At Looooong Last, The Christmas Post

I can't believe Christmas time is over. It was so wonderful. Here is a very long post to recap our Christmas!

Before we went to Arizona, the Allens came over we had our own Texas Christmas. The kids got their gifts from us and it was so fun to have TWO kids this Christmas. We are so blessed.










We arrived in Phoenix on the 22nd to a kitchen filled with Ryan (bro #1), Jess (sis in law), Sean (bro #2) a date and his friends Preston and Meagan decorating cookies and waiting to go caroling. Then mom filled me in that we (they) would be caroling to perfect strangers while doing a dance sean and jess made up then we'd (they'd) give them the cookies. John decided to stay up but I went along to video. I can't figure out how to post a video but it was hilarious. Sean and Jess would get two inches from the door and start sining and dancing to "We wish you a merry Christmas" then Preston would stand on one foot and hand them the cookies. It was so fun.




We have a Toolson tradition of a huge Christmas Eve dinner where everyone picks what they want to eat. In the past the boys would choose their favorite sugar cereal, cheez whiz, pizza, I would always choose shrimp cocktail and now it's Grandpa's bbq chicken, crab legs, shrimp, prime rib, salad and potatoes. It was delish, as always!


Christmas morning was so fun! We were all together for the first time since Ryan left on his mission and now we added Johnny, Livy and Jess. And it was even MORE special because after a long, horrible unhealthy year, my grandpa was there. So my Christmas wish came true!










Beka and her now fiance Michael (they're getting married in May!) were in town to see his uncle so we had a fun afternoon with them on Mill Ave.

Livy girl can't decide if she loves or hates lemons...


Sean is my hunting brother. He's been obsessed for a few years now and it's all he thinks about. He was so kind to skip a couple days and come hang out with us. One day he took Johnny and John up north somewhere to put food on his tree stand and they met a man who had just shot this "world record" deer. We were all like, "Big deal" and Sean just couldn't get over it. I guess I'll never understand him and he'll never understand why I would read a book about vampires two times.

If you asked Johnny how the ride was, he would just tell you about the blood squirting out of the deer's neck and then he'd make the noise. Sweet.



My brother #3 KC is another basketball stud and we had so much fun watching him play in the Christmas tournament. They, of course, won (they beat those yucky Toros in the final game!!!) and KC is the bomb. This was at the 9:00 am game so it was empty but the night games were definitely NOT empty!



Sean went out the next day and got this deer, not a world record, but he was still happy. And then he got another one on Monday, go Sean!

Annie and I got pedicures and feasted at Euro Cafe where we used to work in high school. Love you Ann!

Grandpa couldn't go out that much but he did make it to a family dinner to BJ's. Fun times with the fam. I laughed watching my cool brothers text the ENTIRE time. Silly boys.





Johnny boy got a nice little buzz to match his uncles Sean and KC



Sean, KC and some of their cute friends getting ready for New Years with a good ol' game of Mortal Combat. Johnny is ruined forever. Too much blood on this trip!

And my Livy girl is totally walking now! Only ten months old, the little stinker. I'm glad Mimi and Papa Mike got to see it!

And this is what we spent many hours playing, it's a game called Farkel. Six dice. You want to roll 1's, 5's, three of a kind, a straight, whatever to get to 10,000 points. One days I asked if they had ever seen anyone get six of a kind and not an hour later, my mom rolled six sixes. We documented it for posterity


Keira and her boys Kale and Elie, Janelle and her girls Daisy and Jenna and Johnny and I went to the zoo one beautiful Arizona morning and had a blast. It's always so fun to be with friends who you used to stay up talking boys with and then be moms together. Did that sentence even make sense. I've been blogging for two hours....




Johnny hot tubbed with the teenagers one night. I told him to go out there and make sure KC wasn't makin out with anyone! Especially this guy. Just kidding!


the girls

Livy kept herself busy by making messes and kept me very busy cleaning them up! Lots of cupboards at Mimi's house.

One last game of Farkel...
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Hold On Folks

For those four people who read this blog and are anxiously awaiting some Christmas pictures, don't hold your breath. Over the break, not only did I lose my cell phone but my lap top crashed. So here I am with a new hard drive which pretty much means a brand new computer and I can't figure it out. I just uploaded all of my pictures and blogger can't find them. I'm too tired to figure it out and I still have to pack up all of my christmas decorations. Poor me. Just know I had a wonderful Christmas with my entire family (first time in five years) and my dear grandparents. I didn't do a whole lot, played a lot of Farkel, ate a lot of good food, watched some movies, went on some walks, sat around a lot, cleaned up a of messes and slept a little. It was awesome!

Por Favor!!!

Yo Yo Yo to my peeps! I know I'm a few weeks behind in blogging, I've been in Arizona playing old man games with my sweet grandpa and not sleeping at night! I'm writing this blog because I lost my cell phone and have lost every number in it so....if I have ever called you or might ever call you P-L-E-A-S-E either leave your numbers (home and cell) in a comment or email them to me at mckell_allen@hotmail.com!!! Even if we've been friends for ten years and I should have your number memorized, leave it anyway!

Happy New Year to all and to all a good night!!!

Last Week...

I've been behind in my blogging so this is a catch up post! This week was super busy with parties, playgroups, baking, doctor appointments, hot weather, freezing weather and more baking.


Johnny and I made our first gingerbread house together and he LOVED it. Mr. Creative told me how to do the frosting and then put all the candy on himself.


Tuesday I spent the entire day making bread for neighbors and a billion sugar cookies for my sweet Activity Days girls. We spent the night eating and frosting them all and they only left four cookies at the end...which I ate for breakfast the next morning. Yum.


Last night was the annual G&A party (John's dad's company) at the Westin Galleria. It was another fun night for the family!


While all the Latinos were showing off their AWESOME salsa skills onthe dance floor, us white folk stayed in the corner and entertained ourselves with my camera. Note to self: I want to learn how to salsa dance!


Hope everyone has a FABULOUS Christmas, I will see you in the New Year!

When it's cold outside...

It's been cold out lately and the kiddos are sick and I've run out of ideas to keep them busy but this worked GREAT the other day! She didn't even try to stand up. And yes, I cleaned the sink before I put her in it!

What's Up?

Not much! But I thought I'd do a little update since I'm bored out of my mind and both kids are sleeping.

Johnny boy has a little respiratory infection (probably due to Houston's WACKO weather. Tuesday I was in shorts and flip flops and sweating and yesterday it SNOWED.) and the doctor has him doing mini breathing treatments with this inhaler and he thinks he's the man.


Houston, we have a problem

J still loves to draw and color. On a good day, he goes through at least 25 sheets of paper

And Livy girl turned NINE months old a couple of weeks ago. She is standing up now all by herself and she knows how cool it is! She is always smiling and has us all wrapped around her finger. She weighs 22 pounds, little chunker and I love every single ounce of her! She's reached the destructo mode and loves to get into anything with a handle or door. And she still only has four teeth: bottom two and the upper fangs. She looks like a bat when she opens her mouth, so cute!




I had to take a picture of the "pajamas" daddy put her in yesterday. She had these tights on with a dress during the day and daddy thought she'd be warm enough (mind you, it's snowing outside) wearing a onesie and her stylin tights. I laughed till I cried.


John and I went and explored the George Bush trail on Saturday and found this really cool bridge. I snapped this pic before my camera died

We are thankful for San Antonio!

John's parents took us all to San Antonio for the Thanksgiving weekend. We went to the Hyatt Hill Country Resort and had an amazing time! We ate a lot of incredible food, we played in the pool, in the arcade, at the spa, and at the playground. We went to Sea World for my birthday and it was perfect. The weather was great, there weren't too many people and I really like all the shows. Thank you papa and grams for the best weekend ever!! We love you! And Becca, how did I not get one picture with you in it?