Jaunting through July

Another month has come and gone.  Which means that our summer is almost over- sigh!  At least we have been totally enjoying our time having Jared home with us!  Here are a few more fun times from the Allen family!!!
Jared got this hat for scout camp and Tori loves it almost as much as he does!  Any time she could, she would borrow it for a bit and be our little Indiana Tori!!!

We're not exactly sure, but considering how much joy Garrett gets out of playing with, or banging on, the computer, he may have a future career in the technology world!!!

It was so cute watching Tori feed Garrett tonight- at least one bite anyway!!!

I love how Tori sets up her family dolls when she plays with them- don't they all look comfy?!! It's so much fun watching her little imagination take flight!

 Yeah- Garrett is a book worm like Tori!

Every once in a while she still cracks us up with how she falls asleep!  I really wish I could see how she got here- she is all the way at the end of her bed!

Cam's first bath as an Allen- Tori loved helping out!!!

 Garrett is now our cruising boy!!!

One Sunday afternoon we were chatting with our family in Texas and looked over to see that Garrett was playing with the racetrack!  It amazed all of us that he figured this out all by himself!!!

Our little boy is growing up so fast!

One day we went swimming with some of our friends and they let us borrow this floatie for Garrett.  Garrett had a great time floating and Tori thought it was so fun to pull him around!

 Tori and Garrett loved this little arrangement!

This has become our potty training uniform- minus the hat (but thanks to Garrett for letting Tori borrow his hat)!

 Watch out world- Garrett can now say "Dada!!!"

Yep, both of our kids have a taste for bath toys!!!

Bath time is getting more interesting- Garrett likes to stand up whenever he can!!!

 Garrett loves to feed himself- and as a fun bonus we captured him making his 'muscle face'- love it!!!

We let Tori stay up to watch a little bit of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies.  It totally cracked us up that she came downstairs with her "noculars"- she was all set!!!

Oh, how I love these kiddos!!!

 Jared and Tori have an interesting method for feeding the shredder!!!

Garrett had a ball hanging out in the hamper!

I love it when this little girl decides to play dress ups- it is always fun to see what she throws together!

What an awesome July we had!!!

Our Little Songbird!

Tori has always loved music and recently she has started to sing some of her favorite songs!  It is so much fun hearing her sing!!!  Of course, we have been trying to capture most of them on video.  But whenever she sees us recording, she typically says "no" and that is the end of her concert.  So, we have been working on our covert video-taking skills and finally have a few of her gems to share!!!

The Parker Song:

The Diamond Song (we think this is her spin-off from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!):

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star:

The Wise Man and the Foolish Man (sometimes she is easily distracted!):

Here is a great example of her not wanting us to record her singing- I love Aunt Michelle's reaction!!!

5 Little Ducks:

Wheels on the Bus:

Book of Mormon Stories:

We hope you enjoyed Tori's singing- it always brings such joy to us that we just had to share!!!

Our 4 Year Anniversary!!!

Happy 4 year anniversary to us!!!  It seems so crazy how quickly the past four years have flown by.  In those years, I have gone through some of the most amazing and some of the most heart-wrenching experiences of my life!  And there is no one I would rather have shared each and every one of those with than Jared!  It is amazing to me how much deeper our relationship and love for one another has become!  I love that we have added our two adorable kids to our family- they bring such joy into our lives!

Jared- thanks for being such a wonderfully loving and supportive husband and Daddy!  Here's to all eternity together! I love you with all my heart!!!

Homeward Bound

Why is it that it seems like it takes forever for vacation time to get here, and then the actual trip is over in the blink of an eye?  It is definitely not fair.  I guess it just means we need to hang on to every moment and memory as best we can to enjoy the fleeting time!  Our Chicago trip flew by so quickly, but boy did we make some awesome memories!
Garrett loved the hotel room!  It's a really good thing we were right next to him when he tried to make himself into a bridge to the nightstand- what a crazy kid!!!

Garrett also loved getting all cuddled up in the hotel towels- what a cute boy!

And here is our happy girl- I just love her smiles!!!

Our last few hours in Chicago, we went to a great little park right around the corner from our hotel.  Grandma Allen took some absolutely amazing pictures of us- here are just a few of my favorites!!!

I love that Tori is doing her best to follow in Daddy's footsteps!!!

Tori had a ball trying out each and every slide!

I just had to post this one- sadly, the slides weren't always made for big kids, too!!!

Oh, there's that adorable girl of ours!!!

I love the mischievous look on Garrett's face in this one- so cute!!!

Yep, he is still our little drool monster!

I love how happy our little dude is!

What a handsome boy we have!!!

Tori had a grand time running "super fast" all around the playground!

I love this fun new picture of our family!!!

Garrett and Grandma had a great chat!!!

Grandma and Tori had a fun picnic lunch with their new friend Bella!  How fun that they got to eat inside a train car!

This one makes my heart melt- it is never easy saying our goodbyes!  There were definitely a few tears and rushed hugs as we had to part!

Our drive home went much smoother than the one to Chicago.  We still hit crazy traffic and had to pay a bunch of tolls (I think we hit over $7 before we got out of Illinois and finally back into Indiana- crazy), but once we got past all that, we were smooth sailing!  Especially when both kids decided to take a very long nap!

Thanks so much for the wonderful Chicago trip Mom and Michelle.  We all had such a great time and I know we will cherish those memories forever!!!

Our Chuck e Cheese Adventure

Jared's birthday was in July and both Aunt Michelle and Tori have birthdays in August.  So, to celebrate all three birthdays we went to Chuck e Cheese tonight!  Tori was a little apprehensive at first.

 

It really didn't help that Chuck e himself came out to greet the kids and dance with them and she is not a fan of people dressed as characters.  But she absolutely loved her Chuck e Cheese cup and her yummy juice!

I think it was all a little overwhelming at first, but Tori did go on a carousel ride!

While waiting for Tori to warm up to our setting, Jared decided to try out a little basketball- check out that concentration!!!

Garrett had a great time driving this car- what a big kid!

Aunt Michelle kicked some trash on this game!!!

I think Jared may have enjoyed the ticket muncher more than anything else!

Hurrah for a fun Chuck e Cheese birthday cake!!!

Happy Birthday to Jared, Aunt Michelle, and Tori!!!  (Sorry about the end of the video- I think Jared forgot he was taking it!)

Tori loved the cake- yummy!!!

By this time, Tori was warming up a bit to the fun and excitement around her.  She was a great wing-man for Grandma- they played a mean game of skee ball!

And she loved feeding out tickets into the muncher!!!

I'm not sure how, but we managed to scrape up enough tickets for Tori to get this awesome tiara!

She loved it- I really don't think she could have picked anything else more perfect!!!

And, of course, once we were all done and ready to go, Tori wanted to play more games!

Thanks for the fun birthday celebration night Grandma!  We really did have a grand time!!!

Our Mystic Waters Day

When we were first planning our trip to Chicago we were looking into going places such as Navy Pier, the zoo, or even the Chicago Children's museum.  While I'm sure we would have had a great time at any of them, I'm so glad Aunt Michelle found a place called Mystic Waters!  It's a water park that was only 10-ish minutes from our hotel and it was perfect!!!  There were several pools, water slides, and even an area to build sand castles!  We thoroughly enjoyed our day in the water!!!

Tori wasted no time getting into the water!

It didn't take us long to work our way over to the little kid area- it was awesome!  Tori loved the water slide- thanks Aunt Michelle for being her spotter!  Even Garrett got to try out the slide!

This little splash pad was just perfect for Garrett!

And it was even great for the bigger kids in our group, too!

Garrett loves the water and is not scared of going under big waterfalls with his Daddy- yeah for our water kid!!!

The sand castle area was pretty fun- it appealed to the kid in all of us!!!

Aunt Michelle and Garrett taking a little break!

Tori loved playing in the sand with the other kids...

but decided that the best place to build a mountain was underneath the turtle!!!

The big pool was so nice- we all enjoyed it!

Yum- time for lunch!  During this trip we found out that Garrett absolutely loves cucumbers!!!

The last area we checked out was the lazy river.  Who knew we were going to enjoy it so much?  We were there for at least an hour- it was so relaxing!  Garrett loved riding around with Daddy!

And Tori was in heaven with Grandma!!!

We all had a ball floating, relaxing, and chatting about a gazillion different things!

Thanks so much for the fun day Mom and Michelle- we had a blast!!!