an introduction...

lucy kate anaya

little lucy made her way into our world early in the morning on the 9th of may. she weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces and was 20 inches long. she is absolutely beautiful in every way; we're soaking up these precious new moments with her and couldn't be more blessed.

stories and more pictures to come...

and now, for the nursery

putting this nursery together has been an ongoing project for the past few months. the first part of the project was getting elijah out of it and into his big boy room. that was accomplished back in january, thankfully without much pomp and circumstance. i didn't want to repaint the room but i did want to make it a little different for this baby. so...to make it easier on myself, i went with the same basic color scheme as elijah's big boy room (except the greens are different) with an alphabet border (it's really hard to see in these pictures). the bedding i have picked out (from target) is super sweet with polka dots and abc's. (note: it's not currently on the bed...i actually haven't bought it yet). anyways...here's a peek at what we've done so far. there's still a few things that i'd like to do...but i'm in no hurry since the baby won't be sleeping in here for the first few months anyways (we have a bassinet in our room). i'm actually considering moving the chair (a wonderful loaner from our neighbors...THANK YOU!) into our room too so that i can nurse in it during those frequent middle of the night feedings. we'll see. there's also a couple chinese lanterns that need to be hung from the ceiling and a print or two i'm going to order from etsy.com with the baby's name/inital. super cute.

enjoy the pictures!




so...that's it!

elijah's big boy room...

elijah's big boy room is complete! well...almost. there's a few finishing touches we want to do before it's truly done (painting dirt and motorcycles on the wall...putting up some wall stickers and frames/canvases as well as mounting some shelves for "special things")...but for the most part...it's finished! hooray! and i loveLoveLOVE the way it turned out.

here's corie helping me tape...such a HUGE help that was. she actually did most of it...i just did a measly little section in the corner. THANK YOU CORIE!

the next set of pictures are of john finishing up the green stripe. when i envisioned having vertical stripes in elijah's room...i did not envision the hassle it would be to put them on there. i can't find the first picture i took...of the way it looked originally...but you get the idea.





just in case you want to torture yourself and do stripes on your wall...here's how we (john) did it. after taping two colors (red and brown went up first), he came through with a narrow brush and painted the first coat, staying away from the taped edges. then, even before the first coat had dried, he took painters chalking and smeared a thin coat along the edge of the tape. apparently, this fills in the bumps and lumps left by the texturing and prevents the paint from seeping under the tape. he then quickly painted on a nice, thick second coat of paint, this time covering the chalking. as soon as the second coat was up, he quickly pulled the tape off the wall (we used masking tape. john thinks it works way better than blue painters tape...plus...it's cheaper.) leaving a beautifully straight line. he did the red and brown stripes a couple weekends ago and then we taped and painted the green stripe yesterday. he didn't have to paint the blue stripe since the walls were originally painted blue anyways. kinda handy. so...like i said, it was a huge undertaking but thankfully john doesn't mind painting...he actually enjoys it...especially since he didn't have to do the prep work of taping (again...thanks to corie!).






yesterday evening, we headed up I-5 to the IKEA in west sacramento. have i ever mentioned how much i LOVE ikea? mmhmm...a wonderful, wonderful place. we, of course, spent way too much time there...but enjoyed ourselves nonetheless...though i was thoroughly tuckered out by the end of our trip. we were able to get elijah's bed and a little side table as well as a few accessories for his room. some of the fun treasures we found? a little igloo tent (for only $10! not sure if that will stay in his room though...if it becomes a nap time distraction, it might have to be moved), a bright green hanging mesh cubby thingy (for socks, big boy underwares, toys and such), a mat with lots of roads for driving his cars and some pillows for his bed. there were several other things i wanted to get but we decided to save those things for another trip. (though i did get some fun do-das for the nursery...pictures of that to come soon).

all in all...i really like the way it looks. obviously, it will never be as clean or as organized as it is in the pictures, but oh well...it is a little boy's room after all.

kendall turns two!

i guess i'm kind of the unofficial neighborhood photographer. which i don't mind...not in the least. i just hope my neighbors don't mind either. :o) kendall's second birthday is actually today (happy birthday kendall!) but we celebrated it on sunday with lots of presents, a fun jump house for the kids and of course, yummy cake. i couldn't pick my favorite pictures very easily, so i just decided to post them all.

kendall and e chat over lunch.

she did pretty good not getting too messy...until the ice cream truck came around anyways (see last picture for evidence)

first ice cream truck of the season!

baby sister kymber is turning one in a couple weeks!

the aforementioned ice cream mess...

princess peyton.

remember peyton? goodness gracious, she's three months old already. and just the sweetest little girl ever! i had a great time hanging out with her on sunday...here's a sampling!

around 3pm, this starts sounding amazing...

my latest afternoon craving. hot chocolate anyone?

my new favorite picture...

just the three of us.
(four, if you count the motorcycle)

so. alex is graduating.

meet cousin alex.
alex is actually john's cousin's daughter. which would make her his second cousin. or something.
we just call her cousin alex.
anyways.
she's graduating this year!
wahoo!
here's some shots i grabbed of her the other day.
beauty, beauty, beauty!
she makes my job easy...

yes. my son made an appearance. she even brought the glasses just for him. sweet.

THE boots.

elijah has two buddies. well, he has more than that but these buddies are his BESTEST buddies. in the mornings, i'll usually give him a run-down of the plans for the day and most days he asks in a more-than-excited voice if going to conner and dylan's house is on the agenda. except he says their names as one word so it comes out: "go connerdylan house, mom?". super cute. anyways...both conner and dylan have a pair of these boots. conner's are yellow and dylan's are blue. they brought and wore these boots almost exclusively when we were in pismo a few weeks ago. so...when elijah saw an entire wall devoted to them at old navy, he, of course, had to have a pair too. never mind that it's april and that the central valley summer months are almost upon us. nevermind that mom. elijah insisted. and since they were on sale...i gave in. i got them two sizes too big so hopefully they'll still fit next winter when we actually have rain.

oh my little man, how i love your crazies!

elijah flew a kite.

lovelovelove his little smile...

playing catch up...

a sampling of my favorite shots from easter sunday:


love the bedhead.
of course, the first thing he grabbed out of his easter basket was the motorcycle, followed by the monster truck...would've been surprised if it was any other way.

sweet smiles melt my heart.

elijah's bestest buds came over to play for a bit.

chocolate face.

he's saying "look at ALL of 'em!" (referring to the bubbles he just proudly blew)

trying to encourage elijah to pick up the eggs with money in them...not just the candy filled ones.

the three of us...

the theme of the day.

we also enjoyed tacos, the first sunburns of the season and the sweet company of friends, family and neighbors. wouldn't want it any other way...