The Allens: December 2012

Thursday, December 27, 2012

The day after Christmas, in Texas

Christmas!!!

We slept in on Christmas morning and woke to find that Santa had eaten his cookies, drank his milk and left a letter with a couple of gifts!

Each of the kids got a plate and silverware and they were really, really excited.

Daddy

reading the letter from Santa.

And reading the Christmas Story from the Bible.

Aaron playing with the most cooperative cat ever!

Abby ready for the airport

When we left the house, our flight was on time and I checked it pretty often on the way to the airport. About 20 minutes out, the status showed a 45 minute delay. When we got to the airport we found out that it was because our plane was coming from Chicago and had been delayed because of weather, but it was in the air and the updated time should be good. The only trouble was that the delay pushed us into the time that Dallas was supposed to be getting ice. My husband assured me that the airlines wouldn't let us take off if they weren't sure we could land.

We used our extra time to eat at Max and Erma's. I'm glad we did.

I love this picture of Aaron taking the big suitcase into the airport. He's such a big boy!

Our flight did take off about 45 minutes after it was supposed to (really about 15 minutes after that). When it was time to land, though, the conditions weren't good at DFW and the airline wanted to divert us to Austin. Our pilot chose to land at DFW but could not get to a gate. He told us that the airline would not keep us on the runway more than three hours because it would be charged a fee of approximately $3 million by the FAA. So, at some point in the next three hours we would have a gate.

The pilot updated us as often as he could, but really didn't have any information. American was telling him that we had to go to our assigned gate where there was a parked airplane with no pilot. Since we could not find a pilot to move that plane we were stuck. Until we came up on the three hour mark. At that point, American allowed our pilot to taxi around the airport to an open gate in another terminal. At 9:49pm, we exited the plane that was supposed to have landed at 5:40. And we exited to utter chaos. DFW was a nightmare of people with cancelled flights and missed connections. Our car was completely iced. We finally left the airport at 10:52 at which point both of our exhausted kids fell asleep in the car. They didn't wake when we carried them through the snow into the house.

I will say that our kids were really quite angelic throughout the ordeal (until the very end when we had to taxi around the airport which is the size of a small county and Abby had to be constrained in a seat. that part did not go well, but other than that...) and the fellow passengers were so kind. Everyone was lovely and the staff did everything they could to keep people comfortable. They had free drinks and snacks until they ran out and everyone was very friendly.

And that was our Very Merry Christmas! I hope yours was fabulous, as well.

Christmas Eve!

I love Christmas Eve!
In the morning I actually went to work and then went to my brother's and grandma's. The kids hung out with Jory and this is Abby eating lunch, but they didn't get dressed until after naps!

After
naps we went back to my mom's. Aaron got to play more with his truck and we had dinner.

Back at Dad and Sheri's, my nieces and nephew visited and then we got ready for Santa!

Christmas in Ohio, Day Three

We went to Church in the morning and then the kids went down for naps. They slept forever!!!

When they got up we went to my mom's to celebrate Christmas with her and Mike. She wanted to take Family Pictures before dinner. This is Abby jumping into my brother's family picture. She was a bad photo crasher!

After dinner we opened presents and Aaron got a very cool remote control truck!

Here he is helping Abby open one of her presents.

She's waiting so patiently.

We were at mom's until late and had such a good time. The kids took baths there and then we went back to Dad's for bed.

Christmas in Ohio, Day Two

In the morning Dad and Sheri took us to Bob Evans for breakfast. I love these pictures of Abby and her Grandpa Tom.

After breakfast we did some visiting. My husband called it the Allen Family Shock and Awe Tour. We show up at your house, destroy it and leave a few minutes later! HA! It was a fun morning, though. We spent the rest of the day at Dad and Sheri's.

That night we met my brothers for a family Christmas dinner at the Country Club. The kids all wore coordinating outfits and we took family pictures. Which was fun if nothing else. We had a fantastic dinner.

Then we went back to the house for Christmas! This is the very first present Aaron opened. It was from Eric and Jessica and he LOVED it. He took it into the other room where he would have plenty of room to spread out. He then proceeded to play with this Thomas The Train portable track and nagnetic trains while everyone else was opening presents. It was about two hours later that he opened anything else.

Abby with one of her gifts.

It was such a wonderful family evening. We really had a fantastic trip and Christmas!

Christmas in Ohio, Day One

As is always the case, I am overwhelmed by the number of pictures from Christmas, so I will have several posts and they will probably be a little random.

We left in the morning on Friday the 21st. Aaron was SO excited to go to Ohio. He talked about it all week. The first picture is him at the airport parking waiting for the bus to the terminals. He loves the bus to the terminals. The 2nd picture is Abby on the plane. We had two seats on the left side of the plane. Abby and I sat together and behind us were Aaron and Jory. It was the same on the way back. Aaron played his leapad the whole time and you wouldn't even know he was there. Abby required more to keep her occupied, but she did quite well. The flight there was uneventful.

Grandpa Tom and my niece Peyton picked us up. We had a quick lunch and the kids slept on the way home. It was snowing a bit. We had some time with Grandma Sheri when we got back to their house.

That night we went out to dinner with my brothers and their kids.

We had cake from my favorite bakery for my birthday.

After dinner, Doug's kids came to the house and we had play time. My kids love the toys at their grandparent's house!

Family Pictures

Oh these crack me up! Sheri took this picture of the 14 of us (less her) at dinner for my birthday our first night in Ohio. What a crew!

And this was our Family Christmas Picture. It captures our stage in life so well.

Dressing for December, Long Sleeves

We went to Ohio last week and Abby wore a lot of her warmer Christmas dresses, though the weather there was probably warmer than here!

Friday December 21, 2012
I put her Buckeye Football dress on her to travel to Columbus. I thought it was fitting. Plus, I thought the pom poms were snowflakes until my niece corrected me. Abby wore her white sweater over the dress when we were traveling and she had a nice warm coat for her first real snow experience!

Saturday December 22, 2012
Grandma Sheri bought all the kids coordinating outfits at Gymboree last month for a group picture. See the last post for more on that.

Sunday December 23, 2012
This is a long sleeve corduroy dress, Abby just has the sleeves pushed up. It has Christmas trees smocked on it and I love it.

Monday December 24, 2012
Again, this is a long sleeve corduroy dress. There is white smocking at the top that I think is snowflake-like

Tuesday December 25, 2012
This was Kristi's dress and I love it.

Wednesday December 26
On Christmas night the kids fell asleep in the car on the way home from the airport and we put them in their beds in their clothes. I didn't even change them the next day until the afternoon when they took baths. Then I just put them in PJs. I found these PJs in a bin of 3T clothes I have for Abby. They had the tags on them and she must have gotten them last Christmas to wear this Christmas. I am glad I found them!