easter.

i feel like all i do is post pictures of us going to the beach on here. probably because it's so close {we even have our own key now, we go there so often. haha} but, we spent our easter weekend at the beach, again. it is levi's birthday as well, so we can count that as an excuse to go there too. =) 

we went up on friday night so that on saturday the man could be surprised with his surfing lessons and new wetsuit that he's been wanting, but unfortunately our plans did not work out. there were absolutely no waves. the entire day. it was super lame. so we spent time at the beach waiting to see if there would be, and when nap time rolled around we decided we would have to rain check the birthday present. 

that evening we went to our favorite restaurant that we cannot afford, and it was fabulous {thanks to grandma for taking us out for levi's birthday!}. if you're ever in Santa Cruz, you must go to Shadowbrooke. it's to die for. you have to ride this trolley car down to the restaurant on the river, which is what someone spent the whole evening talking/yelling about/demanding we go back on it. no idea who that would be.  

i absolutely love this shirt i got yesterday, but it makes me look 9 months pregnant. holy cow. 

i found this gem from our honeymoon at the same restaurant. we look so little! 

grandma bought a longboard for the beach house and somebody thinks it's awesome. although, he does refer to it as uncle "josh's skateboard"

easter morning, we got up and found that the easter bunny had struck! as a side note, our child is unbelievable ridiculously good at finding eggs. and remembering that he was going to wake up and see what the easter bunny brought him and find the "easter bunny eggies". it's impressive. 

it took him all of 3 minutes to find his 15 eggs. no joke. apparently the easter bunny needs to upgrade his egg hiding skills. 

then we went to church, and easter brunch. 

and the easter bunny happened to be there. best. day. ever. he stalked him. and that's an understatement. he basically followed him where ever he went, gave him hi-fives, pound-its, hugs, cuddles, and was more than willing to take pictures with him. he loved it. i'm glad he's not scared of giant animals because we're going to disney is a couple weeks and i want him to love it! 

 isn't it so gorgeous there?? ah, i love california. 

zak and grandma. so so happy. 

easter was fabulous. this weekend was fabulous. hopefully it'll make up for the massive amounts of rain that's supposedly coming this week. but it's levi's and zak's birthdays this week! yeah! 

house part uno.

for some reason it is taking me way longer to unpack this time around. i'll blame it on being pregnant {like always} and the wood floors killing my feet. but in any case, the downstairs is completed, however the upstairs leaves much to be desired. 

{lightbulb: maybe it's the stairs that are deterring me! i die going up them. literally}

in any case, our house is awesome. somehow we got amazingly lucky finding it significantly cheaper than what we were paying. i still can't believe it. 

to begin our tour, we will start in the kitchen: 

and my adult fridge. absolutely love. 

 have i mentioned how much i love the kitchen? because i do. white cabinets are awesome. and so are stainless steel appliances. 

next to the kitchen is the dining room. but that has 900 broken down boxes in it, so that will be in part dos.

this is the multipurpose room attached to the dining room. the cat/pantry/laundry room. finally a house where the cat litter is not in the bathroom. huzzah huzzah.  

our next stop is the "play area" on the other side of the kitchen. we bought him that new toy chest for his birthday, because he really wanted it. haha in any case, he's discovered a whole new world of toys he forgot he had. 

and across from the play area is the living room. i think this picture makes it look a lot bigger than it is, because our couch is very close to our tv, but it works. 

this house was built in the 1950's so there are no ceiling lights anywhere except the kitchen. so, needless to say it gets very dark at night time, since we have yet to invest in some lamps. 

next to the living room is the back door. it was pouring rain today, so this is the picture you get of our "backyard" aka cement block. which is perfect because he doesn't come inside dirty after playing out there. 

this is our "front yard" aka gated cement block from the front door to the garage. he likes the front a lot better, probably because there are not 900 steps to walk down to get outside. he's his mother's child. he also got new rain boots from grandpa today, which mom was very excited for, so he's not ruining any more shoes in the rain. 

and that is the downstairs. ta-dah. minus the 1/2 bathroom, but who really wants to see that? do you love it as much as i do? =)

h-o-u-s-e.

as some of you may know, we have been searching for a house for the past several weeks due to our rent being increased significantly as of April. {stupid apartment complex}, and by we, i mean me, because i love looking at houses. well, i'm more stalking them on craigslist and then google maps, but it's basically the same thing. 

this is what i would look at every single day. look at how many 3 bedrooms are posted in one day on the peninsula. it's insane. oh, all those prices are per month too, do you like the $19,500 one? who has that much money to spend on rent??! california.... 

my conditions for our house were: 

1. a garage

2. backyard to kick the kid into. 

3. washer and dryer. 

levi's conditions for the house were: 

1. cheaper than what we're paying now.

 {he's a hard one to please obviously}

after much searching, we looked at this one house, who's pictures were very deceiving online. no where did they show that the insides of their house were bright yellow and orange. barf. we looked at another, which was right on the beach, had an amazing living area, but the master bedroom barely fit a queen sized bed. 

and then we found it. our third house we looked at. i had emailed the craiglist guy about maybe allowing a cat, because it said very clearly "NO PETS" on his ad, and when he asked for more information about us, he said we could discuss a pet deposit while we come look at it. 

don't deny it. you totally love it. the green. the wrought iron gate. it's sexy. 

we pulled up to this house and were like  "ohhh boy, this is going to be another one of those-- it looks awesome online and like crap in real life-- houses" 

but we were wrong. yes, the outside leaves a lot to be desired, but the inside.... oh my goodness. 

it has a two car garage, gated front courtyard, a backyard, living room, play room, dining room, laundry room and kitchen downstairs. oh, and a half bath. 

upstairs has two bedrooms and a bathroom, and the master suite, complete with two closets, and a bathroom.  

tile and wood floor downstairs, carpet upstairs. vaulted ceilings, a adult fridge {the kind with the freezer on one side and the fridge on the other}, aaahhhhh. 

now of course, you're saying, how can this awesome house be cheaper than your apartment? well it was. not only was it cheaper, but $450 cheaper a month than ours. and $800 cheaper than ours will be next month. 

i was in heaven. this is what i was waiting for. the perfect house. now to swoon the man leasing it. 

which turned out to be a lot easier than we thought it would be. we'll blame that on our adorable child, who literally did swoon him. 

we were the second people he showed the place to, and the last. we looked at it on sunday, filled out applications, and on monday he emailed us to say we got the house. 

we get to move in March 24th, during levi's break, when he can actually help me pack this time.

pure joy. i cannot believe we got it. how can finding a house be that easy? but wait, it gets better. 

our lease here is up April 15th, we informed our leasing agent that we will be moving out early, and she said if they find someone to rent the apartment to before our lease is up, we no longer have to pay the rest of our lease. and she's already had people interested in it. {crossing our fingers} 

we have been so blessed to find this place. probably because we prayed really hard to find a place that was suitable for our needs, and this very much exceeded our expectations. 

success. 

 

oh boy.

i am very very far behind in blogging. probably because we've been actually doing things, aka me taking naps during nap time, so i have not had the time to catch up. soooo without further adieu, for those of you who only read this and not Facebook, we are having a boy! surprise surprise. i was not surprised at all, but levi had me almost convinced/hoping that he had the "paternal instinct" that it was a girl.

in any case. we have absolutely everything for him. poor kid, mom has no desire to buy new clothes for you.  so instead, mom bought herself a diaper bag, haha. yep, it's a real kate spade. nope, i did not pay full price for it. $40 bucks on craigslist. suckaa what?  

after much consideration, i have decided having two of the man will be lots of fun. he's a hoot, and will absolutely love having a little brother to show all his millions of cars to. it will be so fun see them together. =) 

deciding on names is the terrible part though. last time, we agreed from the beginning, but none of the names either of us come up with, the other likes. i think after much deliberation and baby naming apps, we came down to one this afternoon. kendrick. cool eh? {if you call him ken, you will not be allowed to associate with us, he is not a barbie} who knows if it'll stay that, but it is the ONE name we've agreed on.

here's to a new baby that is just as cute as this one was. or maybe even cuter. 

big kid bed.

i've had a quite a few people ask how we did with the beast migrating to his big kid bed this week, so i figured i would just blog about it, so all stalkers can know. ha. but, he did uh-mazing! like for reals. i was terrified. he's a wild man at night time and i figured him having freedom would only increase that. but he's done much much much better than expected. 

first, i hyped up having a big kid bed. we've been telling him big kids do this, or big kids do that for a few weeks now just to make him more motivated to do things that he normally hates to do. so, while i was searching for a bed on craigslist and i would show him it and he would go "i want it, i want it, big kid bed". when i found the one i wanted, we went and picked it up the next day and he was very very excited to get it. unfortunately mom does not set up/take down furniture so he had to wait until dad was home and we were back from our trip to begin loving his big kid bed even more. 

but monday dad set it up and took away the crib and he thought it was the most amazing thing in the entire world. luckily he's not that kid who's super attached to his crib so he could have cared less that we took it away. we talked about how when you're in a big kid bed you STAY, and do not come out and he listened pretty good. levi said i over-did the telling him to stay, buuut he didn't come out of his room at all, so he can suck it. 

nap time the next day was trickier because he could see all of his toys. we had to move all of them out into the hallway and then he finally went to sleep after mom ruined everything and took them all away. he did so good that night and stayed in there the whole time. but, the toys are still in the hallway until further notice, and it kills me every time i walk down there. he has too much stuff, and we didn't even buy him most of it.  

then dad was home the next night so he thought it meant he could come out whenever he wanted. it was lovely. levi went and turned the door knob around so we could lock him in from the outside. he thinks this method is awesome. i disagree. i don't feel like he's learning how to discipline himself if he doesn't get the opportunity to come out and realize he's not supposed to do that. so we compromised and if he came out three times he got locked in there, like a prisoner. {still not my favorite method, obviously, but it works for a kid who isn't quite old enough to reason with}. but when it's locked, he gets bored, gets in bed and falls asleep within five minutes. we also told him that when he is ready to get up and it's locked to say "momma out, please" and he does that pretty good most of the time. 

for some reason whenever dad is home he feels like he needs to come out and hang out with us. probably because of the rarity of the situation, levi probably is home to put him in bed maybe 3 out of the 7 nights. but when i put him to bed and nap time, he just stays in there because he's tired of seeing me. haha. 

and because you can't have a big kid bed with baby blankets, we went to ikea and picked out big kid blankies which just so happened to have his top three favorite things on it: cars, trucks and bikes. and it was only 15 bucks so that makes dad happy too. i personally think that this has made him stay in his bed better, but the spouse would disagree with me because "kids don't care about that stuff". but i think he does. =) 

in any case, he has done so so good! i'm so proud of him! the thought of giving him more freedom is terrifying to me, but he has done amazingly so far. sometimes i feel like he's older than he is, because he's just so easy. toddlerhood is supposed to be tricky, either he is an amazingly almost perfect kid or he's waiting to make our lives really difficult doing something else. i hope it's the first one. 

"tinkle tinkle dar"

i figured that I haven't posted about just the man in a while, so i should do it to remember his awesomeness in the future. so, some of his little quirks are: 

- he LOVES spicy food. he still digs mexican food, but when that is not available, it is hamburgers {with cheese, DO NOT forget it mom}, cheerios, carrot juice and smoothies. 

- speaking of hamburgers, he can tell you every fast food place that has hamburgers, including but not limited to: In n Out, Wendy's and Burger King. I swear we do not go there that often for him to know them, but he has a memory like I've never seen. 

- he never stops talking. ever. 

- he LOVES mickey mouse clubhouse and can name every single person on it. someday we'll go to disneyland so he can love it even more. 

- he loves nursery. if he could go every day, he totally would. 

- he just stopped crying when the vacuum comes on for the first time since he's been born. 

- he still wears size three shoes. well technically, his feet are so fat that he needs to wear size fives because they are wider. 

- he does amazing in a big kid bed. much much better than i thought he would do. more on that in another post. 

- he is very very friendly. any kid, person, dog, cat he will say hi to and want to play with. 

- he is an amazing listener. 95% of the time. it impresses me how he generally gets what i'm saying and does it. 

- he loves clothes. he knows exactly what he wants to wear in the morning, and what pj's he wants to put on at night time. they almost always match and have layers such as sweaters or jackets as well as accessories such as bow ties and shoes. it cracks me up. 

yes, we're inside and this is what he wanted to wear. 

- he loves fire trucks. and trains. and cars. and bikes. any time of transportation vehicle actually. he can tell you what they are, and what sound they make. 

- he can count to ten, but not when you ask him to. usually he is sitting in the back of the car just saying it, or walking around target counting socks. it's crazy. 

- he knows lots of colors, but has no idea what they actually are. his favorites are yellow and green so he just says everything is that color. 

- he loves to sing songs. it's so cute. 

he loves to sing twinkle twinkle. but usually skips half the song and makes up the rest. it makes me laugh everytime he does it. 

- any time he hurts himself, he brings himself to mom and says "kiss it" and then "all better" after i do. it's precious. 

- he also loves to cuddle. but only if he instigates it. he will walk up to you and say "cuddle cuddle". it's also precious. 

- he is an AMAZING sleeper. he usually goes to bed around 7:30 or 8:00, wakes up around 8:30 and takes a nap from about 1:00-3:30 or so. seriously. amazing. 

we got lucky with this toddler. he seriously is so easy. very very rarely does he throw tantrums, and usually it's because he doesn't want to come inside. the spouse and i have talked about how we're going to get attacked by our next child because zak did not prepare us for craziness. 

anytime i try to take a picture of him, the face in almost all of these pictures is what i get. it's hilarious. 

someday i'll use this to scrapbook for him about the cool things he does. someday, when i have motivation to scrapbook. 

relaxation.

i love when levi doesn't have school. it's fabulous. especially when a three day weekend is involved. this particular weekend we went to the beach house with some old friends and it was great. minus the weather being a bit chilly, the sun was shining and the babes were loving each other just like they did as newborns. =) 

something about the beach brings out the best in marriages, kids and everything else. i love it. thankfully we have a beach house we can go to anytime. 

i love that we can see our friends after so long and things are exactly the same. unfortunately we don't live next door to each other anymore, but thank goodness neither of us live in utah. =) 

isn't my family handsome? yes, yes they are.

i love the beach. and our friends. and levi not having school. one month until a week of spring break. and four days until we find out the sex of our kid!