magical.

this weekend we went to the most magical place on earth. newport beach. and disneyland. it was fabulous. 

my brother and i drove down to newport on thursday for my cute cousin's wedding. isn't she gorgeous? 

 the event brought out most of the clason family. it was so fun to see our family. 

unfortuantely, zak was very very tired and refused to take any happy pictures with me. but that's ok. he's still cute when he's grouchy. 

 they had a luncheon on the beach as well. isn't it gorgeous? if i had lots of money, i'd move there. 

 the next day we went to disneyland. i can't even tell you how excited i was. it was awesome. minus my feet still being swollen from walking around so much, it was a quite successful trip. 

we went to breakfast with the characters and zak absolutely loved it. not only does he love every disney character on mickey mouse, but he was very very excited to see them and take pictures with them, which was basically the whole reason i wanted to go. 

yeah for pregnant pictures. 

his favorite's were minnie and chip by far. 

 he stalked minnie for ages while we were getting breakfast for him. he thought she was super cute. 

i love these with chip. they look like they have a private joke going on. 

he has no idea who eeyore is so he wasn't super stoked for him. besides eeyore is kind of depressing anyways. 

the men. trying to maintain their manhood in front of the castle. 

the first thing he wanted to do was ride the carousel. that's what you come to disney for right? 

and then drive mr. toad's car. which we didn't go on because the line was horrendously long. 

 we didn't actually ride the tea cups. 1. because i hate them and 2. because the line for them was also ridiculously long. we took this picture after the little man waiting in line to ride dumbo and found it completely unsatisfying. obviously he was thrilled. it makes me laugh every time i look at it. 

pluto decided to be a little gangsta for our picture. zak also loved him a lot. lots of hugs and kisses. 

toontown was by far the most awesome place for him. he thought it was the coolest thing he's ever been to. especially this phone. 

 oh and the firetruck. 

after the beast and i came back to the hotel and took a nap, we were refreshed and ready to go tackle california adventure. we went to dinner, played in a bug's life area, watched josh and dad go on the big roller coaster and rode on ariel's underwater ride. but even 3 hours later, he was exhausted and he went back to the hotel with josh and grandpa to let mom and dad party. 

meaning we went on pirates, because that's one of the only cool rides you can ride while pregnant, watched the fireworks & fantasmic and went home. we're cool like that. i don't know how people do a whole day/week there, because it's so exhausting. 

but it was an excellent vacation. zak and i are going to need a week to recover from this wild ride of a weekend. good thing we have absolutely nothing going on ever now. for reals though, no vacations, no nothing planned. i don't know what we're going to do. who wants to come entertain us? 

planning.

it has finally hit me. the urge to decorate. it's only taken 30 weeks, but i think that i'm finally ready to get ready! i have had no idea what to do for his room, until i saw this "wash" thing. and then it hit me. orange and grey. i wanted coral and grey if we had a girl, so orange is pretty close. 

my dilemma is that my budget is $100 for the whole room. dun dun dun. 

this "wash" thing is on pinterest as knock off anthro letters. i am obsessed. they're actually cardboard letters spray painted metallic {cool eh?}. i bought the babe's name in them on the hobby lobby website, and they should be coming this week, so i'll post what they look like when i finish painting them. that will cost me a total of $25 bucks, instead of $25 bucks a letter. cha ching! 

i got this boring lamp from ikea for $20 and the black frames for $3 a pop. i intend to paint those as well. we all know how i love me a little spray paint. 

pom poms-- well those are $3 for 3 of them. easy peasy. 

luckily, i have a sexy husband who is a much better sewer than me, and he will make curtains similar to these during his month off in june, but hopefully significantly cheaper {these are $90 a panel!). i need to scope out joann's to see if they have anything good on sale. 

i would also kill for this rug. i don't remember how much it is, but i highly doubt i'll be able to buy it. i vaguely remember someone painting their rug like this on a blog, so maybe i'll have to research that and do it. 

i also need these anthro knobs for the changing table. last time i got zak's for $2.50 a piece, so i will need to scope out the sale rack at the store to find some cute orange ones. 

we have a super cute cars/trucks bumper pad, so i just need some new sheets and mattress because zak has the mattress and sheets we used last time on his big kid bed. 

fun eh? i think that i'll be able to work it under $100, if i do, i'll be impressed with myself. haha

also, we have officially officially decided on a name.

 Greysen Allister Lowry. 

it's gotten mixed reviews from people, but obviously we don't really care because we love it. 

dos.

this little monkey is officially two. i'll be honest, it's like his personality switched over night on his birthday. i have yet to figure out how to master the insane emotional switches over nothing and throwing himself on the ground when he doesn't immediately get to do what he wants. but i will outsmart him at some point during this lovely phase. i just haven't figured out how yet. 

in any case, after watching almost all of his old home videos to remember how cute he actually is, i remembered that i haven't documented his favorite things right now. 

- he knows 95% of the alphabet, thanks to singing the "letter song" and trader joe's alphabet cookies. highly recommend buying those, he honestly has learned from eating them because we ask him what each letter is before he can eat it. 

- he LOVES to sing. his favorites include: the wheels on the firetruck, 3 little ducks, twinkle twinkle, and the letter song. 

- he loves anything sparkly. levi refuses to acknowledge that, but my sparkly shoes and nails are quite frequently loved on. and it cracks me up. 

- he loves to color. 

- he loves thomas. even though i refuse to allow him to watch that show, because it's seriously terrible, with help from asher's choo choo trains and some books, he now knows all the trains names and loves them. 

-he loves the beach. this tends to be a common break down point when mom rejects his going to the beach suggestion or says we need to go at a later time. 

- he finally wears size four shoes! 

- we've been re introducing milk to him, and it seems to be going well so far, here's to hoping we don't have to spend $5.00 a quart on goat milk anymore! 

- he still loves his hamburgers. and can recognize an in n out almost anywhere. =) 

- he's an amazing talker. 

- he's very excited to go to disneyland in a couple of weeks. mom's been hyping it up that he gets to see mickey mouse and he is very stoked to go with grandpa and josh.

- he loves going on car rides. i have no idea why, but he is so good. and he seriously just hangs out the whole time. 

- he loves to have his hair done in a mohawk. he calls it his pokey hair, and he cannot leave to see his friends without it done. 

- he reminds us to say prayer when we're eating and when he's going to bed. you know you're doing something right when he reminds you to do it.

-he loves being outside, especially when it rains so he can jump in the "cuddles". we take a walk almost every day to entertain him. 

- speaking of cuddles, he loves to cuddle mom. when he's in trouble he will totally just say "cuddle mom cuddle" and he knows i can't resist his cuteness. that is the reason to have boys, i tell ya. 

- he knows all his shapes. i would like to thank mickey mouse clubhouse for that one. he knows everything from circles to rectangles, to hexagons and crescents. it amazes me. 

ohh, now i just think he's so cute. maybe i just need to write nice things about him when he drives me crazy and then i won't feel as psycho all the time. 

hurrah for being two my love! muah!

birthday festivities.

these two handsome fellas had birthdays this past week. i'm pretty sure i will not be celebrating anything for a long time because i'm so tired of making desserts/special dinners/decorating but it was fun while it lasted. 

my fabulous husband turned 26 this week. he's so old now. and his birthday dinner request? costco pizza, root beer and apple crisp. ha. i  guess we did go out to a fancy dinner over the weekend, but still. in any case, i went to costco and provided his deliciousness. we did most of his stuff previously, so he really didn't get to celebrate on monday other than cards from both of us. 

this was the extent of my decorating for the two of them. do you like my pom pom's? i do. a lot. so much that i stuck them in zak's room after birthdays were over. =) 

this little fat face turned two on friday. i guess technically he's not as fat any more, but he's still just as cute. i miss his little chubby cheeks. good thing we're having another one that i can fatten up to be just like him. =)

i'm pretty sure we celebrated his birthday all week. it was supposed to rain every day so i took advantage of the one "non-rainy" day to take him to the zoo and on a lunch date, but then it turned out to not rain any day so we just kept doing fun things. ha. 

in any case, i used our "one free ride" pass this time to make the zoo extra special. words cannot describe how excited he was to ride the train around the zoo. i think he was a little more scared when it actually started moving, but he's prostar now. 

 "GO CHOO CHOO TRAIN!! GOOOO" is what this picture says. sitting is not exactly what he wanted to do. haha. 

a lot of my extended family came in on friday to celebrate with us. being the only grandchild on my side has certain perks for him, that's for sure. 

saturday we went to tilden regional park in berkeley, and it was fabulous. it's seriously in the mountains, and obscure, but it was perfect for the man. 

that's the city in the very back. like i said. very obscure park. but so awesome. 

they had this 100 year old carousel, that he was very very excited for. we must have ridden it about 6 times. on a different animal every time.

 and then they happened to have a giant thomas train. almost the best part of the day. 

but no, mom and dad did even better than that. this park happened to have a mini steam train so we took a 15 minute ride around on it for like $3 a person. we didn't tell him that it had a train, so he was very very very excited when he saw it. it was even better because he yelled "ALL ABOARD" when we got on. hilarious. 

it's so cute and little eh? 

then we went to fenton's ice cream parlor for lunch and they sang happy birthday to him again. and brought him ice cream. i'm pretty sure that he's never had as many delicious treats as he did this past week. 

he also got hooked up with tons of presents. {mom bought him a sweater, shoes and books, so we all know that grandparents give better presents haha} we asked for outside toys, and grandmas and grandpas did good. he loves the basketball hoop. 

this picture of my parents is hilarious. they bought him a legit sand box, and were trying to get him to smile, and obviously my mom's trying did nothing for zak. haha 

we had a fantastic weekend with my family. zak loved spending time with everyone and he got spoiled rotten. thanks again everyone! 

happy birthday to my favorite boys! muah!

house part dos.

finally. the house is somewhat put together enough that i can take pictures of it. {meaning i hid most of the stuff so you can't see it in the pictures. ha.} i know you have all been dying to see what the rest of it looks like. 

 this is our dining room that no longer has boxes all over it. it now has decorations all over it for the next week due to our two birthday boys. but, it's on the other side of the kitchen where the pantry/catroom/laundry room is. 

then we go upstairs. i will tell you, my pride and joy is downstairs. everything upstairs is lacking cool decorations/everything, so it's more just seeing the rooms. 

this is the office. well my office. complete with the cat sleeping on the chair. very thrilling i know. 

right next to the office is zak's room. it's seriously sad to see the lack of stuff in his room. but i took it all and put it in the playroom, so he has clothes, a chair, and bed in his room. and for some reason he still decides to play with whatever he can find instead of going to sleep. 

then right next to his room is his bathroom. complete with my favorite shower curtain. and his lightning mcqueen potty we have yet to use officially. 

directly across from zak's room is ours. i think this is the only thing we downsized. we have two closets, but one of them, the previous renters took the pole out and just put shelves, so it's pretty much useless for anything other than sweats and pants. so, we have upgraded to velvet hangers, and squished all our clothes in. 

the other side of our bedroom. looks pretty bare. i wish i had some money to spice it up. 

this is our teeny bathroom. it's super nice. but can definitely only fit one of us in there at a time. and there's no place for us to stick our stuff, so that's been interesting as well. 

but, the view from our window is pretty great when the sun is shining. you can see all the way across the bay. 

so, now that your need to know what our house looks like has been satisfied, i no longer need to worry about cleaning it for pictures. phew. =)

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!