Deck the Halls!

Merry Christmas!!!

Okay, so it isn't Christmas, yet, but we are getting ready. Above is obviously our family picture. We just took it at home, so it was hard getting Allie to smile. It was hard enough getting her to look the right direction. (Our trick: we put Baby Einstein videos on the laptop by the camera.) We are pretty happy with it.

Next are some pictures of Allie by our Christmas tree. It should have been easier getting her to look the right way and smile, right? Not at all. She was completely distracted and mesmerized with the tree. We took countless pictures. Here's some of what we got.

Look at that tree!


This one makes us laugh. Cute, but not what we were going for.

There we go!

Here's another one with our stockings in the background.

This one is probably our favorite. So Adorable!


Here's a picture of our little tree in its designated space.
Eventually our stockings will be hanging from the windowsill on either side of the tree. But we haven't bought the hooks for them, yet.

We bought the stockings online at personalcreations.com. People ask if Nikki made them. She wishes she were so crafty. But they are so dang cute in person that they were worth the purchase. We also got Allie her first Christmas ornament from the same site. It is so cute. We are planning on getting her an ornament each year so that she has her own set when she gets older and is on her own.

Allie's First Ornament

We checked our mail today and found several Christmas cards. We obviously didn't have them delivered today, but we hadn't checked our mail for several days. We were so grateful for all of them. We let Allie play with hers from Great Grandma and Grandpa Kauer. It went straight to the mouth. Here's a picture of her enjoying her card.

In our last post, we forgot to share this next video. Allie is a very active baby. She has not stayed still since she was born. She has always liked to move, and especially kick her legs. Here's just a little sampling of how she can get her feet going. She will often do it even more, but the camera catches her attention.

6 Months Old!!

Allie turned 6 months yesterday. It is really hard to believe that she has been here for half of a year. Our lives are much busier than before, but we wouldn't trade having her here for anything. She is such a happy baby. She makes us laugh and smile all the time.

It has been so much fun watching her grow and develop. Shortly after turning 5 months, she became a pro at sitting. We are able to let her sit and play without being right beside her. And now if she does lose balance, which doesn't happen too often, she will roll as she falls so that she doesn't get hurt. Around 5 and a half months or so, she finally learned to roll from her back to her tummy. She had been able to roll from tummy to back since before 4 months, so it was exciting for her to finally get to where she could roll both ways.

This last Monday, she army crawled for the first time. She had been getting up on her hands or forearms and knees and rocking for awhile, and occasionally moving forward with her head down to the ground. But she never deliberately went after something before. On Monday she was at her babysitter's house, who has an 18 month old girl named Madison. Madison had a package of wipes that Allie really wanted. Madison did not want to share them, so she took some steps back from Allie. Allie then rolled a few times to end up at her feet. But Madison then went further away and Allie gave up on rolling. When Madison was done with the package, she dropped it on the ground a few feet from where Allie was. So Allie went for it and army crawled for the first time. Later that day, Nikki and Allie visited some friends. Allie's little friend Elizabeth was playing with a crinkly book that looks a lot like her own and decided that she wanted it, so again she army crawled a little forward to get it. She wasn't going far distances, but she had learned.

Through the rest of the week she worked on improving her army crawl and she can move pretty quickly if she wants to. Today was the first time that she really saw something more than 3 feet away and went for it. First it was the straps from her portable highchair hanging down, then the diaper bag, and then the tray to her portable highchair. So between rolling and crawling, she can get to just about whatever she wants. As Nikki's mom says, "there will be no peace for us for a long time."

Allie first learning to get on her knees

One of her favorite things to roll to (and now crawl to) - the cords to our laptops

Again, going after cords. This time she started several feet away and ended up with the cord around her leg. She was in heaven.

And here's a quick video clip of Allie going after her rubber ducky.

On Thursday night she finally starting saying a vowel-consonant combination. Daddy would always say, "ma, ma, ma, ma" to her to try and get her to say that first, and Mommy would always say, "da, da, da, da" to try and get her to say that first. So what was her choice? "aba, ba, ba, ba." Wouldn't you know it? She will do things her own way.

We have started giving Allie baby food. The first food was the typical rice cereal. We mixed it with breast milk so that she might like the taste better. At first she wasn't so sure, but she has come to like it (a little). We next attempted green beans. We didn't have any other food to try, or at least any other vegetable, so we mashed some of our canned green beans. Mommy and Daddy got a good laugh from the faces of disgust that she made. It was not a hit. So next we bought some sweet potatoes, which she has come to like best. We then tried carrots, but she is not so keen on them either. Oh, we should also mention that she loves to be in her portable highchair. She sits and plays with toys very well. It is great when mom is needing to make dinner or do something around the house. (Or update the blog, like she is now.)

Here are some pictures from her feeding experiences.

First feeding in the swing (before getting the portable highchair)

Another feeding in the swing

Before (1st time using highchair)

After (hard to see the mess since it is rice cereal)

Not a fan of carrots

Allie has gotten a little big for her baby bath tub, and since she is such a good sitter, we have started giving her baths in the big bath tub. She seemed a little nervous at first, but now has fun in it. She still hasn't learned just how fun splashing can be, but she likes playing with things in the water, like her little turtle and cups.

Allie has such a sweet and funny little personality. We wonder if she is going to be a shy girl. At home, she is smiley and laughs, but when we go somewhere else, like church or a friend's house, she is much more serious and smiles very little. She likes to take things in, it seems. She will just watch and look at people. As we have mentioned before, she has an odd sense of humor, too. She still laughs at random things, such as when we make weird noises - really weird noises. It's hard to remember what makes her laugh, because it is random. But something that she gets from her mamma's side of the family is laughing a lot more at night when she is tired (Alton girls, you know what I am talking about).

Something that may just be age-related, but may also be personality (likely a little bit of both?) is that she protests having toys taken away from her. It really makes her mad and/or sad when we take paper away from her, too. It may be too early to teach sharing, but we can only imagine what a task that will be when the time comes. Something else she has started learning is that her parents will pick things up when she drops them. When she has dropped all of her toys from the swing or her highchair, she will look to us to get them for her. And by the time we turn around, she has already dropped 5 again.

Allie is also very vocal. For those of you who have had a phone call with someone in the Gale residence recently, you have likely heard Allie talking in the background. Unless she is eating or sleeping, she is usually making noise. She is also quite a squealer. For the laughing she doesn't do during the daytime she makes up with squealing. Here is a clip of one of the sounds that makes us laugh most. It is of her gurgling her spit. You may need to turn up your volume.

She has also been teething for awhile. We are pretty sure she started around 3.5 months when she started drooling like crazy and loved having her gums rubbed. But alas, she does not have any pearly whites to show for it yet. But throughout the 2.5 months of teething, she has had different teething toys of choice: our fingers, her toes, her rubber ducky, and most recently - a scraper for non-stick pans that is made out of hard plastic and silicone. Anything to keep her happy.

Also for awhile, she would always raise her bum up in the air. Whether her shoulders were on the ground or on her boppy, it didn't matter. She also loves to do this when we are changing her diaper. We don't love it as much then as she does. But she is cute doing it. Here's a picture to end this post.

Four Generations

We meant to do this post a long time ago, but we never did. When we went on our trip to Washington in August, we were able to get some pictures of four generations on Jared's side of the family. All of Nikki's grandparents have passed away, so these are all of Allie's living Great Grandparents.

Great Grandma Kauer, Nikki, Allie, Jared, and Grandma Terri

*We can't remember why Great Grandpa Kauer was not in the picture.

Back Row: Grandma Carren, Jared, Nikki, Grandpa Larry Gale

Front Row: Great Grandpa Gale and Great Grandma Gale with Allie

Random Pictures of Allie

Well, we want to share a bunch of random pictures of Allie from the last month to month and a half. It has been fun watching her develop and learn each day.

Before sharing all of the pics, we will give you the stats from her 4 month doctor's visit, which she had about a week and a half after turning 4 months. She was 12 lbs, 12 oz (22%) and 25.5 inches tall (85%). She has gone down about 7 percentile marks in each category. But she is doing very well. She is a healthy and happy baby girl. Now for the pictures...

Everyone knows that baby socks never stay on, but we were amazed to see how far she kicked or flicked one of her socks one night. To the far left of the picture, you will see a little white sock. She kicked it from the position she is in in the picture. She had played herself to sleep, so she is actually asleep in the pic.


Here's just a cute pic of Allie.

We've commented that she really enjoys her play gym. Around 4 months, Allie started bringing everything to her mouth. There's a little mouse that we used to always have at her feet so that she could kick it. But we put her head by it one day and discovered that she really liked to play with the little mouse with her hands... and mouth. We joke that she makes out with the mouse; she really gets it soaking wet. Initially when trying to get a picture of her with the mouse, she got distracted by the camera. So the first picture is her looking at the camera and then the second pic is her going after her mouse friend.

Something else she picked up around 4 months was playing with her feet. They are one of her favorite toys.

In this next one, she had actually gotten the toy key chain around her foot by herself.

She is cute whether she is awake or sleeping. Next are some pictures of her sleeping. In the first two, she had been playing with the little purse-looking toy when she fell asleep. I must admit that I slipped the cell phone in her hand, but it is such a fitting picture for a girl, right? Sleeping with her cell phone and purse.

The next two show off her favorite sleeping position: arms behind the head and knees slightly bent. We swaddle her at night still, but if she works her hands free, they always end up behind her head.

I don't remember when exactly, but sometime between 4 and 4 1/2 months, Allie started getting better at sitting upright. We still don't leave her alone sitting. She sat by herself on the floor for 30 seconds the other day, but she still goes down pretty easily. Here are some pics of the learning process. First is with some assistance from Daddy. He's such a good helper!

Then with the boppy around her so that she can catch herself easily and/or have a soft landing when falling backward or to the side.

Next on the couch, mostly by herself. Her little bum is able to sink into the couch a little which helps her stabilize really well. She does great sitting on the couch.

Another cute picture of Allie on the floor.

And Allie with her favorite man, Daddy! Aren't they so cute together!!

Happy Halloween!!!

Everyone can thank Nikki's sister Maria for these pictures. We didn't have a costume for Allie due to hectic schedules and Nikki being sick recently. When we told Maria that we didn't have anything to dress Allie up in, she called us lame (in a very loving manner). Here's what we came up with. It's fitting since we always call Allie, "Pumpkin."

A Little bit of Allie's Laughter

Allie has been laughing for quite awhile, now. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to catch it on camera. This is for a few reasons: 1) Whenever she sees the camera, she gets interested in it and forgets about what was making her laugh. 2) She has a funny sense of humor. She'll think something is funny once; if you repeat something that really got her laughing before, she'll look at you and maybe smile, but not laugh like before. It's actually kind of funny because random things will make her laugh. Both Mommy and Daddy, but especially Mommy, will make all types of sounds and faces just in attempt to make Allie laugh. Some things that prove successful, most of the time, are shaking her legs, shaking her arms, a new crinkly page book, and beeping in tune to ode to joy (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpcUxwpOQ_A to see where we got the idea - we imitate Beaker from the Muppets). After many attempts to get her laughing on film, this is what we have to share.

First is just two pictures of her with her new toy, the book with crinkly pages, with a sound bite of her laughing. The other day we went to Walmart and decided to check out the baby toy aisle. We knew she liked thinks that crinkle, so when we saw the book, we thought we would hold it up in front of her to see if she would like it. She started cracking up. She was still laughing pretty good when we got the cell phone out to record her laughing. So here it is:

On occasion we will let Allie watch some Baby Einstein videos on YouTube. She likes the Baby Mozart, Beethoven, and Galileo videos. She seems to enjoy the music, lights, and especially when they show anything with smiley faces. Here is a little clip of her watching the Galileo video. She laughs at a little kangaroo.

Visitors!!

The last month and a half brought us several visitors. We have enjoyed having friends and family visit us! First, Nikki's good friend Becky Lee came to visit over the Labor Day weekend. It was really fun and nice to have her here. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures from her time here. She got to hear Allie's second laugh and hold her a bit. We really wish we had gotten pictures of her and Allie together; we'll make sure we do next time. Thanks for visiting us, Becky!!! We really loved having you!

In the middle of September, Nikki's brother Monte stayed with us a few days. He was making his way across the country to go to school in Georgia and he planned his trip so that he could visit us in Rexburg. It was especially neat having him since we aren't sure when we will get to see him again.

Here's a picture of Allie enjoying watching Monte on the internet.

Nikki took a day off of work to have more time with Monte. They and Allie went to Mesa Falls. It was really beautiful. They had to explain that Nikki and Monte are brother and sister and not husband and wife quite a few times. It was kind of funny. It was also funny that, other than a few kids and Allie, Monte and Nikki were the youngest by a few decades. Mesa Falls has upper and lower falls. The lookout for the lower falls was pretty far from the falls, but still very beautiful.

Here are a few pictures of the lower falls.

Monte at the Lower Mesa Falls

The three at the Lower Falls. Sorry about the bottles blocking some of the falls.

Down river from the Upper falls

You could get a lot closer to the Upper Falls. It was such a beautiful day to be at such a beautiful location.

Nikki and Allie at the Upper Falls

The three at Upper Mesa Falls

Monte and Allie

Monte and Allie in the car ready to make the drive home

Thanks for coming our way, Monte!! We love you!

We had a full apartment this last weekend when Nikki's brother Nathan, his wife Mara, and their three kids, Hailee, Caidance, and Cole stayed with us. Mara's family had a busy weekend that included a sealing in the temple and a baby blessing, but we really enjoyed the time that we had with them. They were so kind and invited us to a dinner after the baby blessing on Saturday night. Here are some cute pictures of the kids.


Allie and her 7 1/2 month old cousin Cole

Allie's beautiful cousins Hailee (5) and Caidance (3)

Pajama Party!! The four little ones... Aren't they adorable?!

It really was wonderful having everyone visit us. We are so grateful for our friends and family! We love you all!