Life's a Zoo!

We've been doing the zoo thing! Yesterday was such a nice day that we decided to take a semi-spontaneous trip to the zoo. We knew that if we didn't go this week, chances were that it would get way to hot to even attempt a trip later this summer. So, we packed up and headed to the Louisville Zoo. I asked my mom to come with us, because one extra adult pair of hands is never a bad thing and my mom is always up for day trips. Last minute, my sister Emily joined us as well. We told Maura the night before that we were going and she was most excited about seeing the elephants and giraffes. I couldn't wait to show her all the animals. I'm pretty sure that she doesn't remember going to the zoo last year, so it was a completely new experience this year. She could identify many of the animals on her own and she loved looking over the fence to see them all.

Mom, Maura and Emily enjoy the rhinos. Maura left her stroller at the very first exhibit and ran from exhibit to exhibit. We pushed around an empty stroller for most of the rest of the day. This was the first big walking excursion for her and she did great!

"Mom, you're not making me pose with the rhinos AGAIN!"

The lemurs were actually the first animal we saw and Maura was fascinated. She said, "Want to get inside with them." What she meant was, she was ready to crawl over the fence and join the animals in their enclosure to get a closeup. She said the same thing at most of the other exhibits. My girl may end up being a zookeeper!


Maura sitting on the rhino statue with Mommy. Actually, at the rhino exhibit, Maura was WAY more interested in the baby ducklings swimming in the rhino's pond then she was in the rhinos themselves. We were pretty sure that she was going to leave the zoo with her favorite animal of the day having been a duckling.

Daddy and Tristan. This was Tristan's main activity for his zoo trip--sleeping. It was so warm and he was so cozy in his stroller that I actually had to wake him up to feed him. I was afraid he was going to get dehydrated. He did fine, though. What an awesome baby! He's an easy keeper most of the time.

Grammy and Maura taking in the elephants. Maura loved the baby elephant and loved watching them use their trunks.

What a cute baby! Almost as cute as my little baby!

They have these cool bronze statues all over the zoo. I was seconds away from placing Maura on one for a picture when I thought to touch it first. It was about a million degrees! Maura would have burned the fire out of her legs if I had set her on it! That would certainly have been the end of our zoo trip!

We were able to get up close and personal with the giraffes. The giraffe feeding station was right up against the fence. Maura is still talking about the giraffe's long blue tongue.

Emily with an elephant. Sherran, this picture is for you! We'll send it to you for the book!

Here you see Tristan's one awake moment at the zoo. It lasted for about five minutes before he drifted back to dreamland in the comatose inducing Baby Bjorn.

Big kids that we are, we just had to join Maura on the carousel. It was absolutely necessary that we all "supervise" her on it! It's great to have a kid to be able to justify things like that!

Maura was so delighted by her carousel ride. She loved how the horse went up and down and she loved passing Daddy and waving at him.


What a happy girl! She had such a good time that she didn't want to get off.

I did let her sit on the gorilla before I pried her from the carousel. I think the gorilla was actually her favorite animal of the day. She sat and watched and watched the gorillas. Two of them started to fight right beside her and she thought it was hilarious!

What a cool turtle!

Maura and Daddy enjoy the turtle. Actually, if you look closely, she's pushing Daddy away because she's afraid he'll help her. She wants to do everything, "By myself!"

The Louisville Zoo has a new splash park that was extremely welcome by the afternoon. Brent took Maura splashing while I played cameraman.

At first Maura was a little shy and afraid to get splashed.

That didn't last too long, though. She was all about getting in the fountains.

She loved the polar bear that squirted water.

Doesn't he look just like the Coke commercials?

Tristan in his monkey outfit. Happy seven week birthday little man! He looked so cute--his little sandals have monkeys on them too. We had a really great time at the zoo and we headed home completely exhausted! Maybe we'll try out the Atlanta zoo someday while we're at Fort Benning. I'm choosing to view Brent's mobilization as a semi-perminant vacation! I keep suggesting fun things we can do so I can keep my spirits up about it. I figure that it'll give me something to really look forward to during our time down in Georgia.

Six weeks old

Warning! Cute baby content! You might fall in love with this little guy if you proceed! Tristan turned six weeks old on Tuesday, June 17th, so I figured I'd better post this before he turned seven weeks! He's getting to be such a big guy! I can't believe how much he's growing. I weighed him on Wednesday because he's getting so chunky. He weighed in at 13.8 pounds, meaning he'd put on over three pound in two weeks since his last doctor visit. I weighed him today again just out of curiosity and he weighed 14.5 pounds. I can't believe it, the little chunker! I have no idea how tall he is--it's too difficult to stretch him out and measure. I'll just have to wait to his next well baby check to satisfy myself on that point.

What a little heart breaker! He's a pretty stoic little guy so far, but on Thursday, we got our first smiles. Early in the morning, after his first morning feeding, I put him down on the bed for a chat. He cooed a little and started giving us smiles. They're just little smiles right now, but we're waiting for that first really big grin.

He's strong too! This week, he started standing on our laps. When I hold him under the arms, he pushed up against my legs and straightens up and stands. He's holding his head up really well and can do so for several minutes at a time.

These baby blues are just too precious.

Deep in thought, or else watching the fan. Tristan LOVES ceiling fans and is mesmerized for minutes at a time by them.

This evening was officially the last time to wear gowns. He's just exploding out of them! I can hardly get them over his chubby little belly and his feet hang out of the bottom. It makes me sad! It's just another step in his growing up. Maura wore gowns for at least three months--she was just much more petite. Tristan is growing out of a lot of his 0-3 month clothing already. I'm going to have to start washing up the 3-6 month stuff. Where did my little baby go??

Meeting the Great Grandmothers

One of the most fun aspects of our trip to Tennessee was being able to introduce Tristan to all his relatives. None of the Tennessee relatives, except Nan and Poppa, had met him yet. We loved being able to share him with all the people in our lives who already love him. Both of Brent's grandmothers came over on Saturday morning to meet our little guy.

Maura was so excited to get to show off her baby brother. She took Grandmother Chambers over to peek at him. Grandmother was just delighted with him.

He says, "Please, no pictures now!"

Then, he struck a pose for me!

Great Grandmother Chambers lovin' on her great-grandson. Grandmother loves babies, so she took him back to rock while I had a bite to eat. It's such a luxury to have two hands to eat with!

Later, Grandmother Allen stopped by. Tristan was happy to snuggle down with her and fall asleep.

GG with the very first Allen grandson. What a blessing!

Maura had a ball playing on the bed. She loved all the pillows and made herself a "yittle nest." We're loving her imagination. She's pretending everything from tea parties to imaginary people these days and it's so funny to hear what she comes up with. Very often, when we start to play along with the new game, she stops and looks at us and says, "It's just pretend." I'm glad she's keeping us straight!

A frequent game of "I'm sleeping." This comes complete with sound effects! We play this game sometimes just to get a chance to lay down, even if it's just for a second! Every day is just fun, fun, fun with Maura.

Tristan in Daddy's clothes

Sherran had this little outfit laid out for Tristan when we arrived in Tennessee last week. It belonged to Brent when he was a baby. It was so cute and "retro" that I had to try it on Tristan. He looked like a stuffed sausage in it! We had to really stretch it to even get it over his head and he didn't appreciate it. We did manage to get him calmed down enough to snap a few photos.

"I'm wearing my daddy's clothes."


Look at that double chin. This boy now has rolls on top of rolls. I'm loving it. Maura never had any fat rolls, so I think it's so cute to see them on Tristan.

Tristan getting really tired of our little photo shoot!

Here is a photo of Brent wearing the same outfit. This was taken on December 28, 1975, making Brent about nine weeks old. I do think Tristan looks a little like Brent in this picture. It'll be interesting to see if he looks more like Brent or like me as he gets bigger.

Just to keep everyone updated, Brent got his orders yesterday. He's due in Charlotte, NC on July 11th, then Fort Benning, GA on July 14th. I guess it's time to get packing. We've been waiting on the orders to pack anything in the house, so now I guess it's for real and we need to get it done. Should be an interesting summer.

Kissin' Cousins

Last Saturday, June 14th, we attended Brent's cousin's wedding. It was our first true dress up occasion since Tristan was born, and it was a true test of our parenthood to get two children dressed, ready and all the way to the wedding. Truth be told, we actually arrived about three minutes before the wedding was scheduled to begin and were stopped at the entrance by two ushers to be told that we weren't allowed to drive up the hill to the wedding location for fear that we would disrupt things. I looked at the two ushers, who were about sixteen and told them that there was no way that I was carrying two children up a hill in heels. They apologized profusely, but continued to tell us that we weren't allowed to enter. As they walked away, I gave Brent THE LOOK and told him to step on it. He knew better than to disagree! We managed to get parked, out of the car and over to the wedding all before it began. All's well that ends well!

Annette and Kirk are presented as man and wife.

Our attempt at a family photo. So far, all of our attempts have pretty much been failures. Is it possible to get two children to look pleasant and stay in one place for more than the two seconds it takes to snap a photo? As you can see, Tristan was tired and hungry and he'd had it!

This was Maura before she warmed up to the whole wedding thing and realized all the possibilities. She ended up having a ball and staying out later than we had ever done before.

Four generations of Allen men. Grandpoppa, Brent, Tristan and Chuck. I think it's amazing to see all of them together. What a wonderful legacy of love through four generations.



Maura and her cousin, Jack. Actually, I think he'd be her second cousin, but who's counting? Jack is only six months older than Maura, so they have lots of fun together. They've always enjoyed seeing each other at family functions, but this was the first occasion that they've actually played together. These two were inseparable for most of the night. They are pretty evenly matched as far as activity level, so it was nice for them to just run around and wear each other out. They played chase for most of the evening and got into all sorts of trouble together.

These guys LOVED each other.

I mean REALLY loved each other. I'm so glad that Maura has a cousin close in age to grow up with.

Walton with John Henry. This was our first opportunity to meet John Henry, who was born in January. It's so funny, I guess I expected him to be a small baby because I had never met him, but he's already such a big boy!

GG and Great-Grandpoppa holding the first "Allen" great-grandson. There are already two boys on the Allen side, but Tristan is the first "Allen."


GG and Great Aunt Dot. They both really enjoyed the baby.

They had a "candy bar" at the wedding and all the kids had unrestricted access to a ton of candy. Normally, I'm pretty restrictive about the amount of candy that I let Maura consume, but on special occasions, I let her go wild. She partook of LARGE amounts of gummy bears, skittles and twizzlers and loved every minute of it. She certainly is our child--a sugar addict!

Jack also had more than his share. These two are already high energy(read: hyper) enough without the added stimulus of mounds of sugar. They were unstoppable that night!

Nan and Maura. Nan and Maura had lots of fun together on this trip.

The wedding was held at a private residence, so we were so happy to see a playground there. The kids had a ball swinging and sliding.

Tristan, five weeks, and John Henry, four and a half months. This photo was just too cute to pass up and we'll love to bring it out when they're about eighteen.

Walton with her two little men, John Henry and Jack.

Poppa and Nan enjoying some Tristan time. You'll notice that he's no longer wearing the adorable "Prince" bubble that he came to the wedding in. He let me know exactly what he thought of being all dressed up about midway through the evening. Luckily, I had a sleeper lurking at the bottom of the diaper bag.

Everyone enjoyed the night's festivites, even if we didn't indulge in the open bar. It was more fun just to people watch those who did indulge!

Maura was sad to say goodbye to Jack. They played together so nicely that I wish Jack lived a lot closer. It's going to be really fun to see these two wild children grow up together.