The Model

A wonderful lady in my ward is an incredible seamstress and offered to make Emeline a dress if she could use her as a model for her portfolio. This is the cute little creation that she came up with and I think it is adorable. Emmy loves wearing it and plays with her ruffles as she walks. She also makes gorgeous blessing and Christening gowns for boys and girls and basically anything else you could want. If anyone is interested in having her sew a custom dress for your child, let me know and I will give you her information. They even come with ruffly bloomers!

 Go Girl! Strut your stuff!

 Thanks Aunt Nicole, for teaching her to stick her tongue out.

 Not quite sure what was going on here, but cracked me up.

 Oh the ruffles!

 This one is my absolute favorite! That poor, poor chicken!

 She loves the chickens!

And then there were....

You know what? We don't really know how many hens we have. I have awoken every morning this past week at 5:30 AM to the sounds of several of my "hens" trying to crow. Boo! Our favorite, Honey, who will still cuddle in your hands, is most definitely a roo and we have to find him a new home. The two Cochins, Salt and Pepper, are trying to strut their stuff and we suspect are the other crowing culprits, although we haven't seen their crowing in action yet. Only time will tell I guess.

 Pepper

 Honey

 the Gals

 Love the feathered feet!

 What the? Oh ya, that's Sugar

 Raccoon prints all over the run. Good thing will built a fortress.

 Ginger

 Salt

We came home to find the chickens healthy and happy, thanks to our wonderful next-door-neighbors, who froze water bottles to keep them cool in the record-breaking heat.  They grew a ton in the two weeks we were in Utah and it is so fun to see their poofy feathers and pretty colors. The silkies crack me up with their plumes on the top of their heads. They are also the most playful and will run around chasing each other with a feather in their beak.

Allen Family Reunion

Oh how I love the Allen Family reunions! I have only missed a few and am so sad when I do. We were so lucky to be able to be in Utah for this one. There was a giant scavenger hunt, a fish pond, water balloons, cousins, football, rootbeer, rain, beanie babies, tears, hugs and lots and lots of people!

Aunt Bonnie unloaded her collection of Beanies for the fish pond and the kids were thrilled. Caleb got a shark, Jake got a dragon and Emmy got a dog. We all enjoyed visiting with Grandpa and the kids adored him! It was so nice to see all of my aunts and uncles and cousins and so fun to see who had a new baby, who was preggo, new spouses, etc. With a family this big there is always someone to talk to and we did a whole lot of talking. We also reviewed the Allen A's, as we call them. Each member of the family is afflicted with one or more of these wonderful traits:

Asthma, ADD, ADHD, Acne, Arthritis, Aching Back, Albinoism, and annoying. Whew!

After the park, we moved the party to my mom's where we played games and discovered new words like "fartlek" and movies about pole vaulting over the Berlin Wall. These things make the twenty hour drive with three children so worth it! Here's to next time Allens!

Birding

When we were trying to plan a few adventures to have in Utah, my dad suggested that he take us all bird watching. He has recently picked up the hobby and has already found about half of the native birds in Utah. The boys were really excited and made sure that I packed all of our pairs of binoculars.

We drove up north towards Bountiful and found a great marshy place to walk around and view some birds. I don't remember which ones exactly that we saw, but I do know that we had a great time and would go again in a heartbeat. It was a gorgeous day and the views were spectacular. Thanks Dad, for sharing all the fun!

Games with Grandma

I grew up doing all sorts of things with my Grandma Tregaskis. She would teach us lessons in cooking, art, sewing, decorating and anything else you could imagine. She also loves the game, Scrabble. Oh, and she's good at it. Very good. In fact, I knew I loved David when we played her once and he beat her. I had only beaten her twice in my entire life and my husband beat her on his first try. Well, since then, we have always made a special effort to get a game in with Grandma when we come to visit. This year I claimed a victory! Hooray! I am really moving up in the world.

I thought it was so fun while we played Scrabble, Caleb sat in the chair next to me and played a game with his grandma. It has got to be genetic. Late nights of Settlers and Balderdash are the staples of life my friends. I am blessed with a very fun, game-playing fam! Here's to a rematch Mom. Gimme all yer brick!

The Grotto

The Tregaskis family loves to hike, and this year we went to a place called "The Grotto" up Payson canyon. It's a great hike for kids because it's short, not too steep and has lots of little interesting things on the way. At the end you get to this big waterfall with a shallow pool that the kids can wade in. It was a great day and my mom got all the kids cute little cowboy hats and handkerchiefs. They loved them and stayed shaded in the hot sun. Even Emmy loved her hat! After the hike, we pretty much took over the Payson Subway.

Alec's Swimming Party

When we go to Utah, we try and split our time evenly between our two families. The first week we stayed with David's parents in Springville, and the second week we stayed in Orem with my parents. The kids had a lot of fun having sleepovers with their cousins and sleeping in sleeping bags. Emeline didn't sleep, but that's OK.

One of the things we did with my family was attend a swimming party for my nephew Alec. He had a train birthday cake and balloons and treats galore. The kids had a blast. Heck, we all had a blast! Thanks Kristen for throwing such an event and making sure everyone had such a good time. Happy Birthday Alec. You are a fantastic kid!

Caleb's Baptism, Springville, 7-7-12

This event deserves its own post. Caleb decided to be baptized and we thought it a good idea to do it around as much family as possible, hence the trip to Utah. They did not disappoint. We had around fifty people show up to show him their love and support, from grandparents and cousins, to friends we haven't seen in years. Thank you so much to all those who made such an effort to come. Caleb had a great day and we are so very proud of him.
He was a little nervous about going into the water all the way. For those of you who don't know, members of our church,  the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, are baptized by immersion and Caleb is not fond of getting his head wet in any form. He did great, however, and afterwards David confirmed him a member and, through the priesthood, gave him the companionship of the Holy Ghost. It was beautiful and I was so proud of them both. Caleb just glowed and you could just see his goodness.

He is such a special kid and I know he will be such a great example to those around him. He wants to do what's right and tries his best to be kind to everyone. We love you Kiddo!

David's parents were so great and let us host a brunch at their house after the baptism. It was crazy, hot and fun. What could be better than a giant heap of shoes in the foyer? I didn't get pictures of everyone that was there but I felt the love from all of you. I wanted to get a picture of Caleb too, in his new yellow bow-tie but I just never seemed to get the chance. Oh well. Hopefully I can get one later. I just thought he looked so cute, but don't tell him I said that Ü

Just Hanging Out

One thing we love to do when we get together with family is to just hang out. We love to eat too, but mostly just hang out Ü We had so much fun playing at the park next to David's parent's house and having our annual Wii Golf Tournament.  David turned 31 on July 5th and he wanted to play wii and have peanut butter bars for his cake. We let him win the tournament for his birthday ;)

There was lots of staying up late, cousin sleepovers, hot dogs, swimming, attacking Aunt Nicole, bee stings, more hot dogs, and visiting with long lost relatives. Thank goodness for leftovers! We fed our kids all week on leftover BBQ food from the reunion and they didn't mind a bit! 

We were loving the nice cool morning air and mountain views down in Springville and we felt so grateful to have escaped the record heat wave in St. Louis.

Air Force Museum

We were so fortunate to go back to Utah this summer to visit family and have a vacation. It was a lot of time driving in the car but so worth it to spend so much time with those we love. We drove through Denver and up through Spanish Fork Canyon into Utah and drove through all of the smoke from the wild fires. It was crazy! It looked like we were heading straight into a volcano, the smoke was so thick. We made it through however, and just in time. I found out about a week before that my good friend, LeAnn, was in town too and we were able to meet up at a park early on Monday morning. We chatted, the kids played and our time ran out far too quickly. It was so good to see her and fun to see how her cute kids have grown. See you again soon, my friend!

We were able to do a lot of fun things with the Anson clan. To start it off, we drove up to the Air force Museum and learned all about planes and bombs from our own, personal Air force man, Ken Anson! The kids had a blast and it was so interesting to see what kinds of planes the Ansons have served our country in.