quickie.

Hello!  So uploading pictures at my sister's didn't work out as planned, so I apologize to Grandma and Grandpa for not having any pictures of their little one to share.  However, I have a few minutes today at a computer WITH an SD port, so I will share a few pictures to get you by!

First, here is a video of one of the many dance parties the kids had at Kelly's house. 

Dancing cousins from Stephanie Allen on Vimeo.




Teeth brushing fun!  And yes, Drew does have in a hair bow.
Don't ask!



Papa's birthday celebration!  Watch out he may get
your cake!

the Mickey bus gets lots of use!



Nana and Papa's girls!



mmm.....cupcake goodness!

Olivia loved playing in the snow!

Nana had to buy her a new winter coat so she had one warm enough!

I think she looks like she is on a ski vacation! ha.

Okay, hope y'all have a happy Valentine's day and are able to share the day with ones you love!  We are going out to dinner with my original Valentine, my dad =) 

where, oh where, have I been?

We are in the start of week number 3 on our month long trip to visit my family and friends in Indiana.  I did not bring my computer along and am starting to feel a bit out of touch.  My Blackberry helps me stay connected some, but its not so great for updating the blog! 

Know that we are having a great time and Olivia is loving playing with her cousins, aunts, uncles, and Nana/Papa. My middle sister is here with her three kids and her trip has been extended by over a week due to the blizzard, ice, and snow, so we have loved spending all of our time together. The kids are a challenge at times (3y, 23 mo, 23 mo, and 19 mo), but it is fun chaos!  Personally, I have enjoyed having some help with Olivia and feeling like I'm a part of my family's daily lives again.  For example, tonight we get to watch my eleven year-old niece play a basketball game.  It has been years since I've been around for that.  And tomorrow my nine year-old nephew has a soccer game!  Hooray! 

Olivia has been experiencing lots of new things on this trip: sledding, making snowballs, wrestle time!, Papa's daily ice cream treats, what things like syrup and ketchup are! (thanks to her cousins), drinking the leftover milk from her cereal bowl, Papa's baby pigs, and other neat things!  I know she will miss all of the activity for sure when we get back to Charleston.

I may try and get a few pictures up via my sister's computer in the next day or two!  Prepare yourself for the cuteness overload of cousin love!  Hope y'all are well out there in blog world!

here fishy, fishy.

We have had a nice weekend.  The weather has warmed back into the 50's so we've been able to play outside again, much to Olivia's pleasure!  We spent yesterday morning at the Aquarium and Olivia loved it!  She would go up to the tanks saying "wow" over and over while signing fish back at me!  It was pretty cute.

See the big shark swimming towards the camera?  Grant was telling Olivia to watch out because it was coming to get her! ha.

the view outside the aquarium isn't too bad!

look at the frog, mommy!

Giving Baby Gillian a hug. 
Olivia LOVES this baby! She follows
her everywhere and calls her 'gigi'.

putting her to work pushing the stroller!

I'm currently watching the snow fall at the Bears game in Chicago and feeling even more thankful for our warm temperatures here in the southeast!  It looks cold up there!   Go Bears!

focused on my masterpiece.

FYI: This post was started last Thursday and just now completed; therefore the references to "today" are for then....

MOPS started again today for the new year and it was a wonderful meeting! I left feeling refreshed and inspired, which is a great combination. Our speaker was Shawn Wood who is a local pastor here in Charleston. He wrote 200 Pomegranates and and Audience of One, which you've probably never heard of. However, the message he delivers will probably hit home for a lot of you. I know it did with me.

First of all, he started out with statements like "You can be everything God created you to be" and "God created you to mother the children He gives you. He has given you everything you need to parent your children, so narrow the focus of your life and do it well!"

Okay, well now I was listening! No more gazing about the room wondering where that other mom got her boots or checking for new emails on my Blackberry; I knew this was a message my heart needed to hear.

For a little background his message revolves around 1Kings chapter 7 where King Soloman is having his palace built and Huram, a skilled craftsman in bronze, was assigned to do a lot of the work. Huram carved 200 pomegranates into the top of the palace, which was 34 feet high in the air. This was his greatest and most detailed work of the palace, yet being that high in the sky no one would be able to see it. Why would Huram do that?  Well, our lesson today was that he did his greatest work for God - his audience of one.

This is much like mothering. The world does not see the behind the scenes work it takes to raise a child - the extra hugs, the late nights, the kisses on bruised knees, the continual planning, the daily tasks of laundry and cooking, the middle of the night feedings, the time spent in prayer for your children, the silly songs you make up just for a smile, reading the same story for the 300th time, and the countless hours just being present in your child's life. Those are the things the outside world doesn't see, but God always does. He sees it all. He knows when you make the hard choice to sit and play pretend with your 2 year old rather than tackle the dirty floors and piles of laundry or go for a night out with your girlfriends. 

However it is not just that simple.  Mothers are always putting their children first, but a lot of us are just "doing mommy" over and over each day, but never really doing it all that well.  Shawn's message today was about focusing on the priorities that God lays out for us.  First, you are to be a good wife.  Second, you are to be a good mother.  And everything else then comes third.  Everything.  Including your job, your chores, being a good daughter, sister, friend, etc.  God wants us to focus on things in that order.  Wife. Mother. The rest of life.  He talked about how a mother's "art" is motherhood and their masterpieces are the children.  Olivia needs my complete focus and time because the impact she leaves on the world is everlasting. 

He said "in order to be a good mom you are going to have to give up something".  That sure resonated with me!  Things quickly started popping up in my mind of what I have "given up" since becoming a mommy.  First and foremost was my job.  True, I could have continued to work and still been a great mother, but I chose to give it up.  I chose to completely focus on being a mother (because I had that amazing choice, and I never take for granted the fact that not everyone does).  However, being able to make that choice also creates a little more pressure in my mind.  I quit my job to focus on mothering Olivia, yet I know that I am not always giving her my best.  The talk today awoke me to that fact!  I need to turn to God each and every day to ask for His help in being the mother he created me to be.  Olivia deserves that. 

Last, I really took home the point that mothering is all for God.  He is my 'audience of one' because no one sees the details in my daily life of mothering except God.  Parenting is really all about worshipping God and I need to remember that.  It is not about what other moms in my social network think or see about what I am doing - it is all for God.  He created me to be Olivia's mother and has given me the tools to do that.  Now it is up to me to trust Him (even during the hard times!) and focus on being the best mother I can be.  I want to raise her to have a happy, kind, and Jesus-loving soul and I know that God is with me on that goal.  He will help me do it if I just narrow my focus and realize where my true work each day needs to be done. 

Being a single parent over the last few weeks has definitely brought even more perspective to this topic.  I know God is with me, but is hard.  I don't have a break.  I don't have someone to "take a shift" or someone to help with the dishes or the trash.  I am Olivia's sole provider.  I need to be completely focused on her because I am all she has.  If I am more concerned with checking Facebook or planning out my grocery list than keeping an eye on her, she will suffer.  If I snap at her rather than show her patience and understanding, God will see that choice. 

God knows the choices I make and I pray that I am able to narrow my focus on motherhood and make sure that I am doing it well.  My audience of one is always watching and I know it will please Him most if I do my best work for the sake of the child(ren) he has blessed me with.

ring around the rosie.

Enjoy some cuteness from today!  Please excuse my singing voice.  It is terrible on a good day, and add in a cold and what you have is something I'm sorry you have to hear!

Ring around the rosie from Stephanie Allen on Vimeo.

"bay-beee"



taking baby on a stroll....
with her backpack of supplies, too!

 Olivia has been completely into her baby dolls the last few days!  It is so adorable. 

Both last night and tonight I took a look at the monitor after I came downstairs from tucking her in and I witnessed the sweetest thing.  She had crawled to the other end of the crib and was tucking her baby in!  She spent about 3-5 minutes both nights adjusting multiple blankets around her baby and patting her on the head and belly.  When she felt satisfied that Baby was all tucked in she then went back to the end of the crib she likes to sleep at and laid down to go to sleep!  ha.  It was just so precious. 

holding her freshly swaddled baby while watching a show

During the day a lot of her play is centered around Baby - asking for me to change her clothes, putting her in and out of her high chair, wrapping baby up on blankets, feeding her, kissing her, pushing her in the stroller and shopping cart, and just carrying her around.  I'm not sure where this love for Baby came from because we have never pushed it on her, but she sure does love to play "mother".  I pray that we are raising a girl with a sweet soul and from the looks of it she is off to a great start!


when she can't go outside, she pushes her all around the house.

Also, she was so passionate about eating her spaghetti at dinner last night that I had to take a video!  Keep in mind, this was her second helping so she wasn't starving or anything!  You will see that I keep asking her what she's eating to get her to talk, but she is so focused she doesn't make a sound!

Dinner with Olivia from Stephanie Allen on Vimeo.

a year for new beginnings!

2011 is off and running!  I have finally caught up on the sleep I lost staying up late the last few nights of 2010.  Olivia and I moved in with the Liegl's (the same house she had vacationed at while we were in Jamaica) because our dear friends, the Steinforts, were visiting from California.  The six of us (well we  used to be six, now we are 11 with all of the children;) were the best of friends over the first five years of living here in Charleston.  The Steinforts moved to California last January and we miss them terribly.  They come visit quite often, but its just not the same.  With Andy being gone, I decided it would be less driving back and forth and more fun if Olivia and I just moved in for the duration of their visit.  That made 5 kids 4 and under and 6 adults (the Liegl's have an Au pair that lives there, too) all under one roof.  It got a bit crazy, but was so much fun! 

We bought the big kids capes for Christmas.
They are a big hit!

Auntie Em helps the kids make a gingerbread house.
It was actually for the men to blow up with fireworks
on NYE, but they didn't know any different ;)

We picnicked at Waterfront Park one afternoon. Olivia wanted
in the water pretty badly! ha.

Olivia latched on to Auntie Em all
week!  It was cute.

I think O looks so grown up in this one!

Olivia sitting at the counter with the big kids! (Blackberry photo)

We rang in the new year on a dinner cruise.  The food and the company were good, but the party atmosphere left a lot to be desired in my opinion  I felt like we were tied to our chairs for the four course meal that last nearly till midnight.  By that time, we rang in the new year and had about 20 minutes left to move about and dance before we had to get off the boat.  Good times, but not something I will pay to do again. 

This new year will bring lots of changes for our house.  Actually, it will literally bring a change of houses!  haha....corny, sorry ;)  We will be moving sometime this summer and that is change enough in itself.  I knew the time was coming, but its hard to imagine it actually happening.  More on that in the coming months, I'm sure.
My new years resolutions include:
1. Start to recycle - there is no curb side recycling where we live and I've been lazy and not wanted to drive it to the collection center.  However, that stops in 2011! I vow to set a good example for Baby Girl on how important it is to take care of our planet.
2. Not stress about moving; leave the uncertainty in God's hands. - easier said than done since I am such a big planner, but I know that it is not my job to worry.  I must just go with the flow.
3. Be more diligent with couponing - I like to extreme coupon, but some weeks I am lazy and just go get what I want.  I am going to try and be more disciplined.
4. Spend more time in prayer and reading scripture - this is a change that I have been working on in the end of 2010, but I need to learn God's word in a desperate way, so my goal in 2011 is to be focused on it!

What are your resolutions? 
p.s. I have some cuteness from today that I will post (Olivia was way into her baby doll all day long) but my computer time needs to be done for the day.  I will never get to my resolutions if I spend all my spare time blogging at night!  Till next time.....