Hannah's tea party birthday

Lilly got to celebrate her best friend Hannah's 3rd birthday party the first part of March. It was so much fun. It was really fun for me because it was the first time I have gotten out of the house since we brought Kate home. Very nice to have adult conversation again! Emmylou had such a fun idea. It was a tea party themed birthday...complete with a real tea set.

Such cute little girls. They each got to eat their finger food on their own tea sets...so fun. The day was even extra special because everyone had to wear their favorite tea party dresses. Lilly had fun getting dressed up. Emmylou even had dress up jewelry for everyone to wear and take home.

Baby pictures by Bethany

Thnaks Bethany these turned out sooooo good! we are having a hard time deciding which ones to use.

Home at last!!!

I dont have much time. I just wanted to let everyone know little kate is coming home tomorrow!

Good news!!!

Today was the first day the the nurses actually gave us a timeline. This is a good sign because up until now all we kept hearing was that she wouldn't be leaving until her original due date (march 2). This was soooo frustrating. This morning we were told she could be leaving as early as wed. YAY!!! She has to finish her antibiotics first and she will be done with those on wed. She is still needing a little bit of oxygen but the nurse wasn't worried about that. She said that she is progressing really well so winging her off the oxygen should go well. We love our little girl. She has been such a champ through all of this and is such a fighter. Lilly has been great to. We cant wait until we finally get to be a family together at home. Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers. Hopefully our next post will be of us taking our little Kate home.

Making Progress

Here we are, day 7 in the NICU. Kate is a week old and looking really good. We were able to give her a little sponge bath for the very first time today. Here are a couple pictures that we were able to take with her oxygen tubes off and all cleaned up.

Thanks Sam and Nichole for the new clothes!

Here is bath time, she sure has an Allen butt.

DADDY, GET ME OUTA HERE!!!

Here is Kate's new bed. She graduated from the incubator to a regular old bassinet/crib/plastic tub thingy.

Things are definitely getting better. It seems like she's been here forever but only 1 week isn't too bad. She is eating great and growing almost an ounce a day. They tell us not too much longer, but no one knows how long, but we think it will be really soon that we can finally take her home and she can meet her big sister!!! LILLY!!!





Thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers. We'll keep you updated when she can finally come home!!

It's a GIRL..... again!

Kate Marie Allen

She was born a month early on Sunday Jan. 31, 2010 at 4 lbs 15 oz and 18 In. long, at 9:20PM. She is beautiful but just a little small. We love her sooo much. She is doing great and getting stronger by the hour! She is still learning to breathe more normal and eat normal too. Laura's labor and delivery was awesome. Laura did a great job. Everything was all natural and was about 5 hrs start to finish. Thanks Roxanne for being a great doula and Kristi for being a great coach and me (tim) for not passing out and being there!!!

This is what she looked like yesterday. SCARY !!!!! not a very good thing to see for new parents!!!

This is what she looks like now after just one day!! yea!!

These two pictures were taken by our friend Bethany Cook on Thursday. We didn't even have time to post them yet before Kate arrived. Thanks again Bethany, we are really glad we have these now!! just in time

Here is Mom... Freaking OUT. She is just explaining how she couldn't sleep after the baby was born cause she wanted to be ready for anything. That's pretty much how we all felt the first night!

Playing summer catch up

Holy cow I have a lot of catching up to do. I've been sick with swine flu the last 2 weeks so that explains part of why I'm so far behind. O.K. so it wasn't really the swine flu, but it was the worst flu of my life and I spend most of the last 2 weeks really thinking I was dying. Things are almost back to normal now. I'm not fully 100% back to what I was before, but definitely doing much better. So here's and update of what we have been up to this summer.

On July 2nd was my mom's 50th birthday so we planned a surprise party at rock creek park with all of her favorite people. Unfortunately I was busy making sure that the food was all stocked so the only pictures I got of the party was of Hannah and Lilly sitting in the shade. They are so cute together.

And... this picture of my mom. Super funny!! One of her old primary students Braden Sites mate her this sexy crown, just so there was no confusion as to whose birthday it was.

On the 4th of July we were sitting out on our lawn watching the fire works at CSI while our neighbors were lighting off fire works. They were illegal of course and I thought about telling them to knock it off until we went inside, I've decided that I am to timid and need to grow a back bone especially when it has to do with the safety of my baby. It was also making me really nervous because we not only had Lilly with us, but our friends Emmylou and Josh were over watching them also with little Hannah and new born Marriah. All I remember was seeing them knock over the fire work they were lighting off and instead of shooting in the sky I shot at us. I have no idea how it missed Lilly and I because we were sitting on the end. It skimmed passed us and hit Tim in the leg. This picture really doesn't show how bad it looked (or smelled). We are so so so lucky it wasn't any worse than it was. I still have nightmares of Lilly getting her head shot off by fire works!

When she was on my lap I had her blanket wrapped around her. She got a little burn on her side, but had the blanket not been covering her she could have gotten burned a lot worse.

This was on the 4th (before the incident) I think this picture is hilarious. It almost looks photo- shopped. The two of them are so goofy.

The end of July we went and stayed at Bob and Louise Crowley's cabin with my family in Island park. We bought these moose pj's in west Yellowstone for Lilly. I thought they were super cute on her and this picture shows her mischievous side.

Lilly being "cool" playing cards with aunt Kristi in the cabin.

This is the lake we were on. We stayed at a place in Island park called Bill's Island. Tim and I have been to island park 3 times now and this was by far the nicest area we've stayed in. It is surrounded by trees and water. It's so beautiful there.

Lilly and daddy at Yellowstone in front of the falls

While I was sick Tim has been such a great dad and hubby. Not only did he do an awesome job of taking care of me, he and Lilly had a lot of bonding time. One night Tim thought it would be fun to set up the tent in the back yard for them to play in. It was really sweet of him and Lilly loved it.