Mrs. Allie Gentry

Okay so 3 posts in 1 day is kinda alot but I'm playing catch-up so please bear with me!
This week has been a pretty busy week, monday & tuesday I went and worked on my parents farm again, I do this pretty much every monday & tuesday unless something big comes up. So it was a successful but otherwise not too out of the ordinary visit. I had fun visiting everyone and getting my hands in the dirt. The weather was great and Brandon had a great time jumping on the trampoline. On wednesday we got to see my mom, dad, aunt summer and some of her friends as they all came up to St. George to go to Laser Mania for Summer's birthday party. First they all came over to my house and we had pizza and salad for dinner, then we went to the park for a few minutes after which we headed over to Laser Mania. Brandon loved running around looking at all the flashing arcade games. He also liked looking at the prize counter! My dad took some great pics of Brandon playing on the bumper cars and I'll have to post them later. When the girls were all finished we all went home and simmered down :) Four 10 yr old girls can be pretty exhausting even when I'm just watching them! Thursday & Friday I buckled down and got all my school work finished. I am happy to report all A's still :) This saturday and Sunday have just been so amazing! I loved all the conference messages and I heard so many wonderful things that have bouyed me up and given me determination to do better and it also was great to feel good about what I think I've accomplished so far in life. Also, MOM! Thanks for being my mom. You are the best mom ever! I love you!
Happy Easter All!!

Brandon's 2nd Birthday, the most recent one, he also got 2 parties! Well, the one at home was very low-key, I'm not sure we should consider it a party in the sense, but anyways, Brandon got to open his presents, help mom make his cake, and then pretty much do whatever he wanted, or that mom knows he likes to do! We went outside to the park and played for a long time, he got in a nap and then he got to eat his finished cake after dinner. So ya, pretty low-key on his actual birthday, but the 2nd party was a bit more exciting because Grandma & Grandpa Omer came, Aunt's Nicole, traci, & Summer came, Uncle Josh and Nicole's friend Andrew were all present. We grilled up some hamburgers, opened some more presents and then played some games. Brandon loved it! Anyways, here are all the pictures :) Enjoy!

Do you wanna help mom? You're watching pretty close...

This is how Brandon best likes to help make the cake!

Frosting has always been a little kids favorite part, but he did eat the whole cupcake.

And away from the face goes the cake and we have a frostingstash.

Presenting the cake to the birthday boy

So this is going to be just a little different this week. I decided that I needed to add all the important events in the last little while in here so that it can also be put into the journal I make out of this blog. So this week's feature is going to be Brandon's past 2 Birthdays. In two different blogs.

Brandon's first birthday was casual yet fun. He had 2 parties, one with the extended family (my side) the night before his birthday, and the next day he had a little family fun with mom and dad.

Brandon trying to touch the flame of the cupcake... Silly Boy!
Brandon demolished that cupcake pretty quick, but if you look at the tray he didn't actually eat much of it!
Brandon's cousin Emily is helping him open their family gift to him, it was a nice soft blue blanket :)Books from Grandma, Brandon loves to read books!

So that was a fun night with the family :) The next day to celebrate for his birthday we took Brandon to the toy store that was having huge after Christmas blow-outs and helped him wander up and down the aisles picking out the toys he liked. He ended up picking out a Clifford stuffed animal and a few other things but the clifford was/is his favorite animal.








Brandon got to sit on his Birthday table and view the toys he had help pick out (lol) and pass the cake plates out to everyone.















We got Brandon a candle that sang Happy Birthday and it kinda scared the poor kid, Dad had to do some fancy coaxing and removal of all weird singing objects from the top of the cake before Brandon would touch it! But once he did he once again, demolished the poor thing!

This week has not been the funnest week ever. Monday I read over my school assignments and got Brandon and I ready to go to Moapa to work on my parents CSA farm. When we got there Brandon immediately started playing with his aunt Summer, who he has started to call Bumbum or something like that, and I got to work planting some cabbage with my mom. My dad and Josh were both gone in SLC while we were there so there was tons of work to do. And since it was just us girls there, (mom, me, traci, & summer) we had a girls night family home evening where we sat on the floor and ate popcorn and fruit and reminisced about our favorite family vacations. We were going to paint our toenails too but we were all too exhausted from all the hard work we had done until 7:30 that night. In the morning we got right to work picking vegetables, cleaning them, dividing them up for the baskets and then putting them into the baskets. We got all this accomplished by 10:00 and then Traci & I took the truck and drove to Las Vegas to deliver all the baskets. This was my 3rd time doing the deliveries and it went very smoothly. I only had to turn around once and never got lost. I did get in a bit of trouble at the very last delivery because it is a housing community with a gate and a guard and I tried to "run the gate" behind someone who had opened it with a gate opener and the guard let me know that that was not allowed! Oops ;) After the incident with the guard I delivered Daniel & Kara their baskets and got to stay and visit for a few minutes because I got done a few minutes early with all the other deliveries. At least for me. That was so fun to see all their girls and to talk to them. I don't get to see them nearly enough. I wish Brandon had been with me so he could play with them too! Anyways, Brandon did great all day with his Grandma and his Aunt Summer. He just loves to go and visit them! He gets to play outside and jump on the trampoline! In fact he likes the tramp so much that it gets a little tedious. He would love to just jump for hours but it gets hard for the babysitter to just sit there and watch lol. But Summer is such a good sport :) The only bad thing that happened the whole trip was that while we were there Summer got a little sick, and it didn't get her real sick but since Wednesday morning Brandon has had a runny nose and has been a little ornery. And since Thursday I've been sick! Ugh! Not so nice! I think we are all starting to get over it today but its been a miserable last couple of days. The only things we have really done since Wednesday have been to go to wal-mart and go shopping, and to play in the back yard. Yesterday I started to clear out a little area in the back yard in which to plant my tomato plants, green pepper plants, cilantro, basil, onions, and flowers. I am actually excited to plant them and get some veggies and herbs for my cooking :) On the note of school, I finished my last two assignments yesterday because I was procrastinating all week because I didn't feel good. All I have wanted to do this week is to sleep! Oh, I'm getting more worried that Hope might be pregnant. She has been sleeping a TON this week, like she did when we first got her, and her belly is starting to widen a little where it used to be nice and slim! Oh I really hope she isn't! I'm not equipped to deal with a dog pregnancy and birth! Anyways, I think that is all my news for this week!

Brandon & Aunt Summer hanging out on his Lightning McQueen bed.

Oh wow! It's been a while since I wrote in here, but I have been wanting to get more regular with Brandon & my journal entries and my friend Sarah gave me this great idea. If I write in this blog regularly and include me & Brandon and pics and then in a while I can just print it off and it will be easier for me and at the same time I'll be doing my journals! So first off, I'll start with me, I just recently started going back to school online, and so far it's going great! I finished my first class, each class lasts a month, and I got an A in the class! Yeah! So that was encouraging and I've started my second class and so far I have an A in that class but its only the first week so I have a bit of work ahead of me. I have fun doing my achievement day activities, the girls are great and I think we all have fun getting together. The last one my mom came up and taught all of us how to plant a garden and so that was really awesome! I'm kinda worried that Hope (our puppy) isn't pregnant because she was in heat just barely and she escaped and was running around for about 2 hrs so I'm hoping that even if she was with a male dog that she isn't prego. Okay so that was some catch-up about me, now to catch-up for Brandon. He is now over 3 ft tall! He is growing so fast and he really needs some new clothes but it's almost time for spring and summer clothes so I don't wanna go shopping yet! So for a few weeks he gets to wear pants that are a little too short for him. He is getting more and more proficient at the alphabet, he loves to point out letters! The only letter he has trouble with is W, he still thinks its an M. But all the rest he has no trouble with. I'm slowly introducing lower case letters and he has picked up on a few of them. He is also becoming more familiar with numbers. He obviously doesn't know what they are for but he can count to 3 and he knows them on paper. 2 is his favorite number although for me to tell him that he is 2 years old he gets a little upset cause he doesn't know what the heck I'm talking about :) Just this past friday he started counting to 3 and he did it without any prompting from mom or dad. He has this game where he has mom or dad count to 3 and say GO and he runs through the house, well he has been saying GO for a while now but has never counted and I've never even encouraged him to try, and just out of the blue I hear him count to 3, say GO and then run through the house! And he did this several times and he has done it the days following! YEAH!! I have such a smart boy! His vocabulary has been bursting out lately as well. He adds words to the ones he can say everyday and will now try to say words when I encourage it. Dad has taught him how to say the word "V-TEC" which he is super proud of. He is also starting to like to socialize with other kids his age. And he likes to actually play WITH them not just beside them. Okay so I think that's all for this week but I will post next week and I'll have pics from the week!

A whole bunch of stuff has happened since I last wrote in here! I'll start with the fact that Bobby's job has just taken off! I can tell how happy he has become with being able to provide for me & Brandon. He works really long hrs driving his truck & trailer loaded with cars to L.A., SLC, Vegas, and occasionally Phoenix. But I can tell he likes his work and he likes the paychecks. Which isn't a whole ton but we are so grateful to be able to support ourselves and to start to really get back on our feet. It has taken quite a while to get to this point together but we are so happy now! We moved into our new place which is a house that we split with some roommates. They have the upstairs and we have the downstairs and so far the arrangement has all parties happy. I still have a few boxes that are unpacked... I'm a little afraid to completely unpack in case we have to move again soon, which we hopefully won't. I can't see why we would. Things are going great and the rent is super affordable & cheap. When we first moved into the place it took us 2 weeks (well more just me cause bobby was working) of painting, shampooing, and cleaning before I could even start to unpack! We got a puppy! A whole new ball game for me, she is a jack-russell terrier, mostly white with a black & brown mask on her face and she is the friendliest puppy ever! Her name is Hope and she has finally started to play with Brandon and I love to see that! We got her in the first place to be a friend to Brandon and it took a while for them to get used to the idea of being each others friend. Brandon still bullies her a little, not on purpose or anything, he just doesn't know what kind of attention to give her. But we are working on him being nice to the puppy :) Brandon is growing bigger every day and I love to watch him! He is learning his ABC's right now and his favorite letter is "O" he can pick it out anywhere! But he is starting to learn other letters and its amazing to see. He is talking more and more legibly everyday and his vocabulary is growing as well. He loves to race up and down the living room and kitchen floors yelling "Go! Go! Go!" and he does like to go go go. Everytime we step outside he points to the car and tries his hardest to drag me to the car so we can go somewhere. He doesn't seem to care where, just as long as we go! This morning Brandon painted the pumpkin Grandma Omer gave him for halloween, its a cute small pumpkin and just the right size! I first helped him paint a smiley face and then he thought it needed to be improved and he finished smearing the paint all over :) He did a great job! I love that he is finally at the point where he can be patient enough to sit and paint/draw/color. About 2 weeks ago my family had a scare when my older sister Corrie went to the hospital severely dehydrated and sick with viral meningitis. She is still recovering. I went up to her house for about a week and babysat her boys so she could stay at my sister Nicole's house and recover without the noise and distraction of being a mother.

I think that is about all that has been happening that is big since I last posted...

So today is July 24th, Pioneer Day in Utah. There was a parade in town that I missed, but wanted to go to so that counts for something right? I am remembering all those wonderful pioneers and I'm very grateful that I didn't have to do their job. It's so hot outside and they had no comforts whatsoever. I am feeling very grateful for all my many blessings.

On another note, my sister, Nicole, is running for Cottonwood Heights, District 3 council, and she has a website, www.nicoleomer.com, and I just looked at it, reading thru it I was feeling some really strong swellings of pride. I am so lucky to have such a great role model. And Good Luck Nicole!!!