The Allen Family: Birthday Girl

I can't believe it but my sweet baby girl just turned 8 years old! Her birthday was last week, but we went out of town for my Grandma's funeral so we postponed her party. This year we decided to let her have her very first Birthday Party and invite friends. (I've been trying to postpone the inevitable as long as possible...) We decided to take the girls bowling at BYU and it was SO MUCH FUN! Every time one of the girls would bowl, they would all squeal and cheer and jump up and down. They had about a million "group hugs". I'm not a girlie girl and I was never like these little girls, but it was so cute to watch them having so much fun together. After bowling, we went back to our house and had cake & ice cream & opened presents. Here are some pics:

The Cake

The Girls

Squealing

Jacob was shocked that he

didn't knock all the pins down

Yesterday Ashlyn was Baptized! It was very bittersweet for me. My heart melts when I see this beautiful girl that we were blessed with, and part of me wants to keep her young forever but another part of me is excited she's getting older!

Thanks to everyone who came! It was good to see all of you!

These pics are from her actual Birthday:

We have a rule that you have to be 8 before chewing gum (it was because of a VERY bad experience at 3 am when Johnathan woke up covered in gum.) Ashlyn went through this whole pack of gum in about 24 hours :)