Allen Family Christmas

Usually Christmas Eve is reserved for my Allen family and all of our Allen family traditions, but we did it a few days early so Stef and her family could be there with us.

Jacqui started the day out with a contest. She gave everyone a dollar bill. They had to hold it up with their forehead. If it fell you were out. Last person standing got all the money. 

These kids were all so impressive! The last kid standing was Macie and she was able to do it for over an hour!

Perry dig deep and made it into the top 3 kids!!

Kacin was 2nd place. Kacin got goofy and bored and started doing tricks until it dropped.

Then we took everyone hiking at Santan. Or maybe we should just call it a short nature walk.

Kacin gave me a heart attack when he jumped straight over a cactus. He cleared it! That crazy, yet impressive boy of mine.

Brinn hit the max of her endurance. Even the sucker that Layla gave her didn’t pick her up for too long. She just sat herself right down to enjoy it while everyone else kept on hiking.

Jacqui had this other game for everyone, too. She hooked people up to some kind of muscle thing and you competed against one other person. You were trying to drink a cup of water while the machine was on causing her muscles to spasm and so your arm would jerk and water would splash. I stayed away from this one myself, but it kept everyone quite entertained for awhile.

Then came the annual Allen Family Untalent show!!!

I live for this thing.

Our family started it off with “Bells, Bows, Gifts, Trees” (only the first minute or so in case you listen to the song we don’t listen pass that at our house haha).

I didn’t get pictures of all the acts during the show but here are the ones that my kids participated in.

Kacin vs 3 boys…a wrestling match.

It was an intense battle, but in the end Kacin scooped all three of them up so we declared him the winner.

Brinn jumped up and joined Harper and Her mom in a good hip sway to a song.

The captivated audience..

Preston and Layla made up a song on the piano that sounded like Minecraft. (And Brinna zoomed around on her scooter during it).

There was a Christmas puppet show.

I particularly loved the Santa puppet Layla fashioned.

We did some couples swing dancing. (Eric and I couldn’t remember what to do haha).

Brinna sang “Let it Go.” It’s still her favorite song to belt out.

We had some chin puppets this year.

And the girls made Eric do his monkey impression.

Layla played her piano recital song.

Kacin showed us his handstand push-up.

And then we piled on the cousins for some more push-ups. He’s so strong!

And some of the cousins put on an improv play.

We ended the celebrations with a gift exchange. I love all the hugs after the giving and receiving.

Perry had the best reaction to his gift! He was thrilled for his squishy ball!

We love all of our Allen family Christmas traditions and time together.

Trophy Ball and level passing

Eric and I have officially entered into the world of ballroom dancing.

We went to our level passing to be judged to pass off our social foundation level and to move on to Bronze level. Yes that’s right. We have committed for at least another year of dancing.

Because we passed off our social foundation level, we got to perform an honor dance at the Trophy Ball in Scottsdale. We danced our cha cha with two other couples on our level.




After our dance, we received our certificate.

We loved watching all of the other dancers at their different levels! Then there were some fun solo dancers.

The highlight of the day was coming back in the evening for the ball. We got to dress up in formal attire and dance around the ballroom to live music. Then we got to watch the professional dancers put on a find Christmas show. We loved it!

Ballroom dance is a whole new world for us and we are enjoying it immensely. It pushes us out of our comfort zone, teaches us new skills, offers us time together, and is so much fun. Excited to see what next year brings for us on the dance floor!