welcome to the world, baby eva!

eva elizabeth allen arrived around 10pm on december 29 at 6 lbs 6oz. she joins her awesome parents, walter and emily, and fabulous big brother and sister, jonah and emma.

eva, we are so excited to watch you grow! we love all of our nephews and nieces, and we are so thankful to be a part of your lives.

and now the part everyone is waiting for....the pictures!

Christmas in Alabama

not to waste any time while we travel, we have filled our time in alabama in tuscaloosa, prattville, and wetumpka.

we went straight to lunch with harvey and debbie, our former sunday school teachers, as soon as we arrived in tuscaloosa. we had a wonderful time catching up with them...they poured spiritual wisdom into both of us during our time in their class and are so giving of themselves. we miss that group of people, but we are so glad to hear of all the wonderful things happening there.

we tried to fill all of our time in tuscaloosa with restaurants and shopping that we cannot normally do and friends we do not often see. we ate at one of the best mexican restaurants outside of texas, iguana grill, with some of our friends. we went by our former church/my old workplace to see other friends and former co-workers. we drove through campus to see the one and only, fabulous denny chimes. finally, we capped off our time by spending the night at adam and coriell's house (thanks again guys!) and catching up on glee (the girls) and family guy (the guys).our time in prattville was spent with family...shopping, eating, Christmas, shopping, eating, etc. (you get the idea). we finished our Christmas shopping on Christmas eve eve, ate an awesome lunch and opened presents at my grandmother's house on Christmas eve, enjoyed our Christmas day traditions including a Christmas day movie, started working our way into shape with the wii fit, and did some post-Christmas shopping the day after. my non-family-related event was a lunch with two great friends from high school. we had to limit it to an hour, but we could have talked over chips and dips all afternoon...it was great catching up with you girls!i hate to be a broken record, but it is true. we do love time with our families, and the holidays make these times that much more special.

now we are looking forward to you guys coming to texas!

Christmas: pilgreen edition

when the pilgreens all get together, you would think we had never parted from each other. no one skips a beat, especially the kids. unfortunately, the missouri clan had to make it a quick trip, but rest assured, no moment was wasted. we filled friday night and saturday with trampoline time, football, delicious meals (including GJ's famous ribs), asher's birthday celebration, and gift swapping.

we love spending time with our families, and the holidays are no exception.

i will just stop here and let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

this is how we do it

Christmas, that is.

here is a little glimpse at lindsey and lee's christmas 2009:we chose to exchange gifts before we left for all of our holiday travels, and of course, we had to document the moment!

p.s. - look for more Christmas activities and traveling photos on the 365blog, which is now up-to-date!

the hills are alive with the sound of music

for a wonderful birthday present in december, lee and i went to see The Sound of Music last night here in houston. in case you don't know this about me, The Sound of Music is a pillar of my childhood. nearly every time i spent any significant amount of time at my grandparents' house and got my choice of movie-watching, i always picked The Sound of Music. originally, my grandparents had it on vhs recorded from nbc in the late 80's (awesome vintage commercials and all). then, we bought my grandmother the special edition vhs so we did not have to fast-forward through the commercials anymore. finally, the special edition dvd came out with interviews with the entire cast and more, so (of course) we purchased her that version as well. once i started building my own dvd collection, i had to include my own copy as well. now, maybe you have some idea of how special this movie is to me and my family.

in fact, i just happen to have an amazing husband who knows all of this about me and jumped at the opportunity to make to the theater version of one of my favorite classic movies. lee enjoys the theater as much as i do so it really turned out to be a win-win for both of us.

i know you are not supposed to take pictures inside the theater, but i always do, with no flash. :)

a new blog to read

for those of you who love blog-reading as much as i do, i have a new blog for you to check out. i have started a project365 blog. "what is that?" you may ask. this new blog is where i hope to take pictures everyday for a year and journal about them on the blog. each day will only have a couple of sentences for each picture, and i will probably only update new ones every few days or every week. however, if you would like to follow along a year in the life of us, then check it out from time to time. the link will always be in the top right corner of this blog.

there is a little more detailed description on the other blog, but i am (hopefully going to) document the second year of our marriage...in case you are wondering why i didn't just wait and start on january 1.

enjoy!

learning to remember

today was a special day filled with celebration, sadness, and storytelling of my grandfather. i suppose life adjusts a bit in regards to him as we learn to remember him in our own ways instead of sharing life with him directly as we used to.

i do not think i mentioned his name on our blog before, but my grandfather's name is clayton. i think i will share here my thoughts of my grandfather that i shared at the service today.

like i said, many people knew my grandfather as clayton, but there are five of us who call him gaggy. an odd name, you may think, but he loved it. the name originated with our family trying to get me to call him an actual grandfather name, like granddaddy, but i supposedly said gaggy so many times instead that everyone accepted that as his name. years later, i asked him if wanted us to start calling him a normal grandfather name since we were older. he was shocked i would even ask such a thing because to him it was a true gift to be the one and only gaggy, and he would not change that for the world.

thank you for your prayers and thoughts for us and my family. please continue to pray for our family, especially my grandmother, during this time.