CATCH UP

Wow it's been a crazy month here at the Allen household. I haven't posted anything because it's just been really really busy and crazy. So I thought I would update you on some of the highlights of the last month or two.

No Doubt Concert
Scott and I went and had a blast. It was my first concert and I wasn't too excited to go. I didn't really know what to expect. We sat on a slope on the grass so by the time it was over my feet kind of hurt from standing on an incline. But other than that we had a really fun time. It was neat to be around so much energy. It was just amazing to be be amongst is all. A bit overwhelming.

Girls Camp
Girls camp was also a lot of fun. However I'm glad it's over. It was a lot of work and not much sleep. We had a really good set of girls who went to bed on time and woke up relatively easy. I was kind of afraid because the ladies before us were there for a long time. So I thought the girls wouldn't be too happy with us because we did stuff differently. But it all worked out fine. The girls had a ball and so did I. It was a high adventure camp so I got to do a zip line and a cat walk. There were other things, but I just didn't do all of it. It was neat watching the girls overcome fears and see how proud they were of themselves. It was a good experience. Just a lot of work.

Scott stuff
Scott's been teaching a program called jump start. It's kind of a cool program. The new freshmen that didn't pass their proficiency exams go to the program to help them with their writing and math. Scott does the writing and another teacher does the math. Tomorrow is his last day I think he's excited. It will be nice to have six weeks off before school starts. The last full week of July Scott is headed to San Diego for a Comic Convention. He's spent the last year selling off lots of his hobbies to pay his way. It's been kind of fun watching him scrounge the house for things for him to sell. But he's made a surprisingly little fortune for him to take.

Cayden Stuff
Cayden is doing good. We took him to the doctor yesterday because he keeps getting fevers. But today he was fine. He seems to catch colds and then get better and catch them again, so I don't know if it's one big bad cold or two colds. He did it in March too. But he's doing fine other than that. I'm a bit concerned with his speaking. He still isn't talking much. But just give him time right. He is still our crazy active boy who is insainly independant. He wants to do everything his own way and doesn't want any help with it.

Amy Stuff
I really haven't been up to much. Just girls camp and being a mom. I got a gym membership for ten bucks a month and they watch Cayden for free. So I've been doing that in the mornings. Not lately because Cayden's been sick and I've been at camp. But before that I was doing it at least three times a week. I enjoy it. Deal wise, I haven't found that many deals lately. It seems like things have dried up for a bit. But I still loyally check my blogs for any good deals I see. There is one at Safeway, Vons. They have some tortillas on sale up here .99c. In the meat department there is a blinky machine that spits out coupons for .75c off the same brand of tortillas. Up here my stores double to a dollar. So it added up to being only .03c a package with tax. Not to shabby of a deal. It was enough to get me excited. I wish I had more room in my freezer. But I was only able to get three packages. Maybe I'll get more next week. I haven't been doing much scrapbooking but I have a book for Julie that I need to get started on so I do have something to work on.

All in all things have been going well. We have an offer on a house that we won't hear back from for a while. We're a bit excited about it. It's kind of a dump, but we plan on fixing it up and making it look real nice. There is that first time homeowners tax credit that we will use to put new carpet and paint. Then we'll just have to save to fix up all the rest. But if we get it for what we're asking then the payments would be four dollars less than our rent. That includes everything, PMI, insurance...everything. But the bank that owns it went bankrupt and the other bank is kind of behind. So we don't expect to hear back from them until August. So we're just being patient.

Well enough of my rambelings. Sorry no pictures this time. Maybe I'll see what's on our camera and put up a few in the next couple of days.

Trying to cool down!!!

So it's been pretty hot up here in Colorado the last couple of days. Now before all you southerners start judging me..we don't have any AC. The last two days it has been 80+ inside the house. It's been hot all day long and it doesn't cool down in the house until about ten. Last night I didn't put pajama bottoms on Cayden because it was just too hot. But he got these new Lightning McQueen crocks at the store yesterday for his birthday (Thanks Great Grandma and Grandpa Allen). He did not want to go down to sleep with out them. So I let him put them on. Well once it got dark I went in a opened his window. This is what I found:

Julie Visiting

Well, last weekend Julie, my sister, came up from New Mexico and visited us. She brought along her two youngest, Connor and Becky. We had a lot of fun. We just hung out on Friday. We went to the park, and to Mcdonalds. We had a crazy day on Saturday. We woke up and packed a lunch then went to the zoo. We had a lot of fun. They wanted to see everything which was okay because I haven't ever seen everything. I think my favorite animal was one of the monkeys. It was high up in it's cage just swinging away. Going from one side to the other. It was fun to watch how gracefully they swing. It looks so effortless! Anyway, we had lunch there and were just slightly attached by the geese. But we had a good time. That afternoon/evening Scott watched all the kids for us while Julie and I went out and had some fun. We initially were going to go to the mall but we had had so much fun in Joann's the previous day with all the kids, or just Cayden, causing havoc we decided to go there alone. Then we went to the beauty college and got pedicures. Then we went out to dinner. It was a lot of fun. We could have been out all night long. But children were calling so we went home and relaxed and played Rock band the rest of the evening. Sadly they had to leave the next morning. But it was a lot of fun having them over. Here are a few pics.

Happy Birthday Cayden....yesterday

Yesterday was Cayden's Birthday. We celebrated on Saturday with the fam. Grandma and Grandpa took us out to an amusement park for toddlers. We thought that he would love all the little rides. Especially the little train. But the one toy that caught his eye was...you guessed it the SLIDE! We could have gone to a park!! But he went up and down and up and down that slide like crazy. He also enjoyed the set of stairs and surprisingly the bounce house. I didn't think he'd like it at all but wow he loved jumping and falling and flipping all over the place. It got some engery out. He really enjoyed himself.

Cayden has a sock fetish. For a long time we had one sock that was a CARS sock. We lost the other one. But he wore that sock everyday for about six days straight. We would put him in clean socks and he would rip one off and hand us the CARS sock. I even tried hiding the sock from him. But he would always find it. So for his birthday Grandma gave him seven pairs of cars and sesame street socks. Now he wears them when he goes to bed...actually all the time. He doesn't ever want to be without his socks. He also got lots of Cars cars a spirally thingy that races cars. He got a vacume some thomas the train stuff, and he got a really cool sand box thingy that you can play with standing up. All in all he really enjoyed the day.

Alittle bit about Cayden. Boy is he active. He's always on the move. Lately we've been able to stop him to give us loves but then he's off again. If he could do anything it would be play outside. He'd stay outside forever if you let him. He loves hotwheels and since we took his paci away he sucks on those. He's a very independant little boy. He no longer wants ANY help going up and down the stairs. If I attemp to be will have non of it. He's talking some. He more just makes up hand movements with sound but it's coming along. All in all he's a pretty happy boy

my deal run today

I'm really excited about the deal I did today. I made three transactions and each one was about a dollar or a little over. This is what I got:

8 boxes of Orville Redenbacker popcorn
7 boxes of Poptarts
2 boxes of Capri Sun
6 boxes of dishwasher tabs thingys electrosol stuff
24 rolls of toilette paper
10 McCormicks spices
8 boxes of Mac N Cheese
7 hand pumps of hand wash

I think that's it. While Scott was bringing it up he asked how much I spent and I said around three dollars and he freaked out and said, "30 dollars!!!" The thing that is so funny about that is if I had paid without coupons or anything it would have been at least eighty dollars!!! So him thinking 30 was a lot was kind of funny. I did, however, go and buy seven newspapers this morning at the dollar store so I guess you could say I spend around ten dollars when it comes to coupons and product. But it's always fun to see how low you can get your bill. Maybe I'll show you a picture of all the stuff I have after this deal at Safeway is over in two weeks.

picture round-up

So I haven't posted in a long time!! So I thought I would post a few pics. of what we have been up to. Right before spring break we had a huge snow storm so Scott got the two days before spring break off as well. On the Friday before we thought we would take Cayden sledding. I think he had more fun riding the sled over to the hill and eating his cookie than actually sledding.

I'm in the Activities commitee and we threw an Easter party for the kids in the primary the day before Easter. This was Cayden's first Easter that he was actually able to do stuff in. He had a blast. We limited the kids ten eggs so we would let Cayden find eggs then go and hide them, then he would find them and we would hide them. He had a lot of fun.

I started watching a little girl for a few hours during the day. The two of them like climbing up into the rocking chair together. I thought it was pretty cute.

Everything has been going pretty well for us up here. Cayden has been sleeping a lot better once we got him on Prilosec for his acid reflux. Yesterday I got called to be the Camp Director of our ward. I'm ubber excited, although it seems that a lot has been put off so I have lots to do before Camp. It's only in about a month and a half. I feel a little young to be the director. I'm not used to being in charge. I do better when I'm under someone else and just offer suggestions. So it will be a learning experience for me

Our Own eCONEmic

Well, as many of you know Ben and Jerry's has a thing going today that if you bring in a can of food they will give you a scoop of icecream for a buck. So Cayden and I took off at about quarter to ten and went a ways to the nearest store. Well they don't open until eleven. DUH!!!! So the whole way over I was telling Cayden that we were getting icecream and I was excited about it too. So we decided to have our own eCONEmic relief day our own way....with a dilly bar!!! We throughly enjoyed ourselves.