Her name means "kind and noble..."

When Jon and I were trying to decide on what to name our first little girl we knew that we wanted it to mean something special.  What we didn't realize is how quickly she would live up to her name!  When I found out in high school that "Tiffany" means appearance (or manifestation) of God, it really made me see myself in a whole new way. I had a lot to live up to and since then, I love knowing the meaning of names. It's also something that Gary Smalley wrote about in his book "The Blessing."

So we decided on Allie which means "Kind and Noble" and Keegan which is "Strong and Fiery."  Jon calls her his warrior princess! It's a great balance and already at 3 years old, we have seen numerous times that she has lived up to that meaning!  She has the sweetest, caring and sensitive spirit I have ever seen in a young child.  She is perceptive and cares SO much about other people and she is always asking us if we are OK or if we were sick or down, she will say "are you feeling better now? or are you sad?"... so here are two stories of her Kind and Noble heart...

The first one started off with a trip to the zoo.  We were supposed to meet some friends, but they were not able to come at the last minute so it was just the two of us.

We got to feed the giraffes and the crazy thing was that there was no electricity that day at the zoo!

Getting braver...

After the zoo, we sat outside at the park to eat a picnic lunch.  You can see the Medical center from there and I could hear a helicopter start up it's engines at one of  the hospitals.  Immediately, a flood of emotions hit me because I can remember very clearly (even though I was highly drugged) being wheeled out  onto the roof of the hospital in Denver to get on the helicopter to go across town to another hospital and how terrified I was at what would happen.  I told Allie that the helicopter was going to go up into the air and of course she asked "WHY?"  I told her that someone had a really bad boo boo and needed to go to the doctor.

She looked at me with the sweetest face and said "Mommy, can we pray for that person's boo boo to feel better and that God would take care of them?"  Yes, I was crying and we prayed together- she even said part of the prayer!  Such a sweet, sweet spirit and I was so proud of her!

Sweet girl!  and once I collected myself we had one more thing to do...

we can't go to the zoo without ending it with a train ride!

One of Allie's favorite shows is Caillou, and although he annoys me with his whining, it has been beneficial to her.  One of the shows was about him giving some of his old toys away to kids who did not have any and Allie decided that she wanted to do the same.  She told me several times that she was ready to do so, so I thought- "Why not?"

We have a lot of baby/toddler toys that people have been SO gracious to give us and now that Allie has outgrown them I hate to see them sitting in the attic collecting dust waiting for the next child we have to use them.  We had already given some of her baby toys to a friend earlier this year, but she didn't have a say in it.  This time she helped me pick out the toys and I called up a friend to see if they wanted to borrow them.

Allie and Kori.  She even decided that she wanted to give her some of her bows!  Allie was so excited to give Kori her toys and the next couple of days, she would say that she wanted to give more away!  The great thing about Allie is that she will choose her favorite toys and let my mom or whoever take them home and borrow them for awhile!  The first time she tried to do this I kept the toy because I was not sure she really meant it and she got SO upset that my mom had left it at our house!  So now we know that she is serious when she wants someone to borrow something!

Here are some fun things about her now:
11 months after potty training Allie (April 1, 2011), she is completely diaper free!!!!!  She informed us mid March that she was done wearing diapers!  It has been 3 weeks and not one accident!  She is very strong minded and likes to do things on her own.  She will wake up at night sometimes needing to go and I am trying to get her to do this on her own so that I don't have to get up!!
One night Jon put her to bed so I could go out with some friends and when she woke  around 2am, she very sweetly said "Mommy, did you have a good time with your friends?"!!!  It cracked me up because she was  wide awake and we were having this conversation about how my dinner was!  She is so grown up at times!

 She loves to help me bake and she even helps me clean up!  We made these completely from scratch and they are English Chelsea buns (after we rolled them up!)  She also loves to tell me when I am doing a great job or when I am good at something!  I hope it's because I am modeling that for her during the day...!

And she loves to color now and sometimes she scribbles but other times, she does really well!
God has truly blessed us with the best little girl ever (yes I am biased!)  and I can't wait to see all the wonderful things He does with her life!

Thank you Allie for being so kind to others and for being willing to do the right thing!  Thank you also for your spirited side that