My Grandma Marge

My Grandma Marge is my dad's mom. She would have been 93 years old earlier this month. She passed away Father's Day of this year.

Three years ago for her 90th birthday our family, along with my parents, made a suprise trip up to Washington. She had no idea we were all coming. My mom called her from my uncle's cell phone and said, "Marge, there was supposed to be a birthday package delivered for you. Will you go out and see if they left it on your porch?" She opened the door and there we all were!! That was the best! We hadn't seen Grandma since Abby was 5 months old. She kept saying "I thought I'd never get to see the twins."

Here are more fun pictures from our trip in 2006. Abby was 4 years old and the boys were 2. They still talk about flying on the airplane to see Grandma Marge. She lived in Everett, WA. That is where my dad, along with his brother and sister, were born and raised. Grandma moved there from Illinios when she was young. The picture in the bottom left corner is a picture of the house she grew up in.

My parents were able to make several more trips up to Washington these last few years to spend time with her. She got to be in really poor health and is now free of pain. She is with her mom, who died when she was a young girl, her daughter (my aunt who died of cancer many year ago), and her husband. I love and miss my sweet Grandma Marge. I am excited for her temple work to be done so she can be part of our eternal family.

Wonderful pictures and wonderful memories!!

Have a Great Day!

Aldine Allen

Benjamin Loves Books!!

His favortie right now is actually "Over in the Meadow." He will sit there while we sing/read all 10 verses and then want to do it again. Love it!
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Very cute!  I remember the twins loved a silly book that I had with the song of Over the River and Through The Woods.  We had to read/sing it every night before bed and sometimes during the day.  There was a family in the pictures that was going to visit grandma and grandpa for Thanksgiving.  The baby ended up holding to a string on a big hot air balloon that was in a parade and going up into the sky, only to end up inside a plane.  It was pretty crazy.  They absolutely loved it.

Have a great day!
 
Aldine Allen

The Halloween Post

Abby was a witch

(I wore this witch dress when I was little)

Andy was Superman

Alex was an octopus - yes an octopus. He said, "I want to be Tigger...unless I could be an octopus." My mom, who is miss crafty, said, "I don't know if I've ever see an octopus costume." Alex said, "Could you make me one?" Grandma said she would try. This is what she came up with.
And you remember this guy. Ü

We found this costume at a garage sale for $1 a few weeks before Halloween. Too bad it didn't come in a size 7 for Alex - then grandma wouldn't have had to make his octopus costume. Isn't Ben so cute!!

Grandma bought the big kids cute painted pumpkinsWe carved those pumpkins plus 2 others and had "Five Little Pumpkins". Tyler loved roasting all the pumpkin seeds (his friends at work loved eating them).

Halloween was interesting this year. Friday the 30th our ward had a Trunk of Treat which was fun. I even brought chili for the chili cookoff - Go Me! But Alex was sick that day with the croup. He even missed his kindergarten field trip to Schnepf Farms that day. He was so dissapointed about missing 2 fun things. Mommy was so sad for him. Daddy stayed home with Alex and Ben (why should I bring Ben out when he could be home sleeping??) and Abby, Andy, and I went to the Trunk or Treat.

Alex was feeling better on Halloween. We had plans to go to my parents house for dinner and trick or treating. Tyler still had tons of grading to do for school and chose to stay home. It was such a bummer that he missed both the Trunk or Treat and trick or treating but I guess if Daddy has to work Daddy has to work. My mom made mummies (hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls), chili, baked potatos, and ghosts (nutter butters dipped in white chocolate) for dinner with slime to drink (green KoolAid). We also had candy corn cake.

When it came time to go trick or treating Alex WOULD not go!!! He was worried people would laugh at him and there was nothing we could do to convince him otherwise. He hid in my mom's pantry. So I took Abby, Andy, and Ben and Alex stayed home with Grandma. She said he hid in the dark for about an hour (with her trying to bribe him out of course) before he finally came out to play a game with grandpa. Grandma asked him if mommy would take him out trick or treating when she came back if he would go and finally he said yes. So after I brought the first 3 kids back I went out again with Alex. He said to me about 20 times, "This is fun going trick or treating mommy." Yes Alex I know - that's what we were trying to tell you 2 hours ago. Crazy boy!! And no one laughed at him. One lady even guessed he was an octopus.

The first round of trick or treating

We stopped at this house to take a picture in the cemetary. I had no idea what this tombstone said until I saw the picture full size today. My dad loves Elvis!! How funny.

Alex by a cool spider

Alex with his favortie thing - Pooh Bear!!

2 Tiggers!! We didn't get home from grandma's and grandpa's until almost 9pm and then we let the kids go through their candy. Look at our loot!!

What a night. The kids already have ideas of what they want to be next year. Abby has a renaissance dress she want to wear to be a queen, Andy wants to be her king, and Alex...well Alex has said 3 different things. First he said Pooh Bear (my mom suggested he be Christopher Robin and just carry his pooh bear), then he said an army guy (which grandma found a costume on sale after Halloween so someone has to be that!), and then he decided he wanted to wear a lamp shade on his head and be a lamp. Honey, maybe you wouldn't have to worry about people laughing at you if you chose to have normal costumes. Ü

Brotherly Love

These pictures are priceless!  Thank you so much for sharing them.   Aldine

Our House

We moved into our house on Barzona Traill on October 9, 2004. Everything happened so fast!

At the beginning of September Tyler, Abby, and I had gone to walk around the mall. We saw a realty booth and stopped to get some information. We lived in an apartment in Mesa at the time but knew with twins coming it was only a matter of time before we had to move. We knew it was a good time to buy and a realtor agreed to take us out that weekend. I DID NOT want to move to Queen Creek. It was WAY too far away from my grandma's and cousins. But sure enough that is where the realtor took us. He said the best prices on new homes were either in Queen Creek (or actually unincorporated Pinal County) or on the other side of Phoenix and Tyler really wanted a new home instead of investing in a home that would need repairs. We looked at several different homes in the area and found one we liked in Circle Cross Ranch. But here was the catch. Homes were going so quickly then that the realtor said if we wanted the house we had to get it RIGHT THEN! We said NO WAY!! This was our first experience ever going house hunting and we didn't want to buy the first (or 4th) house we saw. We went home and thought and talked about it and about 3 hours later we had changed our minds and thought why not? However, like the realtor had said, when we called on the house it was already taken.

We went out house hunting again that Monday (I remember it was Labor Day; I want to say September 6th). After looking at a few homes the realtor again took us to one in Circle Cross Ranch (guess it was meant to be!). It was two stories, 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, a big loft upstairs to play in, a huge backyard and it was right down the street from a tot lot. Oh the pressure!!! If we wanted it we knew we had to act right then. Did we like it that much? I never really had a "this is the house for us" moment but it was everything we needed/wanted and Tyler was very excited about it. So we signed the initial papers that day and signed on the house at the end of the month. CRAZY!!

These pictures were taken September 11, 2004 when we came out to visit our new house. Ü

It's so bare looking!!

The home was a spec home so carpet, counters, cupboards, etc were already chosen. The only thing we had to do was pick out our appliances and decide on the landscaping in the front yard

Abby playing under the stairs

I thought this downstairs bathroom looked so fancy Ü

I loved how you could just barely see the tot lot from the upstairs loft window. It was fun knowing it was that close. Then they finished building that house and you can't see it anymore.

Our backyard still looks this way. We've added a swing set and a few toys but still no landscaping. Maybe one day...

Playing at the purple park for the first time

Now we've been here 5 years. In that 5 years we have gone through 4 ward realignments and have been in 4 stakes (I think?). Two weeks after we moved in President Eyring visited for our 1st stake split. He not only said the Queen Creek, AZ was the fastest growing area in the church but he also said something to the efftect that this area would be hit hard with trials and that some would be equal to what the pioneers went through. Nice. I pretty much wanted to move back to where we came from then.

It's taken awhile to fit in. When we first moved here Andy and Alex were a few days shy of being a month old. (Sidenote - the next morning after these pictures I posted were taken the twins were born!!) I didn't know anyone and wasn't able to go out and meet many people with 3 tiny kids. Tyler was working full time plus going to school and then add the 40+ mile commute one way to that and we didn't see him very much. I was one overwhelmed mommy!! Then we were split out of the ward from most of the people in the community and then split back into the ward where there were so many new families who moved in.

Now we're old timers and thanks to being in two different primary presidencies and being involved in the PTO at the kids school I've gotten to meet lots of families. I've got my park group of girls who meet on Thursdays and who I love hanging out with. We do playdates and swap babysitting. I feel like I finally have friends. YAY!! The area has really built up out here with shopping close by and more roads going in and out so we aren't so far away from civilization anymore. And now with my kids in school just down the street and my parents so close by this is finally HOME.

And I don't want to leave!

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Great memories!

Have a great day!   Aldine Allen