Merry Christmas!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

from the ALLEN’S

May The Blessings Of Christmas Bring You Peace And Joy Throughout The New Year

Thanksgiving Day

This year Thanksgiving had some sadness ~ Stan's great aunt died and his Mom had just had surgery...but the time together with family was great! Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving Day...

Preparation of the food...actually Nannie did the majority of this!

Paula, Stacey, and I made the traditional Dumplings. We missed you Beth!!!

The amazing spread of food...

My "special" mashed potatoes...the boys loved them! YEAH!!!

We Got Elfed!!!

Check us out doing our cute little dance...

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1473395208

O Christmas Tree

Our family loves Christmas...that could be why Mama and Bob's house has been decorated since October! Actually, Mama had the house decorated early because she wanted it to be ready for Kiley to see when they came in a few weeks ago. We are definitely enjoying it! I just had to share these pictures of a few of the decorations!

Celebrity Dog Groomers!?!

This was too good to share...apparently Stormie and Brody go to a "celebrity dog groomer." After Miss Cathy came in her mobile grooming unit on Monday to give the dogs their monthly cut, she informed us she had just groomed Smokey on Friday to prepare him for the Arkansas game. You can watch watch the video at the link below. This is just so wild to us...we have been using Miss Cathy for such a long time...long before she became so famous!


Here is a picture of Me, Stormie, and Brody (this was before their grooming).


I love this picture of Brody!


http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=51147

Update on the Condo

On Monday we should have closed on our condo...but we didn't. The man who was supposed to be purchasing our now empty condo dropped off the face of the earth about two weeks ago! The attempts by the Real Estate Agents and Brokers to find our mystery "home buyer" man have been unsuccessful. This information would have been useful 3 weeks ago when we packed up our condo, put in a Pod, and sent it off to the warehouse...but "hey" we're learning to go with the flow! We have no doubt that God is in complete control of this and it is part of His ultimate plan. As always we are sure God is molding and shaping us through this situation. But, now we ask for your prayers once again that our condo would sell in God's perfect timing!

Funny thing...a friend emailed me today for my address...don't know! Actually we are living with Mama and Bob until our future home is ready!

Wonder if one day we'll know where our mystery man really is...disappeared, coma, called out of the country last minute, or could he be in the slammer!?! We may never know! I guess for now...to be continued....

Can you say Ultimate Dodgeball!!!

As one of our student events we had a major Dodgeball tournament. Me and some of my discipleship girls got really into it...

In Celebration of Mama!

Last Saturday Mama, Lacy, Kiley, and I along with some friends (Tracy, Kearsten, Wyatt, Donna, and Meredith) participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. We had an amazing day celebrating Mama's CONQUERED battle against breast cancer. It was such an honor to be able to be able to walk with Mama and just spend time celebrating her and her life. We give God all the glory for the 2 years of Mama being cancer free!!!

Thank you, Stan, Bob, and Jeremy for getting up early and coming out to cheeer us on!

I LOVE my little Kiley!

Lacy, Jeremy, and Kiley, we had an amazing week with yall! We were so glad you all were able to make a trip to Tennessee! We love yall!!!

Family Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Last weekend we all took a family trip to the Pumpkin Patch in Corryton! We had a great time picking out pumpkins...even though they weren't actually grown there...sorry Lace! Then as you know we carved them...Pumpkin #1 belongs to Jeremy, Lacy, and Kiley...Pumpkin #2 belongs to Stan and I (FYI...Stan did the carving...hahaha)...Pumpkin #3 belongs to Mama and Bob. Thank you all for your votes!

A Little Family Competition...

We took Kiley to the pumpkin patch on Sunday and had a great time...I promise pictures will be posted soon!!! Well we got three pumpkins while we were there and carved them all last night. We decided that we would post the pictures here and let everyone vote on the best. After the votes we will reveal which pumpkin belongs to each family...either the Adams, the Crabtrees, or the Allens.

Pumpkin #1

Pumpkin #2

Pumpkin # 3

We sold the condo!!!

After four months of being on the market we finally sold the condo!!! We are so excited! We close on November 12th...yes, it is very soon! We are still praying about exactly what God wants us to do! This house will always mean a lot to us since it was our first home together! We will keep everyone updated...

My Celebrity Look-Alike

Girls Weekend

Every October all the girls in Stan's family get together for a weekend in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. We stay in cabins in Pigeon Forge and shop until we drop at the outlets, the Christmas Place, and the downtown shops in Gatlinburg. We never leave without a meal at the Peddler. Stan always joins us for the day to shop, eat, and visit. This time we had an addition to the cabin...a Wii! We had an absolute blast playing the Wii. Thank you Beth for bringing it!

Girlfriends

Casey and I got to see Lee Ann last week while she was in from Madrid. We all had such a fun time catching up! It is so much fun to see friends that you haven't seen in a while and pick up right where you left off!

Getting in the Halloween Spirit...

I know many of you are out there searching for Halloween costumes for your new babies or maybe even yourself. I just had to share these pictures of Brody from his first Halloween. Isn't he just the cutest bee ever!?! Don't you just love the expression on his face!

FBC MS Camp '07

Here is the updated Middle School camp video that Stan made.

Happy 25th Birthday, Lace!!!

Happy Birthday to one of my best friends in the entire world!

Lace, you are an amazing sister, awesome encourager, and such a blessing in my life.

I hope that this is one of the best years yet!

I love you so much!

"I thank my God every time I remember you."

Philippians 1:3

Happy Fall!!!

Fall is my favorite season of the year!!! I also love fall clothes! Here a few trends for the fall...

Studs on many things including purses and dresses!
Anything Purple! (Mama is going to love this trend!)
Anything Fuschia!
Anything Cobalt Blue!
Belted Dresses
Faux Croc Purses
Dark Patent Leather
Full Blouses
Red Lips!

Have fun with these fall trends...I know I will!

Have you heard your Mama say this???

Premiere Week is almost here!!!

I am so excited that we are so close to Premiere Week for 2007! I actually don't have that much time to watch tv, but thanks to Tivo I get to keep up with some of my favorites! Here are a few of the shows that I can't wait to see...

Law and Order: SVU (Tuesday @10)
Private Practice - Grey's Anatomy Spinoff (Wednesday @9)
Criminal Minds (Wednesday @ 9)
Grey's Anatomy (Thursday @ 10)
Without A Trace (Thursday @ 10)
Extreme Makeover: Home Addition (Next Sunday @ 8)

Kiley's First Trip to Tennessee!!!

Kiley will be making her first trip to Tennessee on Monday!!! We are so excited! Jeremy has to work at a military base in South Carolina for the week so Mom is going to pick Lacy and Kiley up on Monday in South Carolina and then Jeremy will be making his way to Knoxville on Friday! We can't wait to see them ALL! Please pray for traveling safety for everyone!

Stan, Chad, Jennifer and myself will be traveling to Florida on Thursday for a ministry conference (METRO). I will get to spend the majority of the week with Lacy and Kiley before we leave and then will get to see Jeremy when we get back on Sunday!

It's going to be an awesome week!!!

Thanks to Bob (he fixed my wireless network at home!) I am officially back to my blogging! I sure have missed it!

Fun Times with Students!

We love our students and been having lots of fun with get-togethers to wrap up the summer! We are incredibly blessed!!!

Sorry for the long hiatus!

Things in our lives have been a little crazy lately!

Student teaching is still going absolutely wonderful! (Promise...pictures soon!) I taught my first lesson this past Thursday and it went really well! Surprise...it was Math! I taught adding 2-digit numbers! I will gradually add new content lessons along with the Math lessons in the coming weeks and will eventually be teaching all content areas before moving on to 4th grade during my 2nd placement at Eaton.

We spent this past weekend in Birmingham for a conference that the Scott Dawson Evangelistic Association hosts...National League of Youth Ministers! We had a fun filled weekend! They really pampered us and stuffed us full of food! While in Birmingham we got to visit with Stacey and the boys for a little while.

The Edge (Student Ministry Youth Service) started back this past Wednesday and it was awesome!!! We had over 200 Middle School students there! We are very excited to see what God is going to do with the Student Ministry this year!

We have not sold the condo! There have been a couple of showings just recently, but no updates yet. I will let you know if anything progresses...

I promise I won't go this long without posts anymore! (Mama and Lacy!)

Hope everyone is doing well!

I LOVE Student Teaching!!!

I am absolutely loving Eaton Elementary and everyone who works there! For my first placement (8 weeks long) I have been assigned to Mrs. Shoemaker's third grade classroom! Mrs. Shoemaker and all of the third grade teachers are absolutely awesome and really "know their stuff!" Tomorrow the students start and we have been busy preparing for them for the past two days! We all have that 'tomorrow is the first day of school' feeling! It's all so crazy...I really didn't expect to ever have that feeling again! One of the third grade teachers who has been teaching for over 20 years said that she still gets that feeling every year...what fun this is going to be!!! I am so excited about meeting all of our students...we are going to have 22! I'll post again soon with updates from the first day!

Lots of changes...

Tomorrow is my last day of work at CH2M HILL! While it is very exciting it is also very sad because I have been with the company for five years! Here is my office...I will really miss it!
And, what does every girl need with a life change...a new 'do of course! After much discussion with my husband I went last night and had 3-1/2 inches cut off! This makes the getting ready process much quicker...especially since I will be reporting to school 30 minutes earlier than my regular work time!
I found out last week at my Professional Development that I will be doing my student teaching at Eaton Elementary!!! As most of you know...that was my number one request! I am very excited and can't wait to meet my Mentoring Teacher and all of the students. I won't find out what grade I will be in until Monday!

I am very excited with all the changes, but am also a little nervous with so much unknown ahead! I believe in Romans 8:28 with all my heart and will continue to cling to it during this transition.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him,

who have been called according to His purpose."

Romans 8:28