Sacramento Trip

This is going to be a long post!

Two weekends ago, we drove to Sacramento to see my wonderful friend, Katie get married!  We've been planning on going to the wedding ever since we found out they were getting married.  First of all, I've known Katie for four years (we both got into Noteworthy as baby freshman together) and we have been through a lot, and I wouldn't want to miss her wedding for the world.  Second, Alec had never been to Northern California, and we thought it would be fun to do all the touristy things since I hadn't been since I was 9 or 10 years old.

We drove the second most boring drive of our lives on Wednesday, July 4th(the most boring drive was the drive back to Provo...), yes we had a fun 4th of July! haha.  We left at 7 am and Lily did surprisingly well in the car as you can see from the pictures below!

Happy girl!!

She is super flexible and loves to hold her foot when she's in her car seat.

Poor tired girl.  She only got fussy right before she fell asleep for each of her two naps.

Lily was so happy to be out of the car!  She was crawling around and squealing when we put her down once we got in the hotel room.

Thursday morning, we went to the Jelly Belly factory which was awesome!  They offer free tours of the factory so we jumped on that!  

Free=awesome

We couldn't take any pictures during the tour, but we did snap a quick picture of Lily in her cute hat before we entered the no picture zone.

 After a break at the hotel for Lily's morning nap, we went over to the California Railroad Museum.  I came to the museum with my family when I was 9 or 10.  My parents have a picture of us kids sitting in front of one of the trains with our blue and white conductor hats on.  It was fun to learn about all of the history now that I find it interesting. :)

Here we are in front of one of the many trains in the museum.  They have lots of different models from different time periods.

Please note Lily's foot... That is her favorite way to sit in her stroller.

Lily!!

Lily got pretty tired by the end of the outing.

 Holding her foot again...

That night I went to a rehearsal dinner.  Did I take any pictures?  No...  Then us bridesmaids went out to a dessert diner for a bachelorette party.  Did I take any pictures?  No...  I'm terrible at remembering to take pictures.  I will improve though!

Friday was the wedding day!!  I was able to be in the temple for Katie and Tom's sealing.  It was beautiful and I may have had to use a tissue or two...

After pictures, we went back to the hotel for nap time.  Yes, Lily was not the only one who napped...  The reception that night was beautiful!  Did I take any pictures?  No... but they did have a little photo booth which was awesome!

It was a very long day, but we had a great time!  I feel so blessed that I was able to be a part of Katie's wedding.  She looked so beautiful and I could just tell how extremely happy she was.  We love you Katie!

On Saturday, we went to Old town Sacramento and walked down the old streets and looked around in some of the old stores.

For lunch we went to Squeeze Inn per Glen's suggestion.  It was featured on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives.  It was soooo good and I don't even want to know how many calories were in that burger.

Yes that is a ring of fried cheese... Alec and I split the burger and I was still completely stuffed.

Lily enjoyed eating her yogurt bites and bits of bun and french fries that we gave her.

"It's hot in here!" 

After lunch we headed over to the Capitol and walked around grounds and the museum.

Go San Bernardino County!!

Lily LOVED riding the bear!

 View from the museum balcony.

Alec has politician blood!  His ancestor, John Bigler, was the third governor of California. 

When we got back to the hotel, we just relaxed and had a lazy night in.

Lily quickly made our hotel room like home and spread her toys, our shoes, our clothes, and even her box of diapers all over.

This was her favorite thing to play with.

Cutie!

We left early Sunday morning and headed back to Provo.  We had an awesome trip.  I love spending time with our little family.

It's been a while...

I have been absent from the blog for a while now!!  We have been really busy lately, and on our less busy days, Lily keeps be busy chasing her around as she gets into everything. :)  

Alec finished spring term with awesome grades and is not a few weeks into summer term.  He works 25 - 30 hours per week on top of that and watches Lily while I'm at work.  I only work 6 - 10 hours each week.  It's not much, but it's a little bit of extra income.  We recently baby-proofed/redecorated the living room which took over our lives and our apartment for a couple of weeks, but it is done now and I love it (more info and pics to come)!  

Lily is now 11 months old!!  Here's a list of what she's been up to:

She quit the army crawl a while ago and now crawls super fast.

She can walk as long as at least one of her hands is holding onto someone/something.

She can stand on her own but only when she's not aware that she's doing it.

She loves to give kisses (which are more like full on attacks).

She loves playing peek-a-boo.

She loves talking on the phone and gets excited when she sees us talking on one.

She LOVES string cheese and otter pops.

Her hair is so long that it almost looks like she has a bob haircut.

She figured out how to take the baby-proof outlet covers out of the outlets...

She loves to slide on the kitchen floor when she's in her jammies.

She loves to show me things she finds on the floor...

She loves it when Daddy comes home.

She loves to smile and laugh.

She is just so wonderful and she is more and more fun every day!  Here's a picture to leave you with from our trip to Sacramento for Katie's wedding (more on that later) !

When Dad feeds Lily...

Lily ends up looking like this...

Lily likes to move around A LOT and sometimes that results in her running into the spoon with her forehead.  Mommy has mastered the art of dodging Lily's flailing hands and head, but Daddy hasn't had as much practice.

Really Dad??...

She's cute even when she's covered in food.

Sleep Time with Lily

It is pretty common for me to walk into Lily's bedroom after she has fallen asleep for her nap or for bed at the end of the day only to find this...

Not pictured:  her blanket- she usually kicks it off and leaves it at one end of the crib

I've gotten in the habit of checking on Lily within 5 minutes or so of her falling asleep because she tends to stick her arms and legs outside of the crib.  I slowly move her legs or arms inside the crib and put the blanket back on her.  

On another cute note, on Wednesday morning, Lily woke up around 6:30.  She fell back asleep while I was nursing her so I brought her to our bed with Alec and I got in the shower since I had to be at work at 8.  When I went back into our room, this is what I saw.

It was so cute I just had to take a picture.  

Teeth!!

I FINALLY got a good picture of Lily's teeth!  It was a complete accident too.  She had just finished lunch and I grabbed the camera to take some pictures of her because her hair was such a mess.  She just happened to smile the perfect smile when I took the picture!

Today was one of those lazy days where I didn't feel like doing anything.  I did manage to vacuum the living room, and I fed Lily and changed her diapers and did all of those other mommy duties.  I did not, however, change Lily out of her PJ's or do her hair...  

Instead we spent the day rolling around on the ground together, cuddling on the couch, racing across the floor, and playing airplane.  I think those are good alternatives to getting dressed. :)

Lily has been army crawling like crazy lately!!  I don't think she'll ever crawl normally because she can army crawl so fast!

Today she ended up crawling almost completely inside her exer-saucer.

It was a crazy hair day!!

Her smile is contagious.

Hmmm I found a water bottle...

Mom, can I play with your water bottle?...

Too late!!

We had a wonderfully lazy day together.

All About Lily

Really what post is not about Lily on this blog?... I just can't help myself!

Lily sure is becoming quite the little character. She loves attention! She babbles all the time and matches the volume of her surroundings so she's heard.

She knows when we're about to take a picture of her and she smiles for the camera or phone! I am a terrible photographer so it is nice that she smiles long enough for me to take enough pictures to get the shot.

She says mama and dada all the time. She also says blah blah with a lot of attitude which makes me laugh. The other day, she was sitting on the floor playing with some toys and she turned around, looked at me, and said "Mama!" It melted my heart.

Lily loves to do raspberries. She learned from her daddy. :)  Her favorite time to practice her raspberries is when she is eating... She also clicks her tongue and tries to imitate any noise that we make.

She finally got her first tooth!! Then she got a second... and a third!  They sure are sharp! She now has two top teeth and one bottom tooth.

Her absolute favorite toy is a plastic cup... That's right. Her favorite isn't one of the many toys we and her many adoring relatives and friends have bought her. She prefers a simple plastic cup. She loves putting it up to her mouth like she's drinking out of it and talking. I think she likes the echo-y sound it makes.  She also loves anything that we are touching or using.  In this case, it was my computer...

She isn't crawling yet, but that doesn't mean she's immobile... She rolls all over the place and does the army crawl all the time.  When she's sitting and wants to crawl, she does the splits to get onto her tummy.

Lily has become quite the crazy sleeper. After 7 months of sleeping on her back, she decided that she wanted to sleep on her stomach. She has also decided that sleeping with her head at the head of the crib and her feet at the foot of the crib is boring. She twists and turns every which way until she ends up in a seemingly uncomfortable position, and then she falls asleep.  Sometimes I walk into her room only to find that she has stuck one of her appendages out between the bars.  Often times she has both of her legs sticking out.

Her hair is soooooo long!!  I'm trying to let it grow out, but there are sections right behind her ears that grow much faster than the rest of her hair, so I've had to trim those sections a few times.  Her hair is always a MESS when she wakes up in the morning.



She is still a thumb-sucker.  We have tried to get her to take a pacifier, but now she just views it as a toy.

Lily has a love of eating my nose. She does it to Alec too. She put both hands on my cheeks, then grabs my hair and pulls my face to hers. She then proceeds to bite my nose and slobber all over me. I think it's how she gives me a kiss. :)

Lily is growing into an adorable little girl. I still can't believe she is 8 1/2 months old!! We sure are enjoying every moment with our beautiful baby girl.

Oh Kelsey...

Sometimes there are moments when I just have to put my forehead in my palm and say, "Oh Kelsey..."

Yesterday, I had one of those moments.

Do you see anything out of the ordinary in this picture??

.......

Let me help a little bit.

Yes those are my keys, yes they are caught in the door, and yes I locked the car before I shut the door causing them to be really stuck.

Let me explain how this happened.

Lily had fallen asleep while I was driving home from campus that morning so I was trying my best to keep the sun out of her eyes as I got her out of the car. I put my key chain on my wrist along with my jacket and diaper bag while I struggled (as I always do) to unlatch Lily's car seat and pull it, as smoothly as I could, out of the car. Once I got the 35 pounds of baby and car seat out of the car, I pressed the lock button on the clicker (is there a real name for those things?) and I awkwardly swung the door shut. At the precise moment that the door was about to latch, my keys swung and got in the way. Unfortunately, they did not get in the way enough to cause the door not to close. They somehow aligned perfectly to allow the latch to still function and became completely stuck in the door. I tried for a while to pull them out, but they were stuck. Every single one of my keys was stuck in the door. I was locked out of my car AND my house. This was when the forehead in palm moment occurred.

What did I do? I called Alec. And then, since I had my camera with me, I took some pictures.

Lily slept so peacefully in her car seat. Luckily, it was a beautiful day so I just enjoyed the weather.

Lily and I sitting at the top of our stairs.

My hero!!

Alec laughed when he saw the keys. I don't think he quite believed me when I told him they were stuck.

Our second clicker for the car is broken, so Alec had to move the keys around as much as he could and press the unlock button on the clicker that was stuck in the door with a bobby pin. He sure is resourceful!

Lesson learned: Don't lock the car until after I have taken everything out that I need, and have successfully shut the door... without getting the keys stuck in it.