Kate the Great

Niagra Falls

Time with Great Grandpa Lindsay

Pirate K8

Kate covering her face for a scary ride

Mischievious grin

With Grandpa Wallace on Huckleberry Hill

Redfish Lake

Tasty

Protective Big Brothers

Holding Frogzilla that we found in our window well.

Yes, he is real!

Posing at the hay bales

Kate made a new friend

Cuddling with Sis

A few days ago I went to pick up Kate from a birthday party. As I walked into the room, all the mothers started saying, "Here comes the artist!" I was confused and thought they must be talking about someone else. As I approached the group, the birthday girls mom said, "I did not know you are a professional artist." I said that I wasn't and that I am no good at drawing at all. She seemed confused and proceeded to tell me how Kate was drawing something and everyone was telling her how good it was. She told them all that her mom is a professional artist.

It seems that Kate was just trying to express to her friends that I was very good at drawing. I think it was so funny that she percieves me to be an artist because I can draw trees that look like Christmas trees and ... No... that's it... I can draw trees... I am actually a really bad artist. Like horrible! What a funny thing for her to dream up in that little head of hers.

Another funny thing she said the other day, first a little background information... Bekah and Kate's birthdays are on the same day of the month. In fact, their birthdays are each others half birthdays. The other day, Kate told me that she use to think it would be fun to have her 1/2 birthday be Bekah's birthday. But now she wishes it wasn't because now no one will wish her a Happy 1/2 Birthday, they will only be thinking of Bekah on Kate's 1/2 birthday. How dare Bekah steal her 1/2 birthday attention. I asked her if anyone had ever wished her a Happy 1/2 Birthday before Bekah was born. She couldn't think of a time when they did. She is such a nut. She sure keeps us laughing. She is a crazy, fun lovin perfectionist and we are so happy that she is part of our family.

snownami

My little Bek, helping me make cookies.
Kate found these awesome icicles out front

We had a wonderful day yesterday. We got about 20 inches of total snow and crazy wind. Schools were closed and even the little snow plow that was trying to plow out our neighborhood got stuck. People were instructed not to leave their homes. It was really fun to just be snowed in and be together. It was not until sometime in the middle of the night, that the plows finally made it through our neighborhood.

This morning it was back to life as we know it. Seminary, School, Music Class and Scouts. Oh, well it was fun while it lasted...

Happy Holidays

I love this picture of Jason and Bek. We were in Racine and did the corn maze. Fun Day in October. It's been a while since I wrote.
Cameron Nelson (Sandy's), Brooklyn Wallace (Josh's) and Bekah.

I got to go home and see my family with Rebekah this last week. It was so fun to be home in Idaho and spend time with my brand new nephew and neice. I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful family and to be able to spend time with them. Coming back home to Wisconsin was nice too. I missed my husband and children. Jason worked so hard to manage the kids schedules and his own work schedule.

I love this picture of Bekah. She fell asleep on Jasons lap the other day. She is such a sweet heart. We are just really enjoying her.

Still Here

This is a picture of Bekah in the Morris Chair in her blessing dress. We have a picture just like this of Jason's Grandmother in this chair in her blessing dress as an infant. What a family heirloom. We love this chair, and the baby.

Her blessing dress was made by a close family friend. Thanks, Mary-Ann!

We had some pictures taken of our family about a year ago.

Though they don't include our newest addition,

we think they turned out great.

This is a picture of Jason with Monica Nassif and Thelma Meyer. (She is the real Mrs. Meyer) Jason loved working with Monica and Thelma and all the other friends at Caldrea. He learned a lot there and will really miss them.

We made it through our exciting summer and we are doing good. Life has been so busy for us these days.The high schooler, the middle schoolers and the Elementary schooler, and the baby. Many activities and running all over. We are enjoying our chaos.

We made it to the Wisconsin State Fair this summer where the kids enjoyed a famous WI State Fair cream puff. These things are huge. James' face is no exaggeration.

Jason is serving as our Ward Mission Leader and we are loving having the Elders and Sisters over often. We have 3 sets of missionaries serving in our ward. His job and his church calling are keeping him very busy.

The neighborhood is great and very friendly with many children in the neighborhood. We are finally feeling like our house is getting organized and put together.

Jason enjoys his job most days. He has had a record year for Off! as the mosquitos were out of control this summer. For most people, that is not a good thing, but for us it ROCKS!

We took a trip out to Idaho in August to bless Bekah. We got to see so many wonderful family members who made a trip to be with us on this special day.

My mom made these adorable shoes for Bekah. She wore them for her blessing.

We need to get some more pictures of Bekah, but here are a few of our favorites. I will try to write often now and I am going to make my blog public again to make it easier to access. Thanks for checking in on us.

4 Generations. Grandma Lindsay, Shirley Wallace, Kerri Allen and Bekah Don Allen.

I have been so busy with all the relo. stuff that I have not even thought about blogging, but we got home from Wisconsin last night and I decided to put a quick update on here. I am including pictures of our homes. The one we are selling first, and the one we are buying second. We did find a nice home in Wind Lake, Wisconsin and we made an offer and they accepted. So I got one big item checked off my to do list for this summer.

1. Buy House X
2. Sell House
3. Have a Baby
4. Move to Wisconsin

We had a couple of buyers interested in making an offer on our home, but so far no one has written anything up, and now we are forced to lower our price to near the value our appraisals came in at and that is SOOO Painful! But the company will buy it from us if we don't sell it and that takes the pressure off a little. Here are some pictures of our current Wisconsin home that we absolutely love. How anyone could not just fall in love with it like we did is beyond me. The pictures did turn out great too and I really think one family is trying to put together an offer for us still, so maybe we can sell it this week. Especially after we reduce our price again.

Front ViewLiving Room from Upstairs

Kitchen
Family Room/Computer room

Kiley's Room off Family Room

Our Theater Room

(Newest edition)

Side Yard with Tramp

Backyard with firepit

Our New house

We love our new house too and we were so blessed to find it. It has five bedrooms for our expanding family and 3.5 bathrooms. The backyard is 3/4 acre and has a pond back there for the boys to enjoy. The schools there are so great and we are looking forward to moving in and getting settled this summer.
The neighborhood is also fantastic and has many children of all ages for my kids to run around with. The ward is also wonderful and very welcoming.

The kitchen

The backyard

Jason has started his new job in Racine now so the kids and I will be on our own during the week days here in MN. I am still feeling pretty good and trying to keep up with the kids and the house for showings. Jason is able to come home for weekends this month and

we are scheduled for a c-section on June 30th. YEAHHH!

I am getting very excited about having a little baby around. I can't remember if we posted the name we have (probably) chosen, but we are thinking of naming her Rebekah.

(Like from the Bible)

So all in all it should be a pretty exciting summer for us. Just hoping we can get this house sold soon and get one more check mark made on my to-do list.

We love you guys. Thanks for checking in on our life now and then.

Kerri

Walnut Grove

Over Spring Break we took a day trip to visit Walnut Grove, the famous town in Minnesota where Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her stories. I grew up watching the Little House on the Prairie and a while back I bought the DVDs for my kids to watch. So we wanted to visit this place while we live so close. Along the way, we stopped and took a little hike to see these Petroglyphs. There were thousands of pictures carved in the rock. My camera battery died, so I just have a few pictures of the things Kiley snapped along the way...

While in Walnut Grove, the kids bought this slate and a slate pencil as a souvenir. They had fun pretending they went to school with Laura and Mary.

We also passed this town called Sleepy Eye, which I remembered from the show. I was surprised that it was a real town.

We stopped at this park for a picnic lunch.

Basement is Done and Yes we are Moving...

I know it is crazy, but we are finally done with our basement and as usual, with the excitement of finishing this project and the anticipation that comes with enjoying the theater room, now we have discovered that Jason's job transfer will happen sooner than we thought and we will be leaving our hard work for someone else to enjoy (again). So here are some pictures of the finished product. It turned out wonderful and I just want to hang out there all day.

The storage room turned out great too, complete with my can sorters, which I have not stocked yet...

These are the can sorters that Jason made for our food storage a few years ago. I love them. You drop in the cans from the top, and pull them out the bottom and they rotate so you are always using the oldest can. He made several sizes for all kinds of cans that we store. I just love this and think he is the best.

Jason is super excited about this job. It is a promotion and to the brand that he has been wanting to work on. The only trick is that he starts his new job in Racine on June 1st and our baby is not due until June 30. So he will be most likely commuting back and forth on the weekend so the kids and I can stay here and finish school and have the baby here before the move. It will be tricky to get the house sold and find a house there in Wisconsin during this last trimester of my pregnancy, but I think everything will work out for us. We are hoping to make the move around mid-July. My parents and my sister Tracy are going to come and help during the really tricky times. (When the baby comes and during the move).

The kids are pretty excited to be reunited with their friends from Racine. We have not decided where to move exactly, but we will be going out to look at schools and houses soon and narrow it down a little. We all have mixed feeling about leaving this house and our friends in Minnesota. We have really enjoyed out short time here. But we knew we would be going back eventually and we are looking forward to being back in Wisconsin.

I have some great pictures of our little wanderings during Spring Break, but I will post those next time.