The Allred Thanksgiving!

Like I said in my previous post, I have always loved the Allred Thanksgivings. It is a little different now that I actually have the responsibility of children, but it is still good to see everyone and enjoy the festivities. This year we changed things up a bit and organized a Turkey Trot. We met Thanksgiving morning to run a 5K and burn some extra calories to get ready for the binge fest that shortly followed. Thanks to all those that supported the run, Trent and I were glad we weren't the only ones running in the first ever Allred Turkey Trot.
Here we are getting ready for the run. It was a sizzling 25 degrees out, but once we got going we were fine. From left to right on the starting line: Larry (my dad), me, Trent, Brady (cousin-in-law), Ashley (cousin), Sami (cousin), and Mandi (cousin).The Middle. I think we've got a few serious runners here.

The Finish. We don't remember everyone's exact finishing times. Maybe next time we will spring for a timing chip system or something...;) Trent did pretty good with his stop watch though. Here is the order people crossed the finish line. Trent, Brady, Me, Sami, Ashley, Mandi, Larry. Good job everyone!

The Events Staff. My brothers, Luke and Cade, and Mike, Mandi and Sami's dad. They were nice to drive around and take pictures and support us.

Here is the mirror image pic. The first one was taken in 2000 and here we are 8 years later. I told you Mandi and Stephanie looked different. Steph doesn't even have the same color/length of hair!

I love this picture of my kids and Pom Pom. I love that all you can see of Pom Pom is her head. Such a cute picture.

Friday morning we went over to Pom Pom's to have her most delicious pancakes. Pom Pom made turtle, fish, and the classic circle pancakes for everyone. And they did not disappoint. I am always sad I can never eat more. Then we made a trip down the lane to McKell and Glenae's. There were many a times back in the day that I walked down this lane to that house...but I was usually met halfway by Autumn.

This Thanksgiving must have been the record for the most Allred's in attendance. It was good to see family that I haven't seen in years and to meet some of the new members of the Allred clan. However, by the time Friday afternoon rolled around we were ready to get back to a child proof house with more than 1 room for our kids to sleep in. It was quite a tight fit in my Grandma's house with 8 adults, 5 kids, and 4 babies.

So, now I guess it is on to the Christmas celebrations! Wahoo!

Our First Thanksgiving!

This year is the year for the Allred Thanksgiving. This was one of my favorite things growing up. All the Allreds would get together for a delicous meal, a few heated games of dodgeball, lightning, and volleyball. I had one rule when I said "yes" to Trent. That was, every other year we spent Thanksgiving with my family. It just so happened that mine and Trent's first Thanksgiving ever together was with my HUGE family. Here are some pics down memory lane.

I think we both look so young. Trent especially with his hair. It has been a while since I have seen Trent with hair on his head.

Trent's first experience with the competitiveness of the Allred's. I think Trent fits right in when it comes to competing. Trent hates to lose at anything.

Me, Mandi, and Stephanie. Autumn where were you? California? I can't believe how different Mandi and Stephanie look now. We will have to get a mirror image of this pic this year and compare! I look about the same except 20 lbs heavier. And don't ask me what we are doing with our legs...

When we were there for Thanksgiving we hiked up the hill by my Grandma's. I LOVE this picture of the scenery in the background.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

Butter Breakfast

This morning I was making Chocolate Rice Krispies Treats for Thanksgiving and I look over and Oakley is standing over the butter, putting chunks of it in her mouth. Yuck. I wanted to puke. I guess this is one way to get my kids to gain weight...

15 Months Stats!

Paige and Morgan had their 15 months check up this morning. I missed the chaos because I had to go into work. Trent gets extra credit for taking all 5 kids to the doctors office by himself! (and all 5 got shots, yuck) He really is amazing. Here are their stats. We really do grow giants around here:

Paige:

• 18 lbs 2 oz coming in at 2%.
• 28 inches long coming in at 2%.
• Head circ 47 cm coming in at 78%.

Morgan:

• 17 lbs 6 oz coming in at 2%.
• 27 1/2 inches long coming in at 2%.
• Head circ 47 cm coming in at 78%.

Really the percentile chart doesn't go as low as they weigh. 2% is the lowest score you can get. That would explain why they are still in the same percentile with a pound difference. And, yes, my kids have big heads. I think they get it from the Jensen side?

Instead of Church...

We sluffed church for a few reasons today: runny noses that were like a faucet that wouldn't turn off, my work (trying to get 2 confused elderly patients up and ready does not go quickly), and nonstop coughing from half of our kids. So, instead we built a fort. The kids loved it and I think Trent loved it even more!

I really don't know how Trent can actually fall asleep with the noise that is our children. It amazes me...and frustrates me. I wish I could sleep through the stuff he does. One of my famous quotes that I stole from a classic movie-"I just want to get some sleep!" Guess the movie???

Miracles

This week has been a week full of miracles. You don't believe in miracles? Well, let me share with you what has transpired in the last week in my life and you may change your mind.

• Hair. I have done my hair twice this week. I have actually used the hair dryer, straightener, and even a little mousse. And to top it off-I applied makeup. Not just mascara, but blush AND eye shadow. Usually I only do my hair twice a month, so here is the first miracle.


• Mess. A couple nights ago our kids decided to empty out our blanket closet and put all the blankets in the TV room and jump into the pile. We seriously have 15 blankets in there so it was quite a mess. When we put the kids to bed I went down and started folding blankets before Trent and I caught up on our Tivo'd shows. Trent came down and asked what I was doing. He told me to just leave the mess and we could clean it up tomorrow. WHAT??? That has never happened in the history of mine and Trent's relationship. Miracle number 2.


• Weight. Most of you know that I have been trying to get rid of my pregnancy weight for a LONG time now. We started the Fat Girls No Mo' challenge to help motivate the weight loss. Well, for the past few months I haven't been able to get below a cursed weight. I kept gaining and losing the same couple pounds. It has been very frustrating. Things changed this week and I finally dropped a pound below the unbreechable weight. THAT is miracle number 3.


• Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. One of my favorite all time treats are the Reese Peanut Butter Cups seasonal shapes. You know, the HUGE Easter Eggs, the bat or pumpkins for Halloween, Hearts for Valentines, and, yes, the Christmas Trees for the Holidays. These are a little bit of heaven on Earth. Well, I have been down the Seasonal aisle at Walmart twice in the past week and have stopped and stared at these devils and then kept on walking. Having the will power to resist such a tempting treat is my miracle number 4.


• Spending Diet. Most of you have heard/read about my spending diet. Trent and I have a little bit of a problem. We spend too much money. My escape from life/kids is to go out and go shopping. (I am not the only one, Trent has issues too) Well, we have realized we were not being smart with our money and decided to start The Diet. I am happy to report I have drastically reduced the amount of money I part with and I haven't bought a single article of clothing for myself or the kids in 3 weeks. That may sound dumb, but my friends, that is miracle 5.


• Vomit. My kids have issues with throwing up. All of them have eventually grown out of it. Morgan was probably the worst. We tried to figure out if it was stuff she ate or if she had issues with bulimia. But it seems she has just started to grow out of it and she hasn't thrown up in a few weeks. I wish I could say I haven't cleaned ANY throw up in a few weeks, but both Aiden and Andrew have thrown up a couple times. But hopefully, Morgan is done with her purging and stays throw up free. Miracle 6.


• Gas. I am loving the decrease in gas prices. I try not to think about the reason it is going down so I can enjoy it more. Back in the day it came close to $150 to fill up the Bohemith. I filled up a few days ago and it came to $60. Aaaaahhh. The heavens parted and I could hear Angels singing. That would be miracle number 7.


• Cooking. Or something like it. Because of The Diet, we have tried not to eat out anymore. Which means I have to cook more. I think I have prepared 5 "meals" in the past week. You know, a meat, side, and rolls. It is hard to get motivated to cook real meals when my kids won't eat anything beside dino nuggets, PB sandwiches, and cereal. But they have been eating some of the stuff I have cooked. So, cooking and having the kids actually eat it is miracle number 8.


• Sacrament. On Sunday we made it through the ENTIRE Sacrament with all 5 kids. Granted, we were at a Jensen homecoming so there were about 8 more adults to help control them, but we still made it through. We don't even attempt Sacrament with all 5 usually, so that was miracle 9.


• Life. I complain a lot about going crazy, cleaning, kids, fatness, and everyday problems. I need to stop. Life is a miracle and I am lucky for each day I get to enjoy it. Being alive, healthy, with a good family, the best husband, the cutest kids, and all the extras in life is the last, but definitely not least, miracle number 10.

Operation: Cheer Up Jill

Last night we had a little girls night in honor of Jill. We met up at Chili's and had some very delicious food. We even shared 2 desserts, one of which was the oh so scrumptious Molten Lava Cake. Afterward, we went shopping. However, since we are all on a Spending Diet, no one bought a thing. I think that is a first for a Jensen shopping outing! We missed Brooke, but she was there in spirit and in the form of a floating head. All in all it was a good night and I think it is safe to say: Mission Accomplished!

5 kids + 2 dogs = 2 stressed parents

We are having a hard time dealing with our life at the moment. It seems that when you have 5 kids in 2 1/2 years, a house/yard to maintain, our jobs, kids activities, family events, AND pets in your life, the animals get neglected. Poor Milo and Ody have gone from a great life to no life at our house. We don't have time to play, walk, or cuddle with them. Hey, we barely have time to feed them. We are looking for someone who might be interested in adopting them. They come with a kennel, dog bowls, dog bed, leashes, and a bag of food. Our wireless fence can also be negotiated into the deal (and by deal, I mean free). So if any of you out there know anyone that is looking into getting a dog/dogs let me know!

Wheeler Farm

I had Saturday off from work, so we wanted to try and do something out of the norm. We were looking for something free, (paying for 7 people to get in somewhere is pretty expensive) so we headed down to Wheeler Farm. The kids had a blast and loved running from animal to animal. It was definitely worth the trip. Mom needed to get out of the house more than anyone! ;)

We asked them which animals they like best:

Aiden-"The cows.'
Andrew-"The tigers." I really don't know where my kids come up with their favorite animals. He did say later that the pigs were his favorite.
Oakley-"The cockado's."
Paige-"eh"
Morgan-"ah"

Time Out

Andrew wouldn't eat the dinner I made last night so we made him sit in the bathroom to ponder upon his hunger and his issues. Everyone else finished eating and went downstairs to watch the football game. I went to get Andrew and this is what I found. I guess there was a reason he was so ornery...

Ecologically Friendly at Last...

We received our recycling can this past week and I was so excited. I have been wanting to have one of these ever since I married Trent. (His parents had one and I never knew these things even existed!) I have to admit, I feel strongly about recycling, but not strong enough to sort everything in different bins and store it until I can load everything up in my car and drive until I find a place that will take everything. Seriously, who has time for that? (I am sure a lot of you do and are thinking I am totally lame for my excuse) Anyway, when Trent said our can was outside I got so excited. I went around the house finding garbage that should be recycled just so I could put something in my new big blue recycling container. It really is such a nice system, just throw everything in one spot, put it out on the street, and someone comes and takes it away and does all the sorting for you. Perfect! I am glad I am finally "able" to recycle and do something "ecologically friendly." Here's to RECYCLING!!!

Trent's Manly Weekend!

As I said in my previous post, Trent ventured down to Grand Junction to run the Rim Rock Run. It is a 22.5 mile race that winds over the Colorado National Monument. Trent said it was one of the coolest races he has done and one of the hardest with the gain of elevation. Trent did really well. He came in 11th overall and 1st in his age division. I was kind of bummed I couldn't be there. This is his first race that I haven't been there to watch him run across the finish line.
Trent cruising up of the hill. Doesn't the scenery look amazing? And I think Trent looks amazing too! ;)

Trent always wants to get out and go wheelin', so he took his chance and found a place to go on his mini vacation. It makes it hard to get out and go when the jeep doesn't hold our whole family. Too bad we don't have a money tree so we could buy a second jeep!?!

All my boys. I really like this picture. My boys love to be with their dad and they love to be out in the mountains!

Andrew, Aiden, and Megan. Megan is a week younger than the boys. I think the boys really had fun playing with her. I don't know if she felt the same way...

Trent and the boys really had a great time. Aiden and Andrew keep talking about going back to Ryan's. Thanks to Angela for watching my boys while Trent ran his race. That is no easy task! Next time we will have to plan a trip when we can all go down and hang out! Thanks again for having them Ryan and Angela!

My Girly Weekend!

This past weekend Trent took the boys down to Grand Junction to run a race and visit our friends Ryan and Angela and Grandma and Grandpa took Oakley (Thanks everyone for helping). So, it was just me and the little girls at our house for 3 days! And can I say 2 kids is amazingly easy? I am not trying to offend those that only have 2 kids, because kids are hard and being a mom is hard no matter how many you have and kids know just how to drive a mom crazy! But when the number of my kids decreases to just 2 after having 5 maniacs running around, it really does seem like a vacation. I decided I would make the most of my "freedom" and do some girly things I don't usually get to do. Here are the highlights:

• Craftiness-I don't usually do anything too crafty when I have all my kids around. They usually end up spilling something or drawing on something and I just can't get anything done. I have been wanting to do a project with some wood letters for a while, so Kim and I traveled to The Wood Connection craft store. It was my first time there and it is my new favorite store! I won't go into detail, but if you like to make anything crafty you should visit this store! I picked up these wood letters for only $10 and finished them off with paper and embellishments I already had. Perfect!Shopping-Jill was nice enough to hang out with me most of the weekend. Friday night we went to Target to do a little shopping. Well, Jill went to do shopping, I am on a spending diet, therefore, I just looked around at ALL the cute stuff I couldn't buy. I still enjoyed walking around the store watching Jill try on coat after coat without being interrupted by kids. Paige and Morgan were so good to just stand in the cart and watch.

• Movies-I watched a couple of shows that Trent would never watch. The first was Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Come on. That is a classic musical that any guy should watch with his wife...right? The second was What Happens in Vegas. Horrible, horrible show. I would not recommend this to anyone. It wasn't even funny and there were crude parts in the show. So, a little disappointed with that one. Boo!



• Eating-I got to enjoy some good food this weekend. Friday night Jill and I were trying to decide what to eat and since I am on my spending diet we tried to do something cheap. We went to Blimpie. I have a card where for buy one get one, so we had a meal for the both of us for $5. Nice. On Saturday my parents were nice enough to hang out with me and take me to the Mandarin. So delicious! Nothing beats a Mandarin egg roll! Thanks Mom and Dad!




• The Ensign-Since I didn't watch ANY of conference because of my 5 little crazies, I was excited to get the conference issue in the mail this week. I started reading it, but haven't gotten very far. So far my favorite talk is Elder Wirthlin's "Come What May, and Love It." First of all I loved the title because I love the song from Moulin Rouge, "Come What May." Dorky I know. But I really did love his message. If you haven't heard/read it you should.

And that about sums it up. I still had plenty of "kid" stuff to do with Paige and Morgan, so nothing too exciting to report, but for the most part it was an enjoyable, relaxing weekend! Hopefully I will have a couple of pics to post from Trent's weekend. Stay tuned...

Where is Dr. Shepard when you need him?

*Note-this is a wordy post, considered yourself warned*

It seems there isn't a day that goes by that someone doesn't sustain some type of injury at our house. Usually they are small owies that are fixed with a kiss from mom. However, yesterday morning was a different story. Aiden came running upstairs to tell me Andrew was on the roof of our playground, which is 6 feet tall AND against the rules. I was about to go down and get him down when I heard a loud thud. And since we are such careful parents all we have under the playground is leftover carpet with no pad to cover the cement floor. I found Andrew laying on the floor crying, which is not normal. Usually they come running to find me when they get hurt. So, I did a little assessment and everything seemed okay, he had a bump on his head, but his pupils were equal and he would still answer questions appropriately (well, for Andrew that is). He did seem a little off to me so I called Trent to get the patriarch's opinion on the situation. He looked up all the symptoms of a head injury that could mean trouble. Irritability-Andrew is always irritable. Uncoordinated-well, that is how he fell in the first place. Slurred speech-Sometimes it is hard to understand Andrew on a normal bases. Vomiting-Those that know our kids know they throw up more than the normal person. At the end of our discussion we decided to let him sleep and if he experienced any of these symptoms we would take him to the ER. So, about an hour later he started throwing up, so I called Trent home and gave the Dr. a call. She said to just continue to let him rest, but to go to the ER if he threw up continually every 5-10 mins and if any of the other symptoms came on. So rest he got. He slept the rest of the day and night waking up every so often to throw up. This morning we had my dad come up and he and Trent gave Andrew a blessing. (Yes, I know we should have done this yesterday.) After a long day and night Andrew seems like his old self, except the fact his left eye will not open.

We tried to put ice on his eye and head, but he hated it. I told him it would help his eye open and he said, "I don't want mine eye open."
Our very own Quasimodo. His eye is actually opened pretty wide in this shot. And the band aid is from a different experience with a candle.

I was a very nervous mother over the past 24 hours, but he really seems to be fine and has returned to his normal "pleasant" self. It is amazing how things just "work out" and nothing more serious happened. I am very grateful that Trent could give him blessing and thanks to my dad for dropping his things and coming up to help. The sad thing is next week he will probably break the rules again and try to get back on the roof. Kids...

A "Fun" New Thing...

Paige and Morgan have found a new game that they love. They empty out any drawers, baskets, or cupboards they can reach. It is such a fun game. I love refolding laundry over and over and over...

My Betty Crockerness!

My kids will only eat homemade jam. And who is to blame them? I can't stand the "store" made jam either. So, we were running a little low on strawberry jam and I wanted to get some made before the price of strawberries went up even more. I had Trent pick up some strawberries at Costco and I started the process yesterday morning. I had to make a quick trip in the middle of some batches to my mom's to get more peanut butter jars and Sure Jell. Thanks Mom! By the end of the day I had made 6 batches and ended up with 16 1/2 jars of jam. Can't wait to make some PB & J's!!!

*Aiden was the photographer for my pic! *

Blessing Day

One year ago today we blessed our last babies. I have always loved baby blessings and they are so much more special when they are your own and to get to experience 2 in the same day is an added bonus! Here are some pics of the girls in their blessing dresses.

Potato Skins!

Here is a great recipe for potato skins. Not that is hard to come up with a recipe for something like potato skins, but this really is a good one. The picture doesn't do these things justice. It is my new favorite thing to make for parties. I just can't get enough of them!

1. Scrub 8 potatoes and bake for 1 hour @ 400 degrees
2. When cool, cut in quarters and spoon out middle of potato, leaving 1/4 inch remaining in skin.
3. Brush with melted butter inside and outside of skin, sprinkle with salt on both sides, and bake for 10 mins. @ 450 degrees, then turn over and repeat baking time.
4. Sprinkle with pepper, cheese, and bacon and then bake again until cheese is melted and bubbly.
5. Enjoy

I have made these the day before a party and if you just pull them out of the fridge and bake them again they turn out just as good! If anyone has some good "party" food I would love to have a new recipe, please share!