Gingerbread Trains

This year instead of making gingerbread houses, we made gingerbread trains. They were lots of fun to decorate. I just love seeing the boys get all happy and excited while putting candy on.

Easton did his completely by himself (besides the frosting - it was just too hard to squeeze out).
I pulled out some extra candy we had from Halloween and other things and he decided he needed a bat to be driving his train (it's sitting on top and unfortunately my bad photography skills cut it out and I didn't notice til now).

Cole and dad working together
Their train makes the other two seem naked :)

Peyton and mom making one - so much of the candy ended up in Peyton's mouth, as you can tell from his messy face and shirt

Peyton actually had so much fun decorating. Notice the pile of candy on top of the engine, he would put a piece on and then throw his hands up in the air and shout "Woo-ooo!" He is such a funny boy.

Oops.

A while ago I set my comments to be have to be approved first but then I forgot all about it. So here I was thinking everyone had finally gotten bored of my blog... :) Now I know what to do. Thanks for reading and thanks for leaving comments!

Christmas Fun

I asked the boys if they wanted to write letters to Santa. Easton got so excited because he had never done it before. It was really funny to hear what they wanted to say, because I had no idea what to expect.

Peyton saying "chesse"
Cole getting "too tired to write any more so you have to mom"
Cole's Letter to Santa:
Dear Santa,
When are my presents going to come? B.O.B. Wrap presents in boxes. I love mommy. And I love Easton and dad and Pey Pey and myself. Love Cole

Easton writing his letter
Easton's Letter to Santa:
Dear Santa Clause,
I don't know what I want for Christmas. You can choose, I want it to be a surprise. I'll save you some cookies and milk and some napkins just in case your hands get dirty, and you put the whole cookie in your milk and then you put in your whole hand. You can't slide down the chimney because it's not a big square. You can just come in the door, just try not to wake us up because what if I see you? Drive carefully. Don't crash. And can I know the magic words that make the sleigh and reindeer go?
Love Easton

Letters all decorated in envelopes
Another night we made snowmen. I didn't really have any specific ideas as what to use for them but the boys really wanted to make "snowmen that can be inside". I just grabbed a bunch of craft stuff and they pretty much put them together on their own. I was rather impressed. Peyton's ended up being a couple styrofoam balls with a ton of holes in it. He kept pulling them apart and sticking them back on the toothpicks, always acting like he had created a masterpiece.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We decorated our Christmas tree this weekend. After Seth and I put the lights on, the boys decorated it all by themselves (okay, except for 4 breakable ones that we put up high - breakable meaning they are already being held together by super glue, the rest of the nice ornaments are still packed away). It was so much fun to see them so excited while decorating. I think my favorite part is one little branch that has 4 candy canes all squished together. Their decorating certainly won't be winning any awards but I think it's beautiful. I also loved Peyton's reaction every single time he walked back into the room. It was like he was seeing the tree and lights for the first time, he looked shocked and in awe every time. So adorable.

Here's pictures of them showing off their work-

The fuzz on the left side of the picture is Easton's arm, but of course this picture had the best smiles of all the pictures I took, so I had to include it

See what I mean? Obviously it's very difficult for me to get all 3 boys to look at the camera at the same time and smile.

All Ready for Church

I just love when all my boys are dressed in their white shirts and ties!! I don't think boys can get any more handsome than that... (f.y.i.- Cole did not have an accident, he was playing with a water bottle and spilled some, of course. Oh well.)

Happy Halloween!!

from the Allen boys!

WolverineBuzz Lightyear
Cutest Little Frog (This costume was one I actually bought for Easton, when we was 1. I thought I was doing so great by buying early and being all ready. But once Halloween arrived it was too small, then it was also too small for Cole so I forced Peyton to wear it, even though with the top on it was a little tight. I had to get some use out of it!)



Trunk or Treating...
We went over to our church first to do Trunk or Treating. It was very fun and exciting for the boys to get a lot of candy with relatively little walking. Peyton also caught on very quickly. He learned to grab a piece of candy -usually too big to fit in his hand - and drop it in his bucket (which he was also carrying by himself) and walk on to the next place. One time when I was busy handing out some candy he waddled over to a lady who was holding her candy bowl pretty low and helped himself to another piece.



Can't go on much further....

Bring on the Candy!!!
I can not believe how much candy my boys received. I guess that's what happens when the weather is nice and they aren't begging to go inside after a few houses. They all pretty much filled up their buckets. Cole's bucket got too heavy for him to hold up! I'm already sick of it, but of course I can't stand to throw good stuff away. I'll probably put it in our freezer and it will last til next Halloween.

This is Cole counting out some candy for Dad. He was begging to be carried after a while, and so Seth told him for every house he carried him to, he had to give him one piece of candy. After we got home I thought Cole would be upset about the deal, but he immediately started counting out pieces for Seth, even some good ones.


Hope you all had a fabulous Halloween! I'm sure we won't have another like this -at least weather wise - for a long while.

Preschool Performance

I just wanted to post a few pictures of my cute little preschool class doing their Halloween Parade and Performance. They marched around for their parents and then sang 4 songs. They were super cute and I was very proud of them, I didn't even need to sing any of it with them.

I'm doing another one...

I realized the reason I don't normally do tags (in addition to being forgetful) is because I don't like to talk about me. I only like to blog about my 3 handsome boys. But I'll do this one, just for fun and to relax after a hectic preschool morning.

8 TV Shows I Watch
1. Ugly Betty
2. The Amazing Race
3. The Office
4. Eli Stone
5. Pushing Daisies
6. The Unit
7. Prison Break
8. The Suze Orman Show

8 Things That Happened Yesterday
1. played a game with my boys
2. cleaned the bathrooms
3. walked 2 miles
4. let Peyton take a nap in my arms
5. had friends over for lunch
6. vacuumed the house
7. had cereal for dinner
8. changed all the sheets

8 Favorite Places to Eat
1. Great Harvest Bread Co. (my new favorite place)
2. Cafe Rio
3. my mom's house
4. Applebee's
5. my mother-in-law's house
6. my house (mostly when I don't have to cook)
7. Hogi Yogi
8. Rumbi

8 Things I Am Looking Forward To
1. getting over this cold
2. opening and playing with my new Cricut
3. setting up and using my ipod
4. going to see Wicked with my sisters and mom
5. running a 10k or half marathon (haven't decided which, but I just recently started training)
6. going to see Celine Dion with my sisters and mom
7. my 7 year anniversary
8. sleeping in (which will probably be in 10 years)

8 Things On My Wish List
1. a second vehicle that works
2. a house with lots more bedrooms
3. a great job for Seth
4. an awesome vacation with Seth
5. a full body massage
6. a great new camera
7. a new wardrobe
8. a pedicure

8 People I Tag
1. Britta
2. Turley
3. Alvey
4. Brittney
5. Mandie
6. TJ
7. Amy
8. Anyone else who may read this....

Come on guys... you know you want to....

Boo at the Zoo

It was crazy crowded, even though we got there right as it opened! But once inside it wasn't near as bad as we were expecting. We didn't really look at the animals too much but the boys were more interested in getting candy anyways. Easton was The Thing, Cole was Wolverine and Peyton was the same thing both his older brothers were for their second Halloween - a monkey. The boys had lots of fun, but how could they not, we just combined two of their favorite things - candy and the zoo.

Waiting in the first line, but once we decided to bypass the huge wait for just a KitKat, the lines were super short, if there were even lines at all
Pictures with their favorite animal

Our first attempt at Peyton's picture

Our second attempt, obviously this must not be his favorite animal

It's the Great Pumpkin Patch!!

We went to a pumpkin patch last night. It was actually very fun, even though we were freezing by the end. We went on a hay ride and then got to pick out our own pumpkins. Easton and Cole said they wanted to find one they could hold all by themselves. Cole was being so funny. His first choice of pumpkin was a small piece of a pumpkin that had been broken, like it was really just a chunk of the shell and some seeds. I think he was just excited to see something he could pick up by himself since most the pumpkins we had passed by were huge. After I told him that it wasn't a good pumpkin he threw it on the ground and refused to touch it again so I could take a picture. Bummer. Then he found a whole one and pulled it off the vine with Seth's help. Later as we were walking along he saw one that was maybe a millimeter smaller than the one in his hands so he got excited and threw the one he had in his hands down and picked up the other one. Then he did the exact same thing again. Such a silly boy.

My handsome boys on the hayride over


Cole picking his second pumpkin
Showing off their pumpkins, they thought it was pretty cool to have a green pumpkin

First Snowfall

We woke up Sunday morning to a surprising amount of snow on the ground. (The news said our area got 6 inches.) The older boys begged me to go play out in the snow but of course since it was Sunday they couldn't go outside to play. I told them if it was there tomorrow they could play it then. Luckily it still was, barely in some spots, but enough for them to have fun. Easton was SO excited. He has been asking for snow since July.

Throwing snowballs from Dad's truck, of course after observing his brothers a couple times Peyton figured out exactly what to do

Peyton getting his first taste of snow. The snow kept sticking to his glove and he seemed very confused as to how to try and get it off. Soon he discovered he could get it off by eating it.


Easton proving me wrong. He asked me if we could build a snowman and I told him there wasn't enough snow so he came back and said "Look at my snowman Mom. See I told you I could build one."
Cole showing off right before he was about to throw snow at me.

My Muscle Men!

I don't really have anything to say about this picture. It has just become one of my favorite of all my 3 boys. All 3 of them showing off their huge muscles. My boys are just growing up too fast.

A Little About My Not So Little Baby

Peyton has started getting upset at such silly things. Whenever I get my camera out or hold up my phone like I'm taking a picture, he gets SO excited to come look at it. So he runs -yes, he's started running! even though he's way too little to be doing that - over to me and if I don't let him hold the camera or phone, he storms off and throws a little fit. This is what he looks like:

But this is what my cute boy looks like most of the time. And yes he actually did put that hat on all by himself, he LOVES putting on hats. He thinks he's so cool.

Fun At the Zoo

We went to the zoo with my sister Vannessa and the two cute girls she is a nanny for. My boys had met the girls before and were SO excited to see them again, at least the older one. (I'm thinking there's a crush or two...) We had a lot of fun, but I think my boys could go to the zoo every day and not get sick of it.

I think it's funny that in both the following pictures, only Peyton is looking at the camera, and that's only in one of them.
The zoo recently built a new carousel. My boys were so excited to ride, except for Peyton. He wasn't sure what to think as I was putting him on it. But as the pictures show, in the end, he loved it and of course threw a fit when it was over. (see post below :)

As the ride was just starting:
About halfway through: