Spring Band Concert

All the 6th grade band students from all the elementary schools, plus all the 7th, 8th and high school bands in the district came together for a huge spring concert (which was their fundraiser for the year).  It was pretty neat.  They all did a great job and worked well together even though they only practiced a few hours all together earlier in the day.  Tyler really enjoys playing the trumpet.  He and his friend, Sam, who is next to him in the picture will get together every now and then and play together.  He has really improved since the beginning of the year!  Mom and Dad came down to watch him and my mom was so impressed and excited about the opportunities there are here for kids and music.  This is the second time I was impressed with how the community comes out to support the youth in the area.  Columbus is a great place to raise a family!

These are all the different grades together.

Primary Program 2012

As tradition, we invited both sets of grandparents to the kids' Primary program, but since Grandpa and Grandma Allen live so far away, we had them spend the night the night before0.  The kids just loved having them over! And it was nice for us to not have to bring them all to church early for meetings!

We as a Presidency (yes!  I was called to be President just a couple weeks before the program!) had all the girls in the CTR 7 class wear their white baptism dresses because they all got baptized this year.  The whole class sang When I am Baptized and it totally brought tears to my eyes when I heard them singing so sweetly all dressed in their white shirts and white dresses!  Such a tender moment.

Grandpa and Grandma von Harten made it too!

 Morgan invited her friend from school who had recently moved into our neighborhood to watch the program.  She loved coming and even asked to stay for the whole church!  They are a great family and all their kids are in the same classes at school as ours.  What a co-incidence!

It turned out beautifully and went very smoothly.  I ended up directing the music and Robyn Cheney gave her speaking parts that she had prepared just so everyone would feel comfortable doing what we all had practiced.  I had never directed a program before, but next year I will have to WRITE it!  AUGH!  I almost think I would rather direct it! Ha!

Morgan's Baptism

Morgan's baptism day turned out to be beautiful.  A little warm, but cool enough to be able to eat lunch in the garage comfortably.  The majority of her family was able to be there for her, which was so nice.  The program went well.  She had her grandmas give the talks and all the cousins and she sang When I am Baptized.  It was awesome!!!  So sweet.  She looked beautiful in her baptism dress and lots of her little friends (even one from Crawfordsville!) came to support her.  She was so happy and excited.  Aunt Kelly took her beautiful baptism pictures and Aunt Julie made her awesome invitations.  Thanks, gals!  It made the event even more special!  She chose orange and white to be the colors for the occasion, so I spray painted some frames I got at the thrift store to put all the pictures that Kelly took in them.  I made some orange and white flower arrangements to add some more elegance.  It was a lot of work, but totally worth it!  I love how it all turned out.  It was the perfect day for my sweet Morgan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last Allen brother wedding

Kent's youngest brother, Clark, got married in December, so we headed up north to celebrate their wedding. Tyler was the ring bearer and a cuter one I have yet to see! It was a lot of fun to see family we hadn't seen in a while and to enjoy all the festivities.

Isn't he the most handsome ring bearer ever!? He did such a great job and we were so proud of him! He was a little nervous that he might mess up, but he did great. At the end, he escorted the flower girl down the aisle so fast I couldn't get a picture. I think he just wanted to be done with it all! :)

The proud parents of the groom. Sweet Callie with her daddy. Kent and some of his brothers. Casey got back from serving in Iraq about a month before, but didn't get to Indiana until the morning of the wedding. We were all excited to see him again!

The happy couple! Beth's dress was gorgeous and they looked so happy.

Fun at the reception! Erika, our niece, LOVED Callie and wanted to play with her all evening. It was a fun evening, but I was burning up at the reception, so I took Callie out to the car to cool off and feed her. She was a so cranky and tired by the end, but feeding her and letting her drive the car helped her be happy again.

Columbus - here we come!

Moving was SOO easy this time! We've never had anyone move us and I just have to say that I would highly recommend it! Stress free and backache free too! They movers were really friendly and polite. I had some help cleaning from some AWESOME neighbors and had another awesome friend watch the kids so they weren't in the way. Thanks so much everyone!!!! The hardest part was once the movers had unpacked pretty much most of the inside stuff and just placed everything either on the counter tops, floor, table, chairs, beds or dressers. I felt a little overwhelmed and a bit cramped to say the least, but at least they hung our clothes in the closets. But they hung some of Kent's clothes in my closet and some of his in mine! They don't really care about things like that I guess. The kids loved getting up in the semi and honking the horn. That thing was HUGE! It was so big they had to use a small 17 foot U-haul to shuttle everything from our apartment and storage unit to the semi, so we didn't even see the semi until it showed up at our house in Columbus. They pretty much filled it to the brim with all our stuff though! We got rid of A LOT of stuff, but still have a ton. I guess with 4 kids and 11 years of marriage behind us, that is to be expected. I can't believe how many boxes marked "toys" there were! And of course those were the ones unpacked first. :) It was like Christmas all over again for those guys. Lots of toys that had been in storage were so fun to play with again, but sadly, a lot of them have gone back onto the shelves or in the toy box, only to be forgotten. I took a box full out to keep for when Callie is a bit older so we would have room for all the toys they play with now, so in about a year or so we will have to go through and get rid of all the baby toys.

Why not use the empty boxes as forts? The kids had a ball doing this until Kent said they were taking up too much space and had to be thrown out. Party pooper. I kind of agreed, but didn't want to be the bad guy! :)

I am glad to be mostly settled in and am going to enjoy not having to move again for quite some time!

Callie's Blessing Day

We blessed Callie on March 27, 2011.

There were lots of family members there and afterwards we had a nice luncheon at the clubhouse at our apartment complex.

Callie wore the blessing dress my mom made for our little baby girls -
the same one Morgan wore.

There was another little baby blessed the same day. Kent gave Callie a beautiful blessing.
He called her Brynn though. :)

He blessed her with a strong body and a desire to grow in the gospel. He blessed her with the ability to recognize and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost. He blessed her with guidance in this life and to be able to find joy in life. He blessed her to be married in the temple and experience joy in having a family of her own. He told her that her family loves her very much and blessed her with the desire to follow her parents.

She was so good during the blessing. I wasn't for sure if she was going to be fussy or not because she tends to be particular with the way you hold her. She made me proud! :)

We were so blessed to have so many family members join us for this special day.
Thank you all for coming and celebrating our little Callie Brynn!

Grandpa and Grandma von Harten



Grandpa and Grandma Allen



Great Grandma Allen

10 years and counting!

I can't believe it's been ten years already!!! We have gone through lots of ups and downs and sure have learned a lot! We have been tremendously blessed and have enjoyed much happiness these past ten years. We decided to go to an outdoor concert and have a picnic dinner. My parents watched our kids and had a blast spending some time with Grandpa and Grandma. It was suppose to be at the gazebo, but they thought it was going to rain, so they moved it into the firestation bay. It ended up being sunny, blue skies, but they had already set up, so we sat outside of the station to listen so it wasn't so loud and stuffy.

Kent came home with some beautiful peachy-yellow roses. I loved them!

My little Tiger

With us moving, Morgan was able to be involved in two school programs (and Tyler didn't get ANY field trip! :( ). It was called Kindergarten Sings . . . The Zoo: an alphabet adventure. They all had to dress up like zoo animals, so I found this cute tiger costume on the Family Fun website. It took forever to cut out all those tape pieces, but she loved it! Isn't she the cutest tiger ever?!

The other little tiger boy in front of her was blocking her a lot from where we were sitting, but we could catch a few good glimpses.