Haiti

My mom is on a missions trip visiting an orphanage in Cap-Haitian Haiti. She's there to love on all the children & babies. She has been put in charge of an 18 month old child that is so malnourished that it wears newborn clothing. She said that he has finally smiled for the first time, just today. They are working with him to learn how to roll over as well. So hard. I told her I think her heart is just going to break for all of them in a wonderful way. I am so proud of her.

Just today we had a scare though. There was a huge earthquake in Haiti. It registered at 7.0 which by description is MAJOR. Thankfully, she wasn't located near the center of the earthquake! She is safe as are the rest of the people at the orphanage (workers & children). Phew! It registered as a 5.5 on the scale where she was located, which is still major but less dangerous than in Port-au-Prince.

The orphanage is called: Children of the Promise & their website is: childrenofthepromise.org

I urge you to check it out. I personally know the people that began this journey and they still run it to today. They are honest and wonderful people with such big hearts! They treat & care for abandoned, orphaned and very sick children. Right this moment there are 3 babies with AIDS, 3 babies with sickle cell anemia, a baby with a colostomy bag and a lot of abandoned babies on top of that!

One thing that volunteers can help do is construction and maintenance as well as working with babies one on one to help them work on growing developmentally. Most of them are far behind where they should be developmentally, when they first arrive.

To end this - I am so relieved that my mom is safe. My heart is stirred for this orphanage and I am planning on gathering items to send to them soon!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Well, we had a good christmas here at The Allen's. We decorated cookies and had a blast! Aaron & Jehu made their traditional fudge, and it turned out incredibly well this year, so yay!

We veered from our traditional christmas eve hot pot meal, and had a really delicious Italian meal instead. We were sad to say goodbye to the tradition (as we are all about tradition), but realized that it was a small sacrifice for family. In the end, it was a wonderful night full of family and fun! As we headed home, we realized that our very favorite part of hot pot is the whole experience of it - surrounded by family, and THAT was still there! So, our new tradition is about changing it up every year. Next year is our responsibility and I am thinking Greek!

The kids had a little christmas program this year at our church where they sang a few songs and recited the christmas story. It was so much fun & adorable. Poor Noah had it all memorized, and then chickened out at the last minute. He sat next to me & sang every word of every song. Stinker! Oh well, there's always next year. :-)

Then after a few very relaxing days, we prepared for our, now annual, New Years Eve Party. All the kids hang on till midnight & often beyond. We all eat & drink & talk the night away! It is a blast! This year had the odd (yet fun) addition of watching old church videos...including one from exactly 10 years ago. I had mixed emotions watching it. In part, it was hilarious watching so many of our friends so baby faced, and hearing all of the behind the scenes stories. I still can't believe how fast 10 years has gone by! In part, it was sad to see some people who have jumped off the deep end & left their marriages and children for drugs, alcohol & prison. Okay, just one or two people, but still it was so sad. I am grateful for the last 10 years, but I am really hoping for a less dramatic next 10 years :-) I am pretty sure they will be.

A recap of the last 10 years:

Aaron & I got married in August of 2000. Yay!

I became pregnant with Jehu shortly thereafter (about 4 months).

Jehu is born and amazing! We love being parents!

Aaron went through school - with a lot of hard work from the both of us, a lot of tears, a lot of everything, really.

Our church fell apart, and we went through emotional hell. This happened over about 3 years. This effected our marriage, all of our friendships, our relationships with God and pretty much our whole lives. We are stronger people, are stronger in our marriage & know who we are (and who God is) without a shadow of a doubt because of it, but it was hell.

We moved to Spokane from Othello! Hallelujah! I can breathe again...finally!!

Aaron graduated from college with his teaching degree! Yay us! I am SO proud to say that we made it!

We bought our home in Spokane!

Rozalyn is born! We have a beautiful baby girl, and I become a stay at home mom with two kids at home. :-)

3 months later - surprise, I'm pregnant again! What the hell?? Yep, I was preggers & I found out in an IKEA in Minneapolis, of all places! We got a lot of jokes about needing to get cable or a TV over the next few months. It was a bit of a blur because of the constant throwing up all 9 months.

Noah was born in January! Our third and final child has arrived happy and healthy!

Aaron miraculously gets a continuing contract as a teacher at the Junior High he'd been working at for 2 years. We were SO thrilled!

Aaron decides to get his Master's degree. A lot more work and time goes by for another 2 years, but he finally finishes & has his Master's degree! Yay! Now, I put my foot down & declare that we need a BREAK from school! And, that I will be the next one to go to school (which will not be for a few years).

My parents got divorced. It was horrible all around. Horrible & traumatic circumstances. It sucked, and still does. That's all I'm really going to say.

I started exercising to deal with all the stress of said situation, and for overall health. It feels good to make time for ME (even if it is just exercise).

In light of said exercise, I have lost 55 lbs and Aaron has lost 65 lbs and we are thrilled.

We visit Disneyland for the very first time as a family (and mine & the kids very first time EVER)! It was magical & better than I ever could have imagined! I am a believer in the Magic of Disneyland!

So, we end the last decade with a strong & happy marriage, 3 incredible kids ages 8, 5 and almost 4 and a hope for an even brighter future!

What really blows my mind is that in 10 more years I will be 41 (ack!) and I will have an 18 year old, a 15 year old and a 14 year old (double ack!).

How about we just enjoy today, shall we?! That is much easier to imagine!

Disneyland...

Jehu got to do Jedi Training - which was the highlight of his trip!

We met Cinderella's fairy godmother

And, of course we did Splash Mountain! Noah is in this pic too - he's just covered up by his grandpa. You can see his little hand holding on (sitting next to Aaron in the back seat). One of my personal FAVORITE rides!

This was taken right after the incredible fireworks show & they made it SNOW in the end! It was truly magical & wonderful!!

Allen family pic :-)

Tinkerbell & Terrance

In line for Pirates of the Caribbean

Had to get a picture with Minnie in front of her cute house in Toon Town.

It's a magical place!

In 2 days...

Disneyland, here we come! Yay! We can't wait!

My Insanity

So, last night I got home from our awesome thanksgiving celebration, got into my jammies and started make a small plan for black Friday shopping. I've never done it, but saw some deals that were tough to pass up.

Then I notice that Toys R Us is actually openning at midnight (which just happens to be in about 30 minutes). So on a spur of the moment, I decided to go to it. Of course, I was thinking it's not gonna be that busy. Most people are probably going in the morning, right? Wow is all I can say. When I get there, people are lined up all the way down the whole strip of stores! I decided to give it a shot anyways - maybe the line will move quickly. It was raining and I don't know what got into me, but I waited for 2 hours! Standing in the rain outside of toys r us for TWO hours. I don't know what got I to me.

When I finally get in there, I (of course) can only find one thing that I wanted to buy - ONE $20 item. Dear LORD! I go to get in line (vowing to myself to never do this again) and find that the line weaves all the way around the store. It will likely be a 2 hour wait here too. Finally, I come to m senses (sort of) and realize how ridiculous it is. I put my one item down and make a run for it. As I'm walki g to my car (totally pissed off), I start to realize that it's now 2:45 am. Walmart is right next store & had most of the same things on sale. If I go home, I am not going to come back out, but I do NOT want to go ho e empty handed after all of this. So, I decided to sleep in my car for a couple of hours then hit the Walmart black Friday sale. Yes, I am an idiot. I was not thinking in my right mind.

So, I sleep for about an hour & realize that walmart is letting people inside already. So, I get up & go into the store to realize that people are grabbing all of the sale stuff up NOW, but just won't check out until 5. At this point I'm commited to this. I have already done ridiculous things. I. Will. Come. Home. With. Something!

I got my few things and sucked another couple of hours doing it. I saved a total of $36. Wow. Reality is smacking me in the face. I am not made for this shit. And $36 is not worth 5 1/2 hours! However, at least I came home with something. I got home around 5:30 am and went directly to bed. I slept til 12:30 and can now see all of my ridiculousness clearly.

What's new, what's new

I always feel like I'm catching up on here. Maybe it's because I'm too busy living. Maybe it's because I'm lazy or uninspired. Maybe it's because I just plain forget. Yeah, it's probably a little bit of all of them. Oh well. Here goes:

I have been making a 2010 calendar for my family in the midwest for christmas. On a purely physical level - it's been kind of wild to see how far Aaron & I have come! I mean, just look at this.

It was shocking to see this picture. I didn't see myself like that before. It really is like looking with new eyes. I guess we've had our own 'Biggest Loser' going on around here this year. Except it's taken us 10 months rather than 10 weeks on the show ;-)

In other news, we are headed to Disneyland in less than 2 weeks! Yahoo! I will be sharing TONS of pics when we get back! We have been planning this for a year and a half, and it's finally sinking in that we're actually GOING!

In an effort to save money, we decided to take care of our gargantuan piles of leaves ourselves this year. We've gotten the back yard done, but apologize sincerely to our neighbors for our front yard. Hopefully, this will be the week we get it done.

We sent our good friends, Steve & Morgan, off to Nashville last week. It was terribly sad (for us). Of course, we sent them off in style with a couple of parties and then we helped them pack all of their stuff into a truck. I am excited for them too. I know that this is what they really need to do for themselves. No 'what ifs' and all of that. But, I'm sad for me. I'm sad that after the years of prayer, tears, and utter joys that we have shared over their beautiful little girl that is FINALLY here we will miss out on seeing her grow in the next who-knows-how-long. I KNOW what moving does. I've done it several times. It doesn't mean you don't love them, but it does change things. We all change and grow, which is good. Distance just makes it harder to 'get it'. So, for me it's been a little bit of a mourning period too. I am excited for them, but I'm sad for me. It's okay - it's life. But these are the times, I wish 'tele-porting' was a real thing!

That's all for now, I've got to get my kids to preschool!

31 and stuff

I am officially 31. My mom came to visit me too, which was so fun! We drank tons of coffee, and gabbed 'til we could gab no longer. We shopped and shopped. We even went bra shopping and ended up buying the same one, just in different colors! Isn't that funny? I guess the apple doesn't fall far or something - HA! THEN, I found out that my mom suggested the same bra to my mother in law, and SHE ended up buying the same bra too! How funny! I went to tell my husband this funny fact, and he didn't seem to appreciate it's humor. Instead, he plugged his ears & yelled "GAH". I guess it was TMI. :-)

For the rest of the time my mom was here, she would smile & say 'sit up straight & boobs out. They look so good after all'. Hehehe. I just love my mom! She's hilarious!

So, I'm 31 - which I am indifferent about. Just another year. Isn't it funny how some years are a bigger deal than others?!

The count down to disneyland has begun though - less than a month to go! YAY! Now, if only we could get a big influx of cash. It'd be SO helpful! :-)