Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

 We had ourselves a lovely christmas holiday this year.  Complete with a tiny little princess under the tree. December is always such a busy month, with so many traditions and family outings to fit in, it sometimes gets a little overwhelming! But we have so much fun making a little extra time to be together, and we always are glad once we've done it.  Here are some of our fun outings leading up to the big day.

 This isn't the greatest picture, but here is one rather bashful boy visiting Mr. Claus. On our way to go see Santa Thomas said, "I don't want to sit on Santa's lap!" And he didn't change his mind. I thought maybe he would be too scared to tell Santa what he wanted, but he spoke quite clearly when Santa asked and said, "I want a digger, a dumper, and a wrecking ball." And he told Santa to bring Caroline a baby bunny.  It was so sweet. I just love seeing the pure innocence of little children. Christmas really magnifies that.

 One of our favorite family outings is to go to the German Bakery to get some lebkuchen.  We are kinds sad this will be the last time at Juergen's. We will have to find a new spot in Utah. This outing didn't go quite as hoped because shortly after this photo was taken Caroline had a blow-out and I didn't bring a change of clothes for her, so we didn't spend much time here, sadly.

And here is Thomas' "ginger bird" house as he called it. He kept saying "Ta-Da" He was pretty proud of it. We had fun having friend over for this tradition.

Suprisingly Thomas really didn't munch on his ginger bird house much, just in this picture :) He said the dough was too spicy.

Thomas continued his game of building igloo's over Clint's break. This one was complete with an eskimo built in

Cosy taking a nap. Papa liked this game.

And the mantle now has an extra sock!

I had some help adding some extra decorations to the Christmas tree.

I tried to get the most out of this 50 cent Christmas sweater. Thomas looked so cute in it. There are only so many years you can get away with wearing a Christmas sweater :)

And here is the monkey during our nightly Christmas scripture study and advent calendar. He just can not sit still on the couch. Luckily Papa is good at protecting the girl.

Christmas eve was a fun night. We had dinner at our friends, The Mudrick's house. Thomas didn't want to leave he was having such a grand time. When we came home he saw 2 presents under the tree. One with a C and one with A T. And new jammies inside! I love snuggling babies in new jammies!

And here is the little cutie with visions of sugar plums dancing in his head.

Thomas slept in til 8 o'clock, it was nice! He didn't even rush to get up. THis may be the last year for that. When he woke up we watched a little Nativity film and then let him go explore what Santa brought. He was pretty happy to see some new train set pieces, especially this crane.

He put the angel from the nativity right to work.

I made this little picture for his room. Every-time I asked him what he wanted for Christmas he would list of a dozen or more trucks. So this was my solution to that. He loved it!

"And the digger, and the auger, and the loader, and the excavator and the cherry picker..."

Family fun time opening presents. Thomas opened every single present.

This lady was just as content as can be.

She did enjoy playing with some wrapping paper.

And she LOVED her new books. Clint read some to her in her room away from Thomas and she just laughed and laughed. She doesn't get enough alone time!

Thomas got some pretty cool toys!

Caroline was pretty happy with her loot as well

After the Angel's shift was up baby Jesus got put to work. I guess Thomas hasn't heard about child labor laws.

We had a truly magical Christmas. It was so fun spending time with our precious babies and spoiling them just a little, and enjoyed getting to skype with our loving families in Utah. It is exciting to think that next Christmas we will be home for the holidays! We have enjoyed having these past few years with just our tiny little unit, but the new change is welcome. This year we took advantage of the free time by hopefully brightening the holidays of a few of our friends and neighbors who may have otherwise been all alone on Christmas day. It gave us a chance to separate ourselves from our expectations of the holiday and truly share a bit of the love of christ with some of his children. I hope this becomes one of the Allred's family traditions, because it helped to bring the spirit of Christ into our home, and this is what I want our children to remember about Christmas time as they grow up. It is about magic, it is about family, it is about love and it is about giving and sharing with others. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

One Cute Little 4 Month Old

Okay get ready for another picture over load. What can I say, the camera loves this little face. 

Our sweet little Caroline is now 4 months old. I can hardly believe it. She is an absolute joy. She is just the sweetest baby in the world. She loves to snuggle and we love to snuggle her back. Can you blame us? Caroline just had her 4 month appointment yesterday.  She weighs 15 lbs 6 oz (68%) and is 26.7 inches long ( 88%) She is thining out, but getting taller. She is just perfect. 

Those deep blue eyes just kill me.

And that smile? Don't even get me started!

Yep. She is as good as gold. 

Look how happy she is in the morning! Who wouldn't want to see that face first thing?

Oh and yes she is quite serious and contemplative too.

But she turns up the charm, especially for Mom and Dad. That smile!

Who me? 

She is getting stronger and getting really close to rolling around. She doesn't care much for putting weight on her legs though. She is a lot different than her brother. Once Thomas discovered he could lock his knees and stand on his feet there was no turning back. Caroline just wants to be snuggled. 

And look how long her hair is getting! Baby Rapunzel!

Okay look at that face. I rest my case. Cutest baby girl in the world.

Thomas loves to mimic Caroline. 

 These two are inseparable. Mostly because Thomas won't leave her alone. Okay that is entirely why they are inseparable.

And this papa has a real soft spot for his little lady. We all love her immensely. 

Can't Get Enough of this Boy

This little guy is at such a fun and imaginative stage. He comes up with the funniest things and says the most hilarious things. He definitely brightens up our days and adds a lot of laughter to our home.

 Thomas has been really into building "Igloos" He saw an episode of curious George where George and his friend Bill build an igloo. So Thomas is Bill and I'm George. :) He says, "George, Wanna Build an Igloo?"

 Another Igloo

 I just love seeing the world through the eyes of a child. So much joy and wonder.

 He creatively used my shoe as a cup holder and fashioned his own lazy boy by sliding these tow chairs together.

 The cold weather has made it hard for the boy to dig to his hearts content. Its too cold to play in the sandbox! So I bought some dried lentils and beans and he calls them the big rocks and the tiny rocks and he will play with those for hours.

Thomas loves helping. He loves helping clint rake leaves and shovel snow

 And he loves helping mama make rolls, cakes and cookies. He is a good little helper.

 Thomas was singing, "Rock a bye diggers"

 And yep...this was what was bundled up. He did this all on his own. This boy thinks about diggers A LOT.

Thomas can be a little dictator at times. Sometimes Clint and I joke about how it would be to be an adult and act like a toddler at a dinner party. It would go something like this: "Twinkle Twinkle little star....STOP!!!!! Don't sing that song! That's MY song. I Just Sang that song. MORE!!!!! I need more blueberries. Thank you.  Now, the dump truck goes here and the digger goes here to the construction site. PICK IT UP!!! PICK IT UP! I dropped my blueberries!" 
Another Thomasism today. I was in the kitchen when Thomas got VERY quiet. I thought I;d better see what he was up to and called to him in the other room. He started frantically saying, "Mama! keep doing the dishes! DO the dishes." So I knew he was trying to keep me from seeing what he was doing. Sure enough he was digging in the fireplace.

We got our first snowfall last night. Thomas ran to the window and saw the snow. He said, "Its PERFECT! Its Christmas Day!" I told him, sadly no it is not christmas today. then he said, "Well this is a big big mess."

A few weeks ago thomas was watching shows on YouTube and I put on a curious George that was in a foreign language. I sad, "this isn't English" and turned it off. Well he picked up the phrase but not the context. So when he gets annoyed at something or doesn't like it he says, "that's not English!"

Every Wednesday we have a tornado siren go off at noon. Sometimes Thomas gets scared from it. He calls it the "Tato Siren" Well tonight the siren went off for an actual tornado warning. So Thomas was cuddled up to me and I asked him if he was scared. He said, "No, I'm not scared of the Tato Siren. I'm a happy boy!"

Every sunday morning clint tries to get Thomas to snuggle with him in the bed. It never works. Clint says, "That's my Thomas!" And Thomas says, "No! Papa! I'm Mama's Thomas." Thomas has also designated that Caroline belongs to Papa. :)

One day while playing at the playground Thomas found two kindergarten age girls he wanted to play with.  He kept running around saying, "my friends, my friends! I'm here!" Finally one of the girls said, "We know you are here!"

When we stayed at my dad's house in October Thomas was very interested in all the angels that decorate his house. He'd never really seen angels before. He started calling them owls. Ha ha. I told him, "no Thomas, those are Angels, they are kind of like Jesus' friends" he said, "oh! Jesus' owls!" Then he would say, " those owls are scary," lol!