The Big 1-0

Justin celebrated his tenth birthday on Sunday. He's now officially into the double digits! We just had a quiet day with our family. As quiet as it can be with six kids.

We combined our family Valentine's Day dinner with his birthday dinner because Saturday was a crazy day for us. Justin got to pick out the menu. I think we had chicken curry for the third year in a row.

Our family's favorite...ice cream cake from DQ! This time we went with a Blizzard Cake which was awesome!

Top 10 reasons we love Justin:
1) He loves helping with the little ones...especially holding the babies.
2) He's a great student.
3) All he needs is a pair of sweats and he's happy...NO Buttons!
4) His "happy feet" that keep him dancing all over the place.
5) His ability to put a hole in any pair of socks the first time he wears them.
6) His proficiency with Google and ability to search out anything on the Internet.
7) His uncanny ability to play Wii while his siblings watch and are completely entertained without even getting a turn to play themselves.
8) He's got Lego skills.
9) His inherited (from his Dad) ability to tune everything out when the TV is on, no matter what is on.
10) He still loves to cuddle with Mom and Dad.

Naomi's baby blessing

Naomi Ruth Allen

Sunday we blessed Naomi at church. Most of Aaron's family, along with my mom, were here for her blessing. I think we had 26 people visiting church with us. We feel so blessed to have so much support from both of our families. I got lots of comments at church on Sunday from people who sat around us and loved watching Naomi get passed around. There is no doubt she is loved! Our kids are constantly fighting over whose turn it is to hold her.

My mom spent a week with us and loved spoiling Naomi. We already miss her! Aaron's mom and dad were here the week before my mom. Our kids have loved having so much family visit.

Naomi's first week

I'm sad to say that Naomi is already a week old! This newborn time passes too quickly. As you can see, we are all enjoying cuddling Naomi. She has been such a good baby so far. She is especially good at night if I let her sleep with us!

With the cold weather, I have just been trying to stay in with her. Yesterday we went to Muffins for Mom at the pre-school and then took her into the Dr. for a visit. She had to get blood drawn for the bilirubin test. Luckily, everything came back good so we don't have to do that again. Aaron's mom and dad have been great about coming over and helping. My mom is coming on Sunday for a week so we are looking forward to Grandma's visit too.

Thanks to all of you who have called, left posts on our blog, and especially to the many good friends here who have brought in meals. We appreciate all of your help and support! Our kids think it is the most exciting thing to see what we are going to eat and have someone show up at our door with everything prepared.

Naomi

Here is a good upclose photo of Naomi. Now I need to get one like this
with her eyes open.

8 pounds, 2 ounces
21 inches
lots of dark hair

Aaron

Going to the Hospital

It's baby time! We're going in early tomorrow morning to be induced. We'll post pictures of our new little angel baby as soon as we can. Can't wait!

Christmas...finally!

The kids are heading back to school today so I guess it's time to finally post some Christmas pictures. We enjoyed a quiet Christmas at home. The kids did their own little Christmas pageant on Christmas Eve and we had our Christmas dinner that night too. It made for a very relaxing Christmas day for me since I didn't have to cook!

The day after Christmas we headed to Ohio for the weekend. We were able to spend a lot of time with family and enjoyed a family Christmas dinner at Aaron's parents on Saturday. The kids had sleepovers with their cousins every night and loved it.

We had our annual New Year's Eve party at our house and had a houseful. On Friday after New Year's, Aaron's brother Scott and his family came over for a couple of days. We had a weekend full of playing the Wii and more fun with cousins. Now it's time to get back on a schedule!

Ice, Ice Baby

Last Friday we had an ice storm pass through the Midwest. Though the ice is beautiful, it has resulted in several branches falling off our trees and power outages. It's still so cold that most of the ice is still on the trees. Aaron went out Saturday with the trees and was able to clean up most of the big branches.

The boys thought the ice was pretty cool and went out to explore last Friday. Our neighbor was telling us that she witnessed a miracle. I went out to take a few pictures and shortly after I came in, Will came in telling me that another branch had fallen. He had been playing right where the branch fell, and it was the biggest branch that fell that day. After that, I kept the kids in the house! This picture is of the tree the branch fell from just moments before.