Allison's Birthday - Party #2

For Allison's actual birthday, I ended up taking the day off of work to spend some time with her. This year she chose that for her present she wanted manicures/pedicures. She understood that this meant no presents from her mom and dad - which she was totally okay with! Crazy girl. Since she shares her birthday with her cousin Hailee, we took Hailee and Julie with us to get pedicures.

After our pedicures, we went to the mall to find Allison a new birthday outfit (her "Uncle" B wanted to get her something). We went to Old Navy and Allison thought these "people" were awesome!

After that we went to the store to get snacks for her class and then we dropped Allison off at preschool. It was so nice to get to spend the day with my BIG girl!

Allison's Birthday - Party #1

For Allison's birthday party with my family, we ended up going to Chuck E. Cheese last minute to celebrate. We were having a family get together that night anyway, so it worked out okay - even though come of her cousins still weren't able to make it :(

Kevin & Sam

Grandma Hannigan, Grandma Nielsen, My Mom, Aunt Lucy and Sara

Allison not wanting to pose for me.

Mark

Tessa and Hailee

Grandpa helping out with the kiddos

Sara

The very important self portrait of myself

Mia

Buddy Walk for Downs Syndrome

The first Saturday in October is always the Buddy Walk for Downs Syndrome. We've made it a tradition to go each year and support our cousin Sam. They have lots of fun activities for the kids - face painting, balloon animals, etc. They even get to make a sign to support their "buddy". Unfortunately, by the time the actual walk started we had already lost a child and they were all a bit grumpy so we had to leave! We were glad we at least got to go for a little bit and support our buddy!

Sleepover!

Now that her new cousins are officially adopted we were able to have a sleepover at our house! Allison cracks me up, because if she wants something she'll just ask for it. A few months ago she just went up to my sister and asked to stay the night at their house. Then a month or two later she went up to her again and asked if the girls could stay at our house! When did she get so forward? So far it's gotten her what she wanted and we had a great time with her cousins! Sorry about the crappy picture...

Preschool

Allison started preschool last month. She was so excited (as you can tell by the picture)! I was actually surprised by her because she was very shy at the open house and played by herself the entire time. That is SO not Allison! But over the past month and a half she has definitely warmed up and made some friends - if only she could remember their names!

Swimming

We were able to take Allison swimming quite a bit this summer. She sure loves the water and she is getting so much better at swimming. Just last week she started swimming a few feet by herself! I'm so proud of her and I know she can't wait until she can do it all by herself.

Puyallup Fair

I have SO many pictures to post from the last couple months. Brace yourselves, because there are going to be A LOT of posts!

Towards the beginning of September Allison and I were invited to go to the fair with Kevin & his family and my parents. Actually, ALLISON was invited, but I invited myself and took the afternoon off from work! I'm so glad I did....

There were so many of us, it was hard to decide what to do while we were all together. In the end, my parents took off with Tessa to look at the animals. Chanel, Joe and Mark took off to go on the bigger kid rides. That left Kevin and I to take Mia and Allison around on the little kid rides. It worked out perfectly and everyone had a blast!

 

They both got butterflies painted on their arms.