6 Hot Tamales

One Sad Mama

2011-12-06T15:26:00.000-08:00

My baby turned one on November 30
I miss her baby smell
And her cuddling
And when she used to stay in one place
And my cabinets weren't constantly re-organized
I enjoyed every minute of her first year. (Except for when she cried every day for 4, or more! hours)
It's sad that we won't have a baby at our house anymore. But it's so fun to see who she is turning in to!

We've all had so much fun getting to know our Syd the kid

Love you baby Sydders!

Let's see if anyone looks at this anymore...

2010-12-16T10:08:00.000-08:00

Sydney Reay Allen

11/30/2010 8:05 p.m.

7 pounds 15.5 ounces, 20 inches

I'm back??????

2010-07-12T15:10:00.000-07:00

Feeling better finally. I might try to get into blogging again...then again, I might not. No promises :). We'll see how it goes. For now, Here are some pictures from the summer.

In Encinitas, the place of no sun.

Ashley and Samantha Herbert

Taylor getting his T-ball award

Samantha in Rocky Point

Stay tuned for more pics from our trip to CA.

New Kitchen!

2010-04-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

I am finally getting up the pics from our kitchen re-do. I took horrible, blurry, pictures, but have been too sick to care! It definitely looks better in person, and I have some re-arranging to do but this is the final product painted black, antiqued, (which is hard to see) and with new hardware.

Taylor's newest obsession.

2010-02-23T10:19:00.000-08:00

And he's good too! He practices all the time and loves going to the skate park.

2010-02-23T10:13:00.000-08:00

Baptism

2010-02-18T13:50:00.000-08:00

Ashley was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on February 5, 2010. It was a really beautiful day and we were so thankful to be able to have so many of our friends and family attend!

2010-02-18T13:46:00.000-08:00

The many outfits of Samantha Marie

2010-02-15T15:33:00.001-08:00

Enough said.

Pinetop

2010-02-02T07:00:00.001-08:00

We took some friends up to the cabin for New Year's- and I just realized we have pictures!

I LOVE this picture of Taylor- Look at the pure bliss on his face. He was the most excited to go to the cabin and play in the snow!

The snow fort the menfolk made.

One of the builders. It was very serious work.

This is about as far as I like to venture out of the cabin.

Ashley!

2010-02-01T07:21:00.000-08:00

Ashley turned 8 years old last week. Wow! We are so proud of the girl she is becoming. She is excited to get baptized on Friday. What can we say about Ashley? She is very smart and continues to do well in all subjects at school. She is the life of the party and makes friends easily. She wants to be included in everything. She is SO fun and SILLY! She is beautiful and is already starting to have to beat off the boys. We love her!

2010-02-01T07:18:00.000-08:00

Meghan will love me for this one, but it's so cute!

Please Help!!!

2010-01-20T06:38:00.000-08:00

And Spread the Word!

My name is Ryan Hess and I was diagnosed on June 12, 2009 with a rare and aggressive form of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Over the past 7 months I have received enough donated leave from federal employees to help me keep a paycheck and throughout 3 rounds of chemotherapy and most recently, a bone marrow transplant. After meeting with my Dr. last week (1/12/10), he said that I could possibly be back to work in July. I have finished one year of residency at the Veteran's Hospital in Tucson, Arizona. All of your generosity with donating leave and spreading the word has kept food on our table and kept a lot of stress out of our lives during this time. I am now doing well enough to watch our two children so that my wife can work part time to help with the bills. As difficult as it is for our family to have to ask for help, we have realized that we must do so at this time so that we can keep our health insurance and so that I can hopefully continue with work later this year. Thank you so far for your help and prayers. We are beating this together!

We were told that any federal employee (ie: civilian military- not active duty, Border Patrol, DEA, FBI, IRS, Dept of Justice, EPA etc. EXCEPT Post Office employees and active duty military) can donate vacation time to be used as sick leave for another Federal employee.

We would be so thankful for any number of extra paid days we can accumulate.

Thank you so much.

How can you help if you ARE a Federal Employee?Go to your HR department and request to donate leave to Ryan Hess who works for the VA. (Your HR person will know the form that needs to be filled out- each Federal agency has their own form to donate leave)Once filled out and signed, the HR person will then need to fax or e-mail the form to:Brenda Joy - Benefits Specialist (TUCSON V.A.) Phone #: (520) 792-1450 x 4409 Fax # : (520) 629-1849 attn: Brenda Joy E-Mail : Brenda.Joy@va.gov ALSO, for those who are federal employees, please print out this message and post it in break/lunch rooms to help get the word out as well as emailing it to co-workers!How to help if you are NOT a Federal Employee:PASS this along to ANYONE and EVERYONE that you know and then ask them to pass the message along. Post it on blogs, Facebook, e-mail...whatever you can think of.Visit:

http://teamryanhess .blogspot .com/

The Cutest Kids Ever!

2010-01-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

These are scanned into the computer so they aren't the best quality.

Samantha 3, Taylor 5, Ashley 7

All the Great Grandkids

Taylor, Samantha, Ethan, Harlow, Parker, Colin, Ashley

The Ultimate Vacation

2010-01-11T08:27:00.000-08:00

This post brought to you by Sarah who has taken back the blogging reigns- for a couple days at least.

We had the opportunity to go with (most) of my family on a Royal Caribbean cruise before Christmas. We left from San Juan, Puerto Rico and visited the islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. Kitts, Dominica, and Barbados. Paradise. Keep scrolling through the older posts to catch it all.

Our Ship- Serenade of the Seas

The Group

Here's a little of what we experienced.

2010-01-11T08:21:00.000-08:00

Beautiful this

Some of this

Lots of this

2010-01-11T08:15:00.000-08:00

Hike to this

Lots of this

Fun Van rides with the fam

Lots of laughs

The End

For your viewing pleasure...

2009-10-20T08:32:00.000-07:00

While Michael is SLACKING! ;)

Tomboy!

2009-09-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

Actually, Samantha is a very "girly-girl," but when it comes to scars, bumps, and bruises, Taylor has nothing on her! She is pretty tough though and likes the fact that this one made it look like she was wearing Eye-Shadow.

Always posing, just like her sister!

The camera added 10 lbs to her cheeks and the wound!

One Tough Son-of-a-Gun

2009-09-15T20:39:00.000-07:00

Taylor is the boy in the family and takes his duty to be the rough, tough, rowdy brother very seriously. It isn't very often that you see him without a bump, bruise or large scrape somewhere obvious on his body. They are his "Battle Wounds" and he is proud of them. Taylor knows that the chicks dig it when a man looks like he just returned from a fight.

Here are a couple recent Battle Wounds that were in very noticeable places.

This one was from a Skateboard accident. He's smiling cuz he knows that's cool!

Taylor got this one after a fight with a rather large German Shepherd. If you think Taylor looks bad, you should have seen what the dog looked like.

Ladies, I know it might be difficult, but he's only 5 and isn't allowed to date yet. You're gonna have to wait a few years.

Sarah? On the Beach?

2009-09-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

Many of you who know Sarah may think that the 2 words Sarah and Beach cannot be properly used in the same sentence, but I am here to tell you that this is entirely NOT true. I am pretty sure that she hasn't put as much as her pinky toe in the water the last 2 times we have been to Rocky Pointe, but she still spends some time on the Beach. Over the years, we have come to the conclusion that it is not necessary for her to like to get wet and play in the sand on the beach because I do it enough for the both of us. Kinda like, I don't really have to be in love with New York because she's in love with New York enough for both of us (and ten thousand other people for that matter). We have a very complementary relationship that way.

She does, however, really know how to have a good time when we are down in Mexico. She likes to hang out with family, take naps, read books (and the occasional trashy magazine), make (and eat) delicious food, work on her tan (lol), hang out at the pool, and just plain old relax. She is also one mean barterer. For instance, on Saturday the kids all wanted bracelets with their names on them. The guy selling them wanted 5 bucks for each one. Well, she talked to him for a few minutes (her spanish is amazing by the way), and when all was said and done, she got the 3 bracelets, a mango, 2 pairs of sunglasses, a sarong, her name on a grain of rice, a henna tattoo, and the guy paid her 500 Pesos. I don't know how she does it.

Sarah also was introduced to a new (and very addicting) game while we were there. It is called "photo hunt" and it is on these touch screen computers at one of the condo resorts. We stayed up till midnight one of the nights while Sarah, Meghan, and Sammie (Herbert) were trying to beat the high score. They kept yelling and screaming at the computer whenever they would get one wrong, but I am pretty sure the computer only understood Spanish.

She had a good time while we were there. She deserved some relaxing time to unwind and I think she got it. Unfortunately I didn't get many photos of her while we were there.

Sarah always wears an evening gown when posing for pictures with the kids.

She even knows how to relax while riding in an elevator.

I'm fresh out of material from Mexico, time to go on another trip.

My Name is Sammie, and I, Like to Party!

2009-09-11T21:23:00.000-07:00

She actually told Sarah that last week. I have no idea where she learned that from:)

If you ask her what her name is, she will say "Samanta Merlee Allen."

She had a great time in Mexico and she does like to Party. She also loves to swim without her floaties now and does a pretty good job. Sammie mostly just went with the flow and was into doing whatever everyone else was doing. She just likes to be included and has a way of becoming the center of attention.

Just hangin out on the beach with "uncle wod."

Sammie only smiles when SHE wants to.

She also yells a lot when she swims, and when she doesn't swim.

And she loves her sister Ashley!

Let me know if you want to see what Sarah does at the beach.

Boy's Just Wanna Have Fun!

2009-09-10T20:53:00.000-07:00

Taylor is nonstop and this certainly doesn't change while on vacation. He is either doing something or begging someone to do something with him. For some reason this kid has no concept of time and when you tell him "just a minute" he thinks that is an open invitation to ask you the same thing 20 seconds later.

Taylor was constantly swimming, sliding, boogie boarding, diving, riding razor scooters, looking for shells, throwing shells, causing mischief, or eating on this trip. He played hard, but he also crashed hard. At night, and 2 minutes after he'd lay down, you could hear him snoring.

"I wonder what would happen if I pushed all of the buttons on the elevator?"

Getting ready to throw a shell, rock, empty beer bottle, or used syringe at the waves.

Taylor loves the water and was wet 93.7% of the time he was there. The other 6.3% he was eating and sleeping.

Part of the of the 6.3%. Eating authentic Mexican Cuisine.

Drop in tomorrow to find out what my youngest child calls herself and what she likes to do.

7 going on 17

2009-09-09T21:13:00.001-07:00

Ashley is our miniature teenager and it really came out this weekend. She had a really good time swimming, sliding down the slide, and looking for seashells and crabs, but what Ashley really loved most was hanging out with Sammie and Meghan Herbert (senior in high school and BYU graduate). Ashley was pretty much down with doing whatever they were doing and felt really cool to be included with them.

She spent her days tanning on the deck 15 floors up while reading a jewelry catalog.

Smiling for the camera!

Getting her "party hair" done in the evening.

Ashley is my one child who knows that there is a time to relax and a time to have fun!

Rocky Point Barrels!

2009-09-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

We spent Labor Day weekend with the Herberts in Rocky Pointe. We had a great time enjoying the ocean, pools, and the hospitality of the Herbert family. We didn't take as many photos as usual, however I think that we were able to capture everyones moods and mindsets pretty well with the ones we did take. Over the next 5 days you'll see what each of us does and how we act in Mexico.

We'll start with me. Of course there are no pictures of me as I am usually the one taking them. You don't get to see how great I looked in my speedo on the beach or my golden bronze tan and blonde hair. However, with Hurricane Jimena spinning south of us in the gulf of california, I thought that there might be a small chance we would see some sizable waves on the beach. I threw a little 5 foot surfboard that I made for the kids on top of the minivan and prayed for surf (and that we wouldn't get shot by the federalies m16's) the whole way to the beach. As my luck would have it, there wasn't much there in the way of surfable waves, but I did get some nice tube rides while mindsurfing these beauties that were breaking right on the shore.

a stand-up barrel for a chiuaua

the kahuna of the cookoorauchas could get some nice turns in on this left

So pretty much my mind was on surfing the whole time eventhough I got skunked, again.

Check in tomorrow to see how Ashley rolls in mexico.....