A Bike and A Beard

Thanks to cousin Ainsley, Allie got a new bike which she loves. She loves the handle on the back and loves pushing the bike all over. Allie's new trick is to put her animals on the bike and push them around. After checking out the new bike outside, we went to go inside. My original plan was to have this be in outside bike and we were going to leave it in the garage. Well my 1 year old was adamant about getting the bike inside, and she has a pushover for a mom who gave in and brought the bike inside.

Loving the "back handle" feature

Of course mom, I have to stand on everything...This kid is a climber. I forgot to post about my monkey the other day. Allie was playing in the family room while I was cooking dinner. Not even a couple minutes had passed by when I heard a thumping sound. I turned around to find Allie a top my kitchen table throwing lemons out of my vase....I put her on the floor and watched in amazement as this petite thing climbed on top of the chair, and pulled herself onto the table. Nothing is safe anymore...

Grandpa and Allie. I love this picture and I will tell a very quick story that goes along with it. My dad is an avid fisherman and pilot. He frequents himself to a luxurious life of getting into the mountains to fish quite frequently. While he is gone he enjoys the ruggedness of the trip and grows out a beard. He comes home looking like a "mountain man" and Allie loves it!!! It's so cute because my dad usually waits to shave off the beard until Allie gets to see and touch it. She loves the fuzzy!!!

Zoo Boise

We took a trip to the zoo the other day. It had been quite awhile since Allie had been, although I do have to admit I feel like our zoo has been the same since I was a kid. Supposedly we are getting an African Safari addition to the zoo in 2008-yes that means we'll have some giraffes and not just mountain goats and camels! She loves watching Animal Planet Channel, so I was excited to show her the animals up close and personal. After we made our way through the zoo, we ended up having a picnic in the park. We had another fluke day of good weather before the cold set in.

My turtle in her shell

Priceless! Three little bums enjoying this gigantic iguana

Enjoying the "small" tiger

Ducks and Slides

Allie enjoying the view of the ducks across the pond. We tried to feed them some bread, but they ran. Every time we would walk over to the side of the pond the ducks were on, they would swim across to the other side of the pond.

After the ducks we went to the neighborhood park. Allie thought she was hot stuff because she could get on this play-gym all by herself, crawl through the tunnel, and go down the slide. She was in heaven....she kept doing this over and over again.
We took advantage of the good weather the other day!

Changing up the Background

So I need one of my computer genius friends who has changed up their background template with something other than the options on blogspot. I have seen some cute ones out there and I am clueless as to how you are doing this. The new change of the color grey took me forever and I am still having some issues. If anyone has run into this problem, let me know how to fix it. My photo of Allie on the side bar is being quite finicky. If I chose a vertical photo, it will distort the picture; it's only letting me post a horizontal pictures???? Thanks for the help everyone!

Annual Woman's Celebration

Well another year has come and gone and I can't believe it was already time for the Woman's Fitness Celebration. Annually, for the past three years we have made it a tradition to walk this race. Our "team" consists of all the "girl" family that we have in Boise; and those who live out of town and wish to travel to make it to the race (we missed you Jenny and Jane). The walk/run is a 5K and it is just plain fun!!! The walk is the largest woman's fitness walk in the Nation and this year at the end we invited someone special to attend next year's race in 2008. Any guesses??? Oprah!!! At the end of the race they gathered everyone and we made a short video clip inviting her to come to the race next year. I'll keep everyone posted on the response. I also can't believe that last year Allie was just a newborn bundled up in her stroller, and this year she is running around. Allie actually didn't join me on the walk this year; we wanted to complete the race strollerless.

The rainy weather didn't stop anyone from coming out. Here is the crew all under umbrellas

The rain trickled on and off throughout the race. Here is a shot of everyone before the rain started to come down again.

Future Mountain Climber

Allie loves to climb! Anything this kid can get herself up onto she tries. The other day when I was making dinner I saw Allie standing on top of this toy (which ironically was initially used to get Allie to stand; looks like she needs some new toys). Like most inquisitive parents, I was wondering how the heck she got herself on top of that? I went and took Allie off and in amazement watched her climb right back on top. The things kids learn!

I'm amazed this kid has got some strength

Allie proving to me that she got up. She loves getting up here and watching T.V.

Return of Friday Night Pizza and the Food Menu

Well, I finally got my act together and put two and two together. I first have to admit that I am an anal budgeter; for some reason I love attempting to stay on track with my budget and keeping track of our family finances. Our grocery budget has been way over the entire summer which I attributed to two things; 1) Purchase of a deep freezer in the garage which I have loved slowing filling up, 2) the lack of my monthly menu planning. The meals calendar is a life saver for me because 1) I am not good at throwing meals together on a whim 2) When I don't have my grocery list, I don't know what to shop for at the grocery store and when I go I end up buying everything up the wazoo, hence my overspent grocery account.

I decided to start out the re-introduction of the menu calendar with Friday Night Pizza Night. I ended up making a yummy BBQ Chicken Pizza which Blake and I gobbled up. Since I will be holding this Pizza Night weekly on Friday's I am looking for any good pizza dough recipes out there. I have 3 but have rotated through all of them, and just haven't found a GREAT recipe that I love. Also anyone with other great recipes out there, send them my way. It is always nice to through a new recipe into the mix of the old.