Saturday in Sacramento

Even though I say we live in Sacramento, we are really living about an hour outside of Sacramento in Penn Valley. So for our Saturday adventure we planned a trip into Sacramento to take Matt to the capital, go ice skating, and walk around Old Town.

Our first stop was the capital for a picnic lunch.


I absolutely love all the trees on the grounds. They have trees from all over California, from huge redwoods to palm trees. My favorite are the many fruit trees lined up in a row. Last time we were there I noticed the orange trees also had limes growing on them which I though was so cool that I am sharing with you. So enjoy.



I took this cute picture of our girls and Addie was doing her famous bottom lip suck. So my funny family decided to do "The Addie". Of course, Addie declined to do her pose with the rest of the fam, but it's still cute.


Then we went ice skating at a downtown outdoor skating rink. I've never been to an outdoor rink so I thought that was so cool! Alexis and Matt took to the ice right away but Christian wasn't loving it. Here he is doing what he did for the first half hour of skating (in between coming out and asking me if he had to skate!).


Then after a little help from dad he started to like it a little better.


Not much, but a little better.


Alexis did awesome!


And of course Matt had to do some goofy tricks. He's such a rockin' skater!


Here's how Addie and I enjoyed the skating. I like ice skating and was planning on participating, but one: I forgot my socks and two: it cost $8 (with sock rental) and I'm cheap. I figured someone would have to sit out the whole time with Addie so why not save 8 bucks and volunteer myself. I'm really not a wet blanket, just economical.


After that we went over to Old Town. They have lots of cute stores and then the river is right there, so after perusing the shops we walked on the river. It was already getting dark so we didn't take a lot of pictures, but we did ask one of the sailors to take this picture of us with the boat he works on. So fun!



After the river we went shopping. Have I mentioned that I love to shop? Our mission was to buy Addie a high chair because we decided the booster I bought a couple weeks ago probably wouldn't be safe with our high table. We didn't buy one yet because I remembered (as we waited in line to pay) that I have a 15% off coupon that I can use starting November 30. There's that economical Michelle again.

We had a fun, tiring day out and can't wait for our next Saturday adventure!

Extra long fun!

Lex and I were shopping at a grocery outlet and found these super long twizzlers and HAD to get them! We love twizzlers up in here! So here is some of our extra long fun!



I had to make them pose like this, they hated it. I think it looks cute!




Twizzler smiles to you!

Presents, avocados, and other stuff

Not much going on around here. I am still trying to get caught up on all the post-move cleaning/organizing. I am loving cooking every night, although I had blocked out the whole clean-up part of cooking. That part I do not love, but oh well.

Christian had two friends over yesterday. When I went to pick them up at school yesterday (at 12:15! School gets out so early here! Even on regular days it gets out at 2:30! I'm not complaining... well, maybe I am a little)they asked if they could walk the 3+ miles home. He had his phone on him so I though that was okay. They had fun playing with their nerf guns and on the Wii. They even *gasp* let Alexis play nerf guns with them for awhile.

Alexis has made some friends but is still scoping out just which crowd she wants to join. I'm pushing her to invite a friend over Friday night, so we'll see what happens. She did get invited (and subsequently I got ditched) to go see Twilight at the midnight showing the night it comes out. She's gonna go with some super cute girls from church, so I might call their mom and see if we can sit together in the back. :)

Matt is busy as ever. He got a new calling at church that I will tell as soon as he's set apart on Sunday. (Bishop said they hadn't had any inspiration yet on me. Wonder what that means?!:) He worked most of his Veterans Day organizing the garage and we can now park BOTH of our cars inside! That's a big deal because it never happened in Clovis! We got close, but could never quite fit them both in.

And that leaves Addie. I realized I hadn't taken pictures of her for a couple days so yesterday while she was enjoying (or maybe not enjoying)some avocado, I took a bunch. 92 to be exact. Not all of her eating, but a lot of her eating. She also got her first experience opening presents when we gave her a gift from my Aunt Darcie to unwrap. She totally knew she wanted to open it, just couldn't quite figure out how. Here is Addie and her first attempt at opening presents.









Isn't it cute?! It fits perfect and is just right for this cold weather! Thanks Darcie!

Before all the exciting present opening, I fed her some avocado. She's still not loving solid food, so I don't push it too much. It's pretty cute stuff!


Yummy!







I just had to get a close up! Looks tasty, huh?! She was kinda done at that point so I gave her the spoon to play with since she was such a good girl.




She loves blowing raspberries!!!




Then she gagged herself.


And then she hit herself in the eye. Don't worry, she just kept right on flinging the spoon around!


See where she hit herself? Goofy girl!



Then her finger missed her mouth. Look how far she got it up there!



And that is some first-feeding-fun! And to think, I get to have fun like this every day! I am the luckiest girl in the world! No seriously, I am!

What a thousand bucks looks like...

This is Matt's monstrous truck, full all the way to the back with stuff! (or is that the front?). PS - don't you just love the way the kids helped me load it all in?! Maybe it's not the neatest, but they are great helpers!

We've been planning a big shopping trip around here. Okay, I had been planning. Since we just got our fridge I needed to make a huge Sams run. And while we were out, why not make a day of it, right?!

Our new house doesn't have hardly any overhead lighting (which I think is the dumbest thing ever!!!)so we had to buy some lamps. Addie is eating solids now and needed a high chair. Christian's room used to be a sewing room and has ugly linoleum so he needed a rug. And I just love to shop. So there.

I found a lady that was selling a ton of cute country, shabby chic, and primitive stuff on Craigslist and she lived on the way to Ikea, so we stopped there first. She said she had just moved from a house to a teeny-tiny one room apartment and just needed to downsize, something she didn't seem too happy about. So I, in all of my brilliancy, as I'm perusing her personal belongings say "It must be hard to get rid of all this cute stuff!" and then she says "Yes. It is." all the while looking like she's about to cry and all the while I'm still rummaging! I sure do know how to make a situation super awkward! Oopsie.

Anyways, we did buy a super cute lamp from her for $20... along with a few other, maybe not-so-necessary things... but if the price is right, right?! Okay, I went a little overboard there, we needed a box to take it all... Soooo, $67 later, we left.

Next stop was Ikea. We love that place! From the upfront family parking to the Swedish Meatballs, we had so much fun! And spent a way long time there too. Lex and Chris both picked about 10 different bedroom sets that they would like. When I unpacked our glasses I noticed we were down to about 3 actual "glass" glasses, so we picked up some cute new ones, a lamp, storage containers, cute rug for Christian's room, and some fun Christmassy food.

Next came Babies-R-Us. Love it! I went in for a high chair and adorable Snowman bunting but came out with a few extras. We also bought some clearance clothes and a walker. Can't wait to see how she likes it!

Then we walked over to Bed, Bath, and Beyond which I absolutely love. And did you know they honor expired coupons and let you use more than one per transaction? I've got 10+ coupons still, so if ya need one let me know and I'll hook ya up. :) While there we bought Lexi a cute lamp and I ordered a breadmaker. I know that is not a necessity, but Matt found one at a thrift store while we were in Clovis and I made tons of homemade bread. Okay, I don't know if you can call throwing ingredients into a machine really making bread, but whatever. :) Anywho, it broke so we got rid of it and I've been wanting one ever since. I think it's so nice for the kids and Matt to come home to a house that smells of fresh bread! And I am no Sharon Ray, I just don't have it in me to do all that kneading! So breadmaker it is. And if you come visit I will "make" you some bread too. (There's that sad attempt to tempt visitors again. Do I sound pathetic yet?)

We were gonna try to hit Old Navy and Barnes and Noble, which were both right next to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, but by that point we were all slowing down. So we headed over to Sams. Let's just say that $800 and 2 hours later we left. Yikes. We did buy 2 lamps, lightbulbs, rechargeable batteries and lots of food. Lots of food. In my defense, I didn't do much grocery shopping the last two months we were in Clovis, and since we live so far out I wanted to have lots of food on hand so I'm not always running to the store... oh, that is a lot of money! But now we're stocked for a long while. Except for stuff we go through weekly like milk, fruits, veggies, bread... doesn't it seem like it never ends?!

Anyways, we still needed a few smaller items that I didn't want to buy from Sams, so we went right next door to Sams to the Super Wal-Mart and finished up or shopping extravaganza.

So lets recap. We left the house at 10:30 am. Got home at 10:00 pm. Spent lots and lots of money. Made 33 trips bringing very large armfuls from the car to the house. The end.

Or is it??? When we got home we found a surprise waiting for us. Our new fridge (that we bought used off of Craigslist, can you tell I'm really loving the Craigslist lately?!) had leaked ALL over the kitchen floor, into the dining room, and as we later found out through the ceiling and into Christians room! Why did this happene on the one day that I actually leave the house for 12 hours and Matt is gone for the whole weekend??? (Matt's away with the Navy Reserves) Ugh. Took forever to mop up the 2 inches of water that was all throughout the kitchen. And at first I didn't know what had leaked, the dishwasher or the fridge. And I sure didn't know what to do. And of course, Friday had to be the one day that Matt forgot his cell phone, so he hasn't had it all weekend that he has been gone. And of course I couldn't find the paper that I wrote down Matt's hotel info on. I did manage to remember the hotel but knew they wouldn't want to transfer me to his room at 11:00! I begged the front desk girl and told her it was an emergency. I told the truth, I thought it was an emergency, because I was afraid someone was gonna get electrocuted! She was nice enough to transfer me and then I got to wake Matt up with the good news. Anyways, he was able to guide me through turning off the water to the fridge and that seems to have solved the leak.

SO, here is the after picture of the kitchen. These are just the non-perishables. Apparently in the frenzy to a: get the kitchen mopped up from the 2 inches of water everywhere and b: stop the leak, I forgot to get pics of the perishables. Suffice it to say that there were lots and my freezer is now full of meat and some other fun stuff. (should I take a picture of the freezer, I think to myself... no, it will take too long to get up, walk to freezer, take picture, upload picture to computer, upload to blogger...)





Here is the Craigslist haul...


The Ikea loot...


FYI - that is non-alcoholic Glogg (not sure what it is but sure am excited to try it!) and sparkling peach cider. I just think it's fun to get stuff like that for the holidays!

Addie's stuff...

Hey, where is the bag with her clearance clothing and super cute snowman bunting I think to myself as I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach... hope we didn't leave it somewhere!!!

Assorted lamps from Sams and Bed, Bath, and Beyond...



And a few of our super fun clean-up when we got home. Check out the ugly tile and even uglier wood floor in the dining room.





Oh, and our GPS took us out to Sacramento a different way than I'm used to and it was the prettiest autumn drive! The trees, the restaurants, the b and b's we saw, all so cute! So I made Lex take a picture of the view (out our buggy, rain splashed front windshield) and of me. I am such a good driver! :)




Never a dull moment around here! So looking forward to a lazy Sunday!

Addie likes to eat, eat, eat...

Our sweet baby girl is getting so big! She has been so ready to eat for a long time now! She watches everything we eat and opens her mouth if we're holding her while eating. She's doubled her birth weight and has been holding her head up for months now. Of course Matt, Lexi, and Christian all wanted to start feeding her as soon as she turned four months, which is what our doctor recommended, even though the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends waiting until six months. Anyways, I didn't even want to think about getting that started while we were staying at hotels, so I, being the planner that I am, set the date for November 1 at 10:00. :) I know I'm goofy to plan it all out, I just do better when I have a plan. :)

I decided that her first food would be a yummy mixture of bananas and breastmilk. Sounds good, huh?! My best bud Autumn hooked me up with a very informative book called Super Baby Foods and I've had many baby food discussions with my birth-hippy friend Kirsten about best first foods. Anyways, (man I get on a lot of tangents! It's the same way when I talk, I think my brain just goes faster than my mouth, or something like that!) here is Addie enjoying her first food. Sorry the video is so long, I just wanted to be sure to have enough footage and I don't know how to make a video shorter when I post. SO here it is. 4+ thrilling minutes of Ray family fun.

***Edited to add: I guess dropshots only lets you upload two minutes worth of video? Anyone know of another video sharing site? Too bad for you guys, that last two minutes of her eating was a real nail-biter!


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Everyone was so excited to give her the first few bites and yet, 10 minutes after this video was shot, as I was still patiently feeding her, no one was to be found. It's amazing how quickly the wow-factor wears off! So glad I waited till we were all moved in. Or at least mostly moved in.

She had only bananas for four days and then I gave her some rice cereal. She LOVED the cereal and now seems to be enjoying the bananas a lot more. We've got a few more days of just cereal and bananas and then next up, avocado...