11 Months Old!

Allie turned 11 months old last week. She is going to be 1 before we know it. She continues to get busier and busier, and she is still such a happy baby. First we want to share some pictures of her that our good friend, Vivian, took when Allie was actually 10 months old. Vivian is also one of Nikki's coworkers at the pediatric clinic, but she is an aspiring photographer. She is building up her portfolio, and she really takes some great photos. Check out her blog to see family pictures of us, too: www.vivianmathiasphotography.com. If any of you are in Rexburg, you should look her up.

What a cutie!

Allie in her Easter dress - precious

Now to catch up with what Allie is up to. She still loves to be outside. Maybe I should say that she LOVES to be outside. She will always bring us her shoes and coat, hoping that we will take her out. If either one of us leaves or goes outside without her, she gets very upset. When she gets to go outside, she is extremely happy and fascinated with the world around her. She loves to pick up dead leaves, dandelions, rocks, and sticks. She will just wander around finding new things. She has also started waving to cars as they leave the parking lot. She wants to be outside rain or shine. There was one day when she kept trying to get Daddy to go outside with her, but he wouldn't because it was cold and rainy. Finally, after much prodding on Allie's part, Daddy decided to bundle her up really well and go outside. He figured that she would not enjoy the rain. But much to his dismay, she still enjoyed being outside and even cried when he brought her back inside. We will take her out a few times each day, weather permitting. Below are some pictures of Allie and Daddy outside.

About to pick up a dead leaf. You can see her pointing at it - pointing at things and making high-pitched squeaks is one of her newly-found joys

She also still enjoys looking out the window, though she would much prefer to be outside. Unfortunately, the weather in Rexburg keeps teasing us. We will have a few days where the weather gets up to 70 degrees, and then have it drop and snow some more. Below is a picture of Mommy and Allie looking out the window.

When Allie is on the couch with us, she will try to climb up the couch to the windowsill. She is getting better at climbing. Luckily, she hasn't applied her climbing skills while on the ground too much. She hasn't tried climbing up onto the couch or onto a chair, yet. I'm guessing that it just hasn't occurred to her that she could. Once she catches on, we will be in trouble. Below are some pictures of her climbing higher and higher on the couch. (We were just barely out of view of the camera - ready to catch her if need be, especially in the last picture.)

We haven't been taking as many pictures of Allie, recently. I am guessing that that is normal. So there won't be any pictures to accompany the rest of the text.

Allie is beginning to be a little more cuddly. It is only on her terms, but is has been quite nice to have her want to sit on our laps and cuddle a little bit. She also cuddles with her big stuffed duck. She'll kind of jump on it and cuddle into it. It's really sweet. I guess one of the times that Allie is most cuddly is when we are reading books to her. She has fallen in love with books. She will bring them to us so that we'll read them to her. It is near impossible to resist. Her favorite book right now is, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?" She will have us read it over, and over, and over... We definitely have it memorized. Sometimes we will hide it from her so that we can get a break. Horrible, I know.

Here's a list of things that make Allie happy and smile:

• playing peek-a-boo
• playing patty-cake
• dancing (her dancing and her watching us dance)
• playing chase (where we'll chase her down the hall and then she'll chase us back. Recently she enjoys being chased by us and her duck - we'll hold her duck and quack at her as she runs away squealing)
• drumming (playing Daddy's drums)
• yogurt - she gets really excited when she sees us grab it out of the refrigerator
• being outside
• seeing Mommy and Daddy kiss

Here's a list of her words, or at least the ones that we can decipher:

• Dada
• Mama (sometimes, but especially when she is frustrated)
• Hi (she has not said it for awhile, but she was really good at it before)
• Diaper
• Dut (duck)

She is such a smart little baby. We are continually impressed by her. We love her so much, and she makes us smile and laugh all the time.

Our New Ride!

Some of you may have been wondering about our new car. We mentioned it in a previous post, but have not shared any pictures with you. It's a 2007 Chevy Impala that was previously used as a police car on BYU (Provo) campus. So as I am sure you can imagine, it didn't get to see much action as a police car. Before this purchase, we had taken our VW Golf to the dealership mechanic and asked them to do their 32-point inspection. And we specifically told them that we wanted to know if it would make it to Oklahoma. After the inspection, they told us that, "Yes, it will make it to Oklahoma." Well, not long after that, we were driving back from Idaho Falls when the car died. We got towed home, but then the next morning it started up fine. A mechanic in our ward looked it over and couldn't figure out why it had died. But needless to say, we weren't really wanting to gamble taking it to Oklahoma. So we started looking for cars, and we came across this one. It was a great deal, and we are so happy to have a reliabe, paid-for car, now. We're especially enjoying the 4 doors!

If anyone is curious, we have decided to sell the Golf. We listed it for about $200 under Blue Book for "fair" condition, which includes having mechanical problems. There was one guy who was extremely interested and who had a mechanic friend who would look it over for free. He performed a compression test (one test our friend had not done), and discovered that the head gasket is bad. So that obviously was not good news, because it would cost about the amount that the car is worth to fix it. But we are so grateful to our mechanic friend in our ward who is working with Jared (actually as I am typing this) to fix it. So all we have to pay is the price for parts, which isn't too bad. And we should be able to get a good price out of it since we are fixing it. We just keep counting our many blessings!

My First Easter!

I had a wonderful first Easter! It was filled with family, naps, and goodies! The first thing that we did was jump in the car and go visit my cousin Lily (she was being blessed). We also got to see Grandma and Grandpa Gale. They thought I looked really cute in my Easter dress.

Three generation photo opportunity

Grandma and pa Gale and I

Little Lily was worn out from all the pictures, but I thought she was cute and even tried to pat her a few times, mom and dad didn't like that much.

Here is my other cousin in Idaho Falls, Max. He is just a few weeks younger than Lily.

The little ones together

After spending time in Idaho Falls, I was really tired so we all came home and took a nap. Then everyone was a lot happier. When I got tired of napping I woke everyone up. Mom came and got me from my "room" (the living room) and let me hang out with dad. Then she left. She said something about needing to clean my room and let the Easter bunny in. A little while later, I guess after the Easter Bunny had came, she yelled, "ok". That was the cue, I guess. Dad opened their bedroom door and told me to walk...they handed me a basket. I guess it was for balance or something; I didn't need it. Mom recorded the whole event:

Colorful CHEERIOS (froot loops) AWESOME!!!!!! Want one?

They were bigger and a little sticky... but they were GOOD!!

I had to get them out of the funny shaped balls somehow, might as well just eat straight from the source right?

I guess I didn't get them all in my mouth... oh well more for later right?

Before Grandma and pa Gale left they gave me a HUGE stuffed animal that is bigger than me. Then they started saying, "duck...QUACK QUACK". I'm guessing it's a duck so I started saying, "dut....dut" and laughing like a duck. It was also very soft I like snuggling with it, which is weird because I don't like to snuggle. Below is a video of me and my "dut".

Jumping ahead a little bit to last weekend, Mom and Dad took me to the nature park. There were duts there. We threw bread at them and they quacked at us. I thought it was really neat. I didn't want to go, but Mommy and Daddy said it was time for bed.

Washington Trip Part 2

After our time in Kennewick, we went to stay with Nikki's family in Western Washington. Again, we loved seeing family and friends. You'll notice that Allie has her sippy cup in quite a few pictures. If you remember, she hadn't quite mastered it before the trip, but she fell in love with the sippy cup on the trip. She would use it like a pacifier at times. Besides our fingers, it is the first thing that she will take as a pacifier. It was actually quite nice at times to be able to give her something to soothe her.


Here are some pictures with family and friends.

Being cuddly with Papa Alton

Cuddling with our friend Becky (with Brad beside them)

Grandma Alton's turn to cuddle with Allie

As we mentioned above, Allie loved her sippy cup and would use it as a pacifier. At times we were a little concerned that she was getting too much water. The night when she was so cuddly with everyone (as seen in pictures above), she had already had a lot of water. Nikki planned on nursing her before putting her down, so we wanted to make sure she would have room in her tummy. The solution that we came up with can be seen in the picture below (above, too, but better in this one.

Allie sucking on the top of her sippy cup - content as can be. What a funny girl!


We spent a day down in Tacoma. It was a very full and enjoyable day. First, we stopped by the University of Puget Sound (UPS), where Nikki went to college and got her degree. It was a beautiful day, and the campus was as gorgeous as ever. After visiting UPS, we went to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. It really is a cool zoo and aquarium. We saw just about all of the animals in the Zoo. We had pretty good timing because a zoo-keeper came around and fed some of the animals when we were around their pens. So we got really good views of some otters, monkeys, and a porcupine. The aquarium had sharks, tropical fish, sea horses, and lots of fish from the Puget Sound. I think our favorite exhibit was that of the walruses. Allie was mesmerized by them, too. They would swim upside down from one side of the pool/exhibit to the other,then flip and turn around and swim upside down to the other side. They just did a bunch of laps. You can view them underwater through glass. Allie loved this! She just sat and watched them swim right in front of her. She was content to just watch them for about 10-20 minutes. The last part of our Tacoma trip was visiting our good friends, Becky and Brad Lee. They have two cute dogs, and Allie absolutely loved them. They were the first big dogs she had been around, but she was not frightened at all. She would shriek with excitement and chase after them. The dogs were very good with her, too. We had a great time with them, though we forgot to take any pictures from that night. We tried to get video of Allie with the dogs, but she wouldn't perform for the camera. Here are some pictures from that day.

Pretty building on UPS Campus



Nikki and Allie by Nikki's favorite tree on campus

Closer up by same tree

Allie in her stroller at the zoo

Grandma and Grandpa Carpenter walking with Allie at the zoo.

They were going to go to a concert in Tacoma that night, so they met us at the zoo and spent some time with us. It was a lot of fun!

Allie mesmerized by the walruses.


We had a couple of opportunities to spend some time with Nathan (Nikki's brother) and his family. The first was the night that there was a family dinner at Mom and Dad's house. It was fun seeing everyone and also watching all the little ones play. Nathan has two little girls and one little boy. The girls, Hailee and Caidance, love Jared. They were probably just as excited to see him as they were Nikki and Allie.

Jared and the girls (Hailee, Allie, and Caidance)

Caidance, Cole, Hailee, and Allie - What cute cousins!

Allie with Grandma and Grandpa Alton

As always, we were sad to not be able to see everyone that we would have liked to see. Maybe next time. It was was a wonderful trip, though.

Washington Trip Part 1

We mentioned that we went on a trip to Washington. It's time to catch you up on that. We left Rexburg on March 20th and drove with Jared's mom and step-dad to Kennewick, WA. We were nervous about how Allie would do on the long drive, but she did really well. I think we only stopped 3 times. During the drive, we listened to an audiobook. It was Nikki's first time listening to one, and, though it may only be because of the amazing book we listened to, she is now a convert. It is a wonderful way to travel. So what book did we listen to? It's called the Hunger Games. It really captivates you and we strongly recommend it. We could hardly wait to start the second book (it's a three book series, though the third doesn't come out until late August). We pulled a few late-nighters to finish the second one.

Once we got to Kennewick, we visited a lot of family. It was great seeing so many loved-ones that we had not seen for 7 months.

Here are some pictures of family members that we got to see.

Allie with Great Grandma and Grandpa Gale

The three of us with (Great) Grandma and Grandpa Gale

Our little family

Allie's cousin Shyla saying hello

Allie and Shyla at dinner

Shyla is such a cutie!

A family shot with four generations:

Nikki, Allie, Jared, Dick (Jared's step-dad), Terri (Jared's mom), Grandpa and Grandma Kauer, Jeni (Jared's sister), and Shyla

Allie and Jared with Jared's cousin Ben

Allie with Great Grandma and Grandpa Kauer


Our little family stopped by Columbia Park one day. They have a family fishing pond that we walked around. It was sunny, but there was a cold breeze. Allie stayed bundled up in the stroller. We had thought about feeding the ducks, but there were TONS of seagulls. We decided not to chance getting pooped on. But it was still a nice little outing. Here are a few pictures.

Allie by the Family Fishing Pond at Columbia Park

Mommy and Allie by the pond

Besides family, one of Allie's favorite parts of our stay in Kennewick was all the animals. Jared's mom has two cats, two dogs, chickens, and a cow. She loved to chase the cats around and watch the dogs through the back door. When it was warm enough, we went outside to show her the chickens and cow. She loved it. The following picture is one of our favorites of Allie from the trip.

Allie watching (and laughing at) Tasha, one of the dogs. Tasha kept jumping up and begging to come in. Allie just laughed and shook her head, "no" at her.

We had a wonderful time in Kennewick with Jared's family. We wish we could have had more time. It is amazing how fast time flew on both sides of the mountains. Our next post will share what we got to do when we got to Nikki's parents' house.

9 months @ 10 months with more to come later

It seems like life has finally started to slow down a little bit. Soon after Allie turned 9 months, we went on a trip to Washington for a week and a half. After getting back, Jared's dad and step mom were in town for our new little niece's baby blessing. And then after our car randomly died on our way back from Idaho Falls one cold night, we decided we should get a more reliable car (even though it started up the next morning and has been running fine since). So we went down to Utah to get a car from BYU 4 days later. That was just last week, and we are now very excited to stay put for a little while.

Given all of our excitement, we obviously have a lot to share, but it is too much to do in one night. So we will go in chronological order. Tonight we share with you that which we meant to share before leaving: Allie's 9 month update...

We'll first begin with her measurements. At her doctor's visit, she was 28.75 inches (86th percentile) and weighed 16 lbs, 10 oz (13th percentile). But two days later at her WIC appointment, she weighed 16 lbs, 15.5 oz (not sure which percentile that was). She is still tall and thin, but the doctor and the dietitian at WIC were happy with her measurements and said that it looks like we are doing a good job with her. Yea!!

Though she hasn't seemed to do it much since we got back from our trip, Allie previously had some odd obsession with putting things in her mouth and letting them just be there while doing other things. An example is that she loved putting strings in her mouth while playing with other toys. Here are some pictures of her with strings in her mouth.

We know that everyone says that Allie looks just like Jared, but we believe that there is some resemblance to someone on Nikki's side of the family. What do you think?

Some of Allie's favorite toys were and still are Jared's drum sticks. She will usually just carry one around and poke things or hit things with it, but upon first introduction, she got the swing of things pretty quickly. Here she is demonstrating her natural musical abilities.

(please let us know if the video didn't work)

Allie's favorite spot in the whole apartment is in the windowsill. We have the couch right by the window, so we can sit on the couch and be by her, making sure she doesn't fall and hurt herself. If she is just on the couch with us, she will climb up us to try and get up into the windowsill.Once she gets up there, she doesn't want to come down. She loves watching people and cars pass by. She'll hit the window as they pass. If there isn't too much going on outside, she is content to just suck on the cord to the blinds and look around. She will usually cry when we get her down, so we have to try to distract her with anything and everything to make her happy.

Before our trip to Washington, Allie just started getting the hang of using her sippy cup. We had been offering it to her for awhile, but she would mostly just treat it like another toy, banging it against things and swinging it around. The following pictures are from when she first really started drinking from it.

Okay, so she hadn't perfected it, yet.

Allie continues to be such a happy and good natured baby. We are so grateful for her sweet little spirit. She makes us smile and laugh so much. She is also very busy and keeps us on our toes. We look forward to sharing more pictures and more recent updates with you!!!