Colorado!!!

Brandon by the river behind our condo!
Let's go for a swim!!!
Brandon with his grandpa and grandma Timmerman
Kiegan and Kerrin
Matt and Livi

Matt Allen and Laura, soon to be Allen, getting ready for the big day!
Me and my baby girl! Who won't be the baby for too much longer!
Kerrin and her best buddy, her cousin Kiegan!
This was right outside our condo in Estes Park, Co. We woke in the morning to the sound of the river rushing by! It was beautiful!

Nadia and her best buddy, her cousin Kyrek! They are all ready for the wedding to start.
Matt and Laura Allen on the hillside where they were married!
My beautiful Kerrin!
"How do you do?" She says with a curtsy!
Jason and Kyrek Tommell looking super dapper ready for the party to get started!

Party time! Matt and Laura's reception!
Mason and a little girl named Addy that he danced with all evening!

They were super cute!

Kiegan and Livi Jane playing on the balcony at the reception center!
Mason sneaking a kiss!!!!!
"Pa" with Livi and Nadia who sat like this for quite a while!

They managed to spill an entire pitcher of water while they had Pa's hands occupied holding both of them!

Mason's birthday!

I finally got a few more pictures to load! I'm still working on the videos!

These are more from Mason opning presents the day before we left, except the bottom photo!

Mason got "Batman" mask and gloves. The gloves make noise when you fight with them!

He loved them!

This was taken on his actual birthday! We had a huge family bar-b-que, and we sang to Mason as part of the festivities! There were 50+ people singing to him all of my family, aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, ext. He was a bit shy about it and slightly overwhelmed I think!

Thanks to all who made my little boy have such a wonderful memory from his birthday!

Mason's birthday present

Mason learning how to shoot his first real weapon!

He got a bow and arrow for his 5th birthday!

Mason was thrilled to get his bow and arrow! A little hunter in the making!
These are the only pictures I can to upload right now, I will try some more later!

Trip Photos Are Coming!!!!!!!

In case any of you who check this blog were unaware, we were out of town the last two weeks. We drove, taking three days, out to Utah for my sister Maribeth's wedding on June 21st. We stayed in Utah until the 26th then drove to Estes Park, Co for Brandon's "double" cousin Matt's wedding on the 28th. We were there until the 1st of July, when we started our trek home. We got home last night on the 2nd. So, I'm still working on getting all the pictures and videos downloaded and then uploaded to post. I have a ton of cute stuff! So be patient and I will get to it as soon as the 5th load of laundry is out of the dryer! OK, so I hope you don't hold your breath, but getting a post up is high on my priority list!

Love to you all, Laurel

Food Fun with Livi and Nadia!

Livi likes watermelon!
Big bite!
Yeah, for watermelon!!!
This is the way we eat some fluff, eat some fluff . . .
And this is what we look like when we're done!!

Livi dancing!

Livi showing off her dancing skills and her new haircut!

She was much happier about the haircut after the fact as you will see in the following photos!

Haircut for Livi!

Livi's first haircut! She was not too happy!
Here she's just whining about it a little.
I think it's ok now.
Maybe not........

The end result was beautiful though!

Kerrin's Recital Dance!

This is Kerrin's recital dance. She loved being on stage.

She doesn't love classes, but she really liked the end result!

I (Laurel) was her teacher for ballet this past year, so I choreographed this dance.

KRD from laurel allen on Vimeo.

Family Fun!

This picture was taken in "Eden Park" in Cincinnati. It used to be a reservior, but now it's a fun spot to do some rock climbing!


This one helps give you some perspective on how high up they are!
My four climbing kids!
The sun was a little bright!







Livi does my make-up with me every morning, so she knows what everything in my make-up bag is for. I left the bag in my purse the other day and she put some mascara on all by herself!







Livi has discovered she really likes berries! All kinds!




Livi wearing mommy's shoes, something she does very often!

Much too long since my last post...

Well it has been two weeks since I last updated the blog!!! So sorry! Life has been busy. Lots of change has happened to our family over the past few weeks. Let me give the brief version of what has transpired.


Brandon had been talking about going out on his own to do his own consulting, team building, organizational development, ext. He loved Camp Joy, but has felt underpaid and under appreciated for quite some time. So to make a very long story short, Brandon is now the owner of Smart People Inc.! (You can look it up on the web at smartpeopleinc.com). He is working from home. So that is taking some adjustment, I think more on my part than anyone elses! He threw off the routine you know! I think I just wasn't quite prepared for the whole thing. The one thing I do know is that Brandon is way happier!! I am so grateful that God has a bigger picture view than I do! Things are going well and I think that Brandon will do an incredible job at running his own company.


The other thing that of course is exciting to our family is that we found out that we will be adding yet another girl to the Allen crew here! Mason is the lone ranger of this house. He is all boy, but naturally already a ladies man! It's a good thing he doesn't seem to mind having sisters, as he will be growing up with four of them!! He will grow up with Kerrin, Nadia, Livi and "P"baby all sisters and girls through and through! I will see if I can scan in a picture from the ultrasound. So that is the update!! I will post some pictures as soon as I can get them to upload! I'm having problems getting anything to upload lately!!! Sooo sorry!