the silent treatment!) Also I really want a way to keep our friends and family up to date on what's going on at the Allen house, since we are not real good at calling people. So I am looking at this blog as a kind of therapy to keep me sane and hope our friends and family will enjoy reading it as well. Please leave any suggestions for the blog or comments so I know how I am doing.