Baby Elephant at the OKC Zoo!

Last week after my OB appointment, we went for a quick trip to the zoo. My sister, Maria, has a zoo pass, so we were able to get in free. There is a baby elephant at the zoo, and it is absolutely adorable. Here are some pictures.

We're only allowed to post these because the trip did not put me into labor. My parents would have been a little disappointed had I given birth last week; they're not able to fly in until July 6th. Obviously they'd be super happy about the grandbaby, but sad that they weren't able to come right away. Anyway, I didn't give birth, yet. After seeing the baby elephant, I'm feeling pretty good that my baby won't be 400 pounds or anywhere near that. I actually don't remember how much the baby elephant weighed, but it was somewhere around that number.

Allie's 2nd Birthday!

Allie turned two earlier this month. It is hard to believe that she was born two years ago. She has grown up so much. The changes from birth to age one are amazing, but so are the changes from age one to two. Her communication, reasoning, physical abilities, and even just her looks have all changed so much in the last year. It will be amazing to have a newborn in the house and to really appreciate the changes that have occurred in Allie's life so far.

Her birthday was on a Sunday, so we had a fairly low-key day on her actual birthday. We told her that it was her birthday in the morning, and because she had been to a friend's birthday party, she knew that birthday meant cupcakes. All day long, she was excited to have cupcakes. She took a later nap due to church and not wanting to fall asleep right away, and then woke up with crazy hair and was ready to eat her cupcakes. We made her eat dinner first, but then she finally got to enjoy what she had been waiting for all day. She had an angel food confetti cupcake with whipped cream as frosting. She enjoyed the whole thing, but she is like her mommy and really loves whipped cream.

Saying "cheese" with her cupcake

A bath was absolutely necessary after eating the cupcake, so it was bath time and then bedtime, with the opening of a few gifts thrown in there somewhere. One of her gifts that she was really excited about was the cute set of Hello Kitty pajamas that Allie got from Grandma Bobbie. Allie calls them her, "tute jamas" (cute pajamas). For the next 3 or 4 days, she only wanted to wear her pajamas, even during the daytime. We had to hide them at times in order to get her into some other outfit. We did make a trip or two out of the house with her in her pajamas, though. She also got a fun refrigerator learning toy that is helping her learn her letters. She has a lot of fun playing with it and singing along with the ABC's. Thank you Grandma Terri!

Allie in her cute Hello Kitty pajamas

We had a fun birthday party for Allie the Friday after her birthday. Some of our friends from church have a great backyard and let us host the party at their house. They had set up two kiddie pools and had a trampoline with a sprinkler under it. We were super lucky and got to have a bouncy house and slide combo inflatable at the party, too, thanks to Nikki's sister and brother-in-law. They were nice enough to bring it up from Moore, OK for us. They own JumpTown, an inflatable company based out of Moore (www.jump-town.com). It was a hot day, so it worked well that the kids could go from the bouncy house to the pool and back. And there seemed to be enough to do that the kids had a great time and didn't get bored with each other or any one thing. Perhaps it can just be blamed on pregnancy, but it wasn't until close to the end that Nikki had the thought to take pictures. Jared had been barbecuing for the majority of the time, so he was busy doing something else. But because of this, we didn't really get pictures from the bouncy house. But we really were so grateful to be able to have it at the party. The kids loved it!

Nathen Sargent, Allie, Bella Sargent, Brynn Allred, Breya Sargent, Abram Allred

Nathen, Bella, and Breya Sargent (Allie's cousins)
with Allie and Brynn Allred in the background

Allie and Brynn Allred

Hudson Valletta and Lily Spilker

 It was a little hard to get the kids to stop playing, but cupcakes were pretty good motivation. Here are some pictures of Allie with her cupcake and a video of her blowing out the candle.

Allie still doesn't really understand opening gifts. The other kids helped her out. After opening the first two, she just wanted to go play some more, but we got through all the gifts, which we are so grateful for! She has enjoyed all of them since bringing them home.

Josie Allred, Lily Spilker, and Brynn Allred helping Allie open a gift

Allie with a super cute skirt that Angela Allred made for her.

Allie had a great time at her party, as did everyone else, I think. Again, we're so happy to have Allie as our little girl!

We Moved!

So it has been mentioned in a few other posts, but we moved from one apartment to another in Stillwater. "Why?" you may ask? Well, the main reason can be seen below.

A washer and dryer!

There were some trade-offs, though, such as decreased floor space, storage space, and lack of grass for Allie to play on outside. But overall, it is a nice enough place, and we have a WASHER and DRYER! It has already been wonderful. And once our baby girl gets here, it will be nice to have the option of throwing in a load of spit-up on clothes and clothes that have been dirtied by blow-outs. Also, it will be wonderful not having to haul the laundry, a 2-year-old, and a baby to the laundry facility when it is time to do laundry.

We actually are quite happy about our new place. It is close to campus, which is nice because Jared only has a 10 minute walk to his building on campus. He was able to ride the bus for free at our old place, but it only ran hourly. So now he has the option of coming home for lunch or anything else and then being able to go back up to campus sooner than an hour. Allie had gotten used to calling our old apartment, "Sweet home sweet," (as opposed to home, sweet home). We introduced the new place as, "our new home, sweet home," but she insists on calling it the, "blue house." We think blue is in place of "new." There is nothing blue about the new apartment; their is brick on the outside and no blue walls or carpet or anything on the inside. But it is our "blue house."

We never really shared pictures of our old place. We don't have pictures of all of the rooms yet, but just in case we never get to sharing any others, we thought we'd share a picture of our living room.

It doesn't necessarily show it off the best, but you get the idea.

Another Car Seat Canopy

Nikki was feeling crafty and wanted to make something special for her friend that she serves in the Young Women Presidency with. So for a baby shower gift, Nikki made the car seat cover below. Her friend has a cute baby boy, and they had a jungle theme.

In case you are wondering, Nikki did make the little monkey heads. It was a little bit of work, especially for Nikki, who is not a naturally crafty girl, but it really looked cute in the end. Or at least we think so.

An Unexpected Trip to Washington

On Mother's Day, we were surprised by Jared's mom and step-dad, who offered to help us make a trip out to Washington possible. Jared had a month break between the Spring and Summer semesters, and Nikki had a very small window in which she could still fly (due to being very pregnant, 34-35 weeks). And we also had to give ourselves enough time to get back, pack, and move on June 1st. After getting the okay from Nikki's doctor, we got an amazing deal (thanks to a guest pass that we got through our mileage card) and booked our flight out of Dallas for the next week. We couldn't have done it, even with the amazing deal, without the help of Jared's mom and step-dad. So we owe them a HUGE thank you!!

Given that the flights were out of Dallas, we had to drive down there, which is about a 4-hr drive. Thank you to Mom and Dad Alton for helping with gas money. We were also very grateful to Michelle (our friend from the OKC Zoo Trip), who lives approximately 30 minutes away from the airport and let us sleep at her house and gave us a ride to and from the airport at crazy hours of the day.

The traveling went really well, overall. Nikki was uncomfortable, but that was expected. And it really wasn't as bad as she thought it would be. On our flight to Seattle, our seats were not originally by each other. And to make it worse, we were each in the aisle behind the bathroom, so there would have been no seat in front of Jared to keep a bag of things to entertain Allie. Luckily, people on the plane were very sweet and moved around so that we could sit by each other in the next row. I think they were all willing to do whatever it would take to make the trip easier for an almost-2-year-old; their trip was thereby going to be better, too. And it really went pretty well.

As a disclaimer regarding the uneven number of pictures from the two sides of Washington, we were not the best at remembering to take pictures throughout the trip. Many, if not most, of our pictures from the Seattle-side were actually taken by Nikki's dad. Thank you, Dennis!

When we first got to Seattle, we visited Nikki's family for a few days. It was a lot of fun seeing Grandma and Grandpa Bobbie. Nikki's mom is called "Grandma Bobbie" by her other grandchildren, so we had Allie call her that, too. But Allie also started calling Nikki's dad, "Grandpa Bobbie." We jokingly called him "Bobbie two" for the rest of the trip. We also had a lot of fun visiting with Nikki's brothers, DJ and Nathan, and Nathan's family. Allie had a lot of fun playing with her cousins.

On the way home from the airport, we stopped by the Home Depot to visit Grandma Bobbie. On the way in, Allie saw the tractors and just had to "ride" one.

When we got back to the house, Allie helped water the plants. She didn't quite understand the need to share the water with all of the plants. She wanted to give ALL the water to one plant.

Allie's cousins, Hailee, Caidance, and Cole, soon arrived to play with her. It was a gorgeous day outside, so they mostly enjoyed playing in the yard. It's amazing how GREEN everything is. We definitely miss it!

Hailee, Caidance, Cole, and Allie
Allie loved the lawn mower toy!

 The kids also enjoyed a few fun rounds of "Ring Around the Rosie."

The cousins enjoyed playing with their Uncle Jared, too.

After some playtime, we walked down to the neighbor's house to feed the donkeys. This is always a favorite for the grandchildren. Hailee was such a good big cousin to Allie; she was like a mommy to her and helped her a lot. It was really cute to watch.

Hailee with Allie waiting for the donkeys to come see us

Nikki, Allie, Hailee, Caidance, Cole, Grandma Bobbie (head only), and Grandpa

Daddy and Allie feeding the donkeys

When we got home, Cole gave Allie a little ride around the house. Cole is four months older than Allie. They had a pretty good time together.

The next evening, we went to a park for some play and a pizza picnic. The kids had a great time. Allie really loved the horseys that they had. There were some both on and off of a merry-go-round.

Hailee and Allie
(Allie was very focused on making the horsey go back and forth.)

Caidance, Allie, Hailee, and Cole on the merry-go-round

Allie on another horsey

The most difficult aspect of the trip was probably Allie's sleep schedule, or lack thereof. We were two hours off from her normal timezone, and she knew how to get out of her pack-n-play. She just wanted to climb out and play. Again, it was a game to her. When we were in Eastern Washington, she slept on a bed, but it was still a game for her with getting out of bed and leaving the room. One day when we were still in Western Washington, we had gone somewhere in the morning and were returning home for Allie's nap when she started falling asleep. We did not want her to fall asleep in the car because we knew it would lessen the chance of her falling asleep when we got back to the house. Sleep won the battle in the car, and Allie did not nap at all when we got back. But here's a video of us trying to keep her awake.

(she kept saying, "cheese," whenever we'd say her name)

One night after a long struggle to get her to sleep, this is how we found her when she finally got quiet.

And she was smiley the next morning.

Here are some cute pictures of Allie.

We had a family dinner with Nikki's family one night and then left for the Tri-Cities the next day. Daddy and Allie got to take a little snooze on the car ride over.

We met Jared's mom and step dad in Yakima. Here's a picture of Grandma Terri with Allie.

We were welcomed home by two of Jared's sisters, Jeni and Michelle, along with their little kiddos. Allie was so excited to get out of the car and run around. She loved the cow, chickens, dogs, and cats. She just ran around taking turns chasing different ones. She also had fun playing with her cousins, Shyla and Lily. Sadly, we did not get many pictures of their fun together. We really enjoyed being able to spend time with Jeni, Michelle, Terri, and Dick. It was wonderful seeing them. We really appreciated that Michelle traveled from Idaho to come see us.

Our first night in the Tri-Cities, we went to dinner at a buffet called Granny's. Jared's brother Scott got to come with us, which was great because we hadn't been able to see him for a long time. We had a good time socializing, and the kids really did pretty well. We had some people comment on how well-behaved all of our kids were. Though that was before dessert. Jeni brought Allie and Shyla some ice cream, which they both gobbled up. I then got some and gave Allie a little more. Jeni then gave Shyla some, which apparently upset Allie, because Allie turned to Shyla and shouted, "NO!" at the top of her lungs. Shyla didn't know what to think; her face was priceless. We were all shocked. We had never seen Allie have an outburst quite like that before. Apparently, you don't come between Allie and ice cream.

The girls got to play a lot together at home. They mostly did well, but it was hard at times due to them all being around the same stage of learning to share. Plus, with Allie's lack of sleep, she progressively became more sensitive and dramatic when she didn't get to play with what she was wanting to play with. But overall, they seemed to have fun together.

Allie and Shyla on a crocodile teeter-totter

Allie and Shyla on Grandma and Grandpa's playground

Sunday morning we got to spend some time with Jared's dad at Jeni's house. It was nice to see him and get to catch up a little.

There was a big family picnic at the park on Sunday afternoon. We were so happy to see grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Our sister-in-law from Idaho, Sharon, also came to visit for the day with her kids. It was so much fun seeing everyone. We were so grateful that it was possible to get together with so much family, especially on short notice.

We had dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Kauer's house the next night. Allie got to play with her cousins some more. In addition to the girls, she also got to play with Andrew, Jared's cousin's son. At one point, they were all playing in the window. It is kind of hard to see, but below is a picture of them all at the window.

Shyla, Allie, and Andrew

 Jared's mom and sister, Jeni, made dresses for all the little girl cousins. They were absolutely adorable. We were able to get a picture of all of them in their dresses before we had to leave.

Shyla, Grandpa Carpenter, Lily, Isaac, Grandma Terri, Allie

Allie in her dress on a horsey that she absolutely loved.
She did come from Cowboy Country.

It seems that our trips to Washington are always whirl-wind trips. There's so little time to see so many people. We were so grateful to be able to go and see family, though. We miss being close to so many loved-ones. Thank you again to all those that made the trip possible.

Allie's Transition to a Toddler Bed

Knowing that we were going to be moving a month before the baby is due, we had our plan for Allie's transition to a toddler bed. We figured that we would wait until after our move, wait a week or two so that Allie could get used to her new room and home, and then make the transition. That was the plan.

Here's a picture that we took of Allie sleeping in her crib one night. So peaceful. We took the picture because it reminded us of another picture we had of her sleeping. So don't mind the side note - or extra picture - please. We thought it was pretty cute and funny.

Allie asleep in crib at 23 months

Allie asleep in crib at 3.5 - 4 months

Back to the transition... We had our plan, but what happened, though, was that Allie started climbing out of her crib about two or three weeks before our move. It was a game to her. There was no hope of keeping her in her crib. We had bought a toddler bed, but it was packaged very efficiently in its original box, and we didn't want to put it together right before our move. So we just put her mattress on the floor and all of her toys in the crib. She would still play around and talk to herself for awhile, but then she would make it back to her mattress and fall asleep.

One night, she was quiet and so we figured she was asleep. We opened the door, looked in, and asked ourselves,

"Where is she?" 

Then we found her.

We moved her back to the mattress so that she would be more comfortable. A few times she actually fell asleep underneath her cube and slide toy (partially seen in above pictures).

When we moved into our new apartment, we went ahead and set up the "big girl" bed for her. She was fairly excited, but given the new environment and complete freedom, it would take her at least two hours to fall asleep each night. We would put her toys in the closet so that she couldn't play with them, but then her books were a big temptation. Allie would turn on her light and start reading to herself. This is how she fell asleep one night.

After about three weeks, she finally started staying in her bed and going to sleep more quickly. We're all happier now that she is getting better sleep.

Catching up with Allie's life up to her 2nd birthday

Given that we are so behind on blogging again, we have several random photos of Allie from the last few months. She recently turned two-years-old, and we will have a post with pictures from her birthday, but we are trying to keep the blog in somewhat chronological order.

Allie still loves reading - both reading to herself and being read to. We thought this was really cute how she just took a seat in the hall and started reading.

Allie absolutely loves her Daddy. Especially since Mommy has been pregnant, Daddy is the one who gets down on the ground and plays with her more. People ask if she is a Daddy's girl. We answer that it depends. Sometimes the answer would definitely be yes, but at other times, Allie definitely wants her Mommy. Below are a few videos of Allie having fun playing with Daddy.

In this first one, Allie kept saying, "two, three, two," instead of "one, two, three." Daddy didn't catch on to that until Mommy clued him in. It is pretty cute watching Allie trying to get Allie to do, "one, two, three," which was followed by him tossing her on the couch.

Allie really enjoys wearing backpacks. I guess she is trying to be like Daddy.

One of Daddy's classmates is a girl named Gargeyi from India. Gargeyi is in love with Allie. We took Allie to visit Gargeyi in her office one day. Here's a picture of Allie at Gargeyi's desk.

We've had several questions regarding whether Allie is excited for her baby sister. Although she says, "baby" and "baby sister" when touching Mommy's belly, we're sure she really doesn't understand. We're hoping that Allie will adjust well to being a big sister. Sometimes we think she will do well, and at other times, we're just not sure.

We have set the bassinet up in our room. It has a button on it that plays classical music. Allie loves to push the button and listen to the music. Sometimes she will cuddle up with her blanky on Mommy and Daddy's bed. She has sat on the ground and rocked one of her teddy bears to the music, too. These are some sweeter moments.

Then there are moments like the video below that make us not so sure.

Allie has enjoyed playing with the baby toys that are out. We got this exersaucer from someone at church. At first, it just sat in our living room for a few days. Allie loved to sit in it and play with its toys as seen below. Hopefully she will share alright. We're optimistic because we have seen Allie be really sweet with real babies, giving them toys and saying, "here baby."

Only time will tell how well Allie will do with her baby sister. We know that her world is going to be rocked, and we just hope that there will be more sweet moments than not.

This is just a random picture of Allie. She is looking like such a big girl!

Allie continues to grow in independence. She is beginning to demand making fashion choices. It started with shoes; she would insist on either the "purple" or "pink" shoes. The other day, she took it even further. She had been wearing a pair of capris but then insisted on wearing a pair of shorts over them. We were going to go to Walmart, so we told her she needed to put shoes on. She insisted on her red shoes. And to top it off, she wanted to wear a hat. Here's a picture of the final outfit. She was happy.

Allie really enjoys singing, too. She is beginning to learn more words to different songs. She loves, "Jesus wants me for a SunBeep." She will jump as she says, "SunBeep;" I guess that is what they do in nursery. She will also sing some of the words to "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," "I am a Child of God," and "Rock-a-bye Baby." She actually loves to rock her toys in her arms as she sings, "Rock-Baby, in tree-top."

I think we say this in every post about her, but Allie truly is such a joy in our lives. We feel so blessed to be her parents.