Fohawk and a few pictures

Today was one of those days. I sat down at the computer to download the pictures from my camera that I had taken that morning, and the little box popped up that said I had 68 pictures ready to be downloaded. 68pictures!!! It wasn't even noon yet, but already I had taken 68 pictures of my kids!!! As I clicked the OK button to start downloading them I thought to myself "What in the world am I going to do with all the pictures!". It's not like I set out to do a photo shoot of my kids or anything. First I just wanted to get a picture of Luke after breakfast with oatmeal all over himself. Then I styled his hair in a fohawk and wanted some pictures of that. Then we went on a walk and I brought my camera along. I don't even know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing that I love almost all of the pictures, because now I can't just go through and delete a bunch of them. Please tell me I'm not the only person who has ever done this!


Anyways, back to the fohawk. I've decided to let Luke's hair grow out this fall and maybe winter. I had always been a sucker for guys with long hair when I was a teen and young adult. (Not ugly, gross, scary long but just that nice long disheveled look) So of course, I marry into a family that has the philosophy of "the shorter a boys hair the better." Don't get me wrong, I do like Luke with short hair and I think it's great for summer, but I just really want to try something new. I don't know exactly what I'm going for, but today Luke and I both had fun experimenting with the fohawk. It makes me smile, but I think it might make him look a tad too feminine. What do you think?




A couple days ago I got to go out on another photo shoot with Erin. It was for a little boy who had just turned one. He was so adorable with that little hat! Every time I go with Erin I learn so much. Here are a couple of my favorites. They aren't nearly as good as Erin's, but I can see an improvement in my work after spending time with her. Check out her pictures here.

3 Things to Blog About

This past week has been suprisingly busy. Our days were full of lots of fun things to do. It was really nice for a change.

First, We celebrated Ty's birthday this past week. I won't tell you how old he is, but let me just say that we only have one more year to "live it up" before he is officially old! It was a nice evening, nothing too extravagant. My mother-in-law watched our kids while I cooked Ty dinner at home. It was amazing actually being able to carry on a conversation with Ty for a change instead of just listening to Luke's jabbering the whole time. After dinner we brought the boys back home and had Ty's favorite, brownies and ice cream.




Second, Britini, a friend of mine that I visit teach, just had a new adorable little baby girl. I asked her if she would let me take some newborn pictures of the baby as a gift for her and practice for me. She agreed, and I really enjoyed taking the pictures. The baby was only 6 days old and was just sooo sweet. I can hardly believe that Grady was that small just 3 1/2 months ago! It was a great learning experience for me. Here's a couple of my favorites. Thanks Britini!





Third, Friday was Fair Day. Can you believe that the kids in this area actually get a day off of school for the County Fair?! I think that's pretty cool! In the morning I took Luke and Grady to the parade with all of Ty's family. I really enjoyed watching Luke get so excited about seeing the horses, tractors, floats, and fire engines going down the street. Needless to say, he also went crazy over all the candy that was thrown in the streets. Friday evening we went to the fair. On the way there, Ty and I were trying to get Luke excited about all the livestock animals he was going to see. When we pulled up he excitedly yelled "I'm going to see a flamingo!" We'll we didn't see any flamingos, but we did see plenty of cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, etc. to keep Luke happy. I know I need to count my blessings that at this stage in his life Luke is satisfied with just seeing all the animals and is not begging to ride all the over-priced rides. I'm sure next year we'll be going on a lot of those rides.


Luke waiting for the parade to start with a few of his cousins.


This is how Grady watched the parade in my mother-in-law's arms.

Luke admiring a pig with dad.

Grady and ducks

Luke getting up close and personal with a cow.

A Day with LeMae and Ecksen

On Saturday while our husbands went to the ASU football game together, I got to spend the day with my sister-in-law LeMae and her adorable 11 month old son Ecksen. I'm so glad my little boys have so many cousins so close in age on Ty's side of the family. We went to the Railroad park in Scottsdale. Luke has recently added a love of trains to his obsession with "things that go". In addition to being a really nice park, they also had a little train that we all rode together and a carousel too. Luke loved it! I remember when he was a baby really wanting him to grow up so we could go out and do fun things together. Now that he's 2 1/2 I really love taking him out and doing new things with him. I'm looking forward to getting to do more things with him as he gets older. My Aunt Mari said it best when we were comparing her preteens to a 15-month-old Luke: "When they are little they are so cute, but they can't do much. Then they get to be old and funny-looking, but they can do all sorts of things!" I love my Aunt Mari! I really am making an effort to enjoy the stage my kids are at now. Anyways, thanks LeMae for the great day. I couldn't help snapping a few photos with my new lens while we were out. Enjoy!

I love these pictures!!!

I feel like I'm tooting my own horn, but I just really love how these pictures turned out. I think everyone, especially moms, need something that makes them feel good about themselves, and these pictures are it for me. Doing the dishes, laundry, picking-up, etc. doesn't really give me much fulfillment, but taking pictures does. I owe a big thanks to Erin who's taught me a lot about photography these last couple of weeks! (Check out her site at erinhouseholderphotography.blogspot.com.) I took these pictures in honor of Grady being 3 months old now. I couldn't help snapping a few shots of Luke too!

Temple Progress

This morning Ty called me and told me to drop everything and head straight over to the temple. We got there just in time to watch them lower the Angel Moroni on top of the temple. Only 6 more months til our Gila Valley Temple is expected to be completed! I can't wait to have a temple just a 5 minutes in a car from my house!

It will be neat to be able to show our boys someday that they were there on this momentous occasion.

Luke looking through the binoculars at the Angel Moroni. He felt pretty important being on dad's shoulders and getting to use his binoculars. Too bad he was looking through the wrong end!

Little Faces

These are the faces that make me smile, that brighten every day. They often are the source of my stress and frustrations (the two-year-old especially likes to try my patience), but they also bring me the most joy. Maybe these little faces could put a smile on your face too!

Big Day Today in the Allen Home!!!

Grady rolled over!!!!!!

What we've been up to lately

For Labor Day weekend we went to my parent's house. It was really nice. It's amazing that I could forget how beautiful my hometown of Pinetop-Lakeside really is, especially this time of year. I was just in awe driving around at how beautiful everything was. Luke loved being spoiled by Grandma, and Grandma loved spoiling Luke. There are definite perks to being the 1st grandchild! We went to the swimming pool where my sister Emily works as a lifeguard. It was Grady's first time swimming. I can't say that he enjoyed it. He did stay calm if I held him close, but after about 15 minutes he was done. Luke really enjoyed it though.

I convinced my mom and little sister to file Grady's nails for me. There aren't many things I hate more than filing nails. It's like fingernails on a chalk board to me. Thanks mom and Em!

I enjoyed doing a couple laps around Woodland Lake with my mom and Grady in the stroller while Luke played with his dad and Emily at the park. The weekend went by way too fast. We'll have to go up again soon.!

On a different note, I got to take pictures of my friend's little girl. A couple weeks ago she was telling me how she was going to take her little girl to get her pictures taken for her 2nd birthday. I said it was a good idea to take her little girl where she was planning for pictures, but then I basically begged her to let me try for free to take a few pictures of her little girl! She agreed, so last week we went and took these pictures. This was my first time ever taking pictures of someone else's kid, and I learned a lot. It was so much fun, and as you can see she is an exceptionally cute little girl! Here's a few of my favorites.

It's that time of year again!!!

FOOTBALL SEASON!!!

I do love watching football. Not nearly as much as Ty, but I do love it. Maybe the love comes from my days at Blue Ridge, watching the team go undefeated during the regular season from the time I was in 2nd grade till after I graduated high school. Winning isn't everything though. I loved going to the Eastern Arizona College football games with my roommates when I went to school there even though they didn't win a single game those whole 2 years!

Ty and I became big ASU Football fans while we were students there. We sat in great front row seats for cheap in the student's section in our own little corner away from all the drunk, crazy, and half-naked students. During one of the seasons while we were there ASU started this wristband policy. In addition to having a student ticket we had to show up at a certain time and place a few days before a game and stand in line and get a wristband that told us what section we had to sit in. The big home game vs. USC that year was completely sold out, and we were unable to get wristbands for the section we loved. I can't believe we actually did this, but to get into the section we wanted we scanned our old wristbands into the computer, photoshoped them so they looked like they were for the USC game, printed them out and wore them to the game!!! We were so stressed that someone would realize they were fake and kick us out of the stadium, but it actually worked! We got there super early, got to sit on the third row, and didn't move from our seats til the game was over! (I don't think anyone would be able to get away with making their own wristbands now. We were only able to get away with it because the policy was so new.)

Anyways, we are still Sun Devil fans. Ty took Luke to a scrimmage at the stadium last Saturday. All week he's been talking about how he wants to go to a stadium and see big TVs. Ty took these amazing pictures with his phone. After the scrimmage was over, Ty was able to let Luke run around on the actual Sun Devil Stadium grass!

I had fun doing my own little photo shoot with the boys in their Sun Devil gear.

I have such a hard time getting Luke to ever smile for a picture, but he does these great model-like pout faces all the time! Oh well!