We've been living in our new place for just over two months now and as you can see below Ez and Declan wasted no time making the place their own. Even though we've been settled for a few months the novelty still hasn't worn off for any of us. We LOVE it here, both the house and Sacramento. A few perks of our new house compared to our last place: 1) more space 2) a backyard. How we ever lived without a yard before I'll never know but to say the boys are happy with these new developments is a complete understatement. It's the perfect fit for wildly energetic boys.
Luckily for the boys almost all the extra space has gone toward their play room. I'm pretty sure this room should be a formal dining/sitting area, but we don't have an extra dining table or couch. What we do have is a Radiator Springs table, a plastic basketball hoop, and lots and lots of toys. Voila, room furnished! ;)
Despite the lack of furnishings this is one of our favorite rooms in the house. We like to gather here in the evenings to play chase, bury each other under a mountain of stuffed animals, shoot hoops, and wrestle (though that's more of a daddy & sons game). Pretty much anything to get rid of that pre-bedtime energy.
Last year I gave a little play room organization tour, and this year I have finally gotten on board with toy rotation. Pretty much every time Ez and Declan ransack the room I go through afterward and pick out whatever toys are left in the baskets and make them "disappear". My theory is that these are the picked over toys that aren't currently holding their interest. Does anyone else feel like you're constantly losing the toy clutter battle? I'd love to hear if you rotate toys and how often you do it. I haven't gotten around to actually rotating toys back in yet, so far I'm still trying to find that sweet spot of enough toys to entertain them but not so much that it's overwhelming for them to clean their own messes. Any genius toy-decluttering hacks would be much appreciated!
PS - If you want to see what this room looks like 99% of the time go ahead scroll all the way to the bottom.
The boys and I LOVE Easter. Ez is obsessed with all things eggs which means we dove headfirst into egg hunts and egg decorating pretty much the moment the rainy season let up. Putting together their Easter baskets is one of my favorite things and I've been collecting little bits here and there for the past month to fill up their baskets.
The past few years I've done themed baskets for Ez (cars, cars, and dinos), but this year I decided to just go traditional, or, if there is a theme I guess you could call it Spring. Ez's favorite pastime is playing in the dirt so he's getting his very own set of gardening tools. Declan's favorite thing will most likely be the bunny bubble wands I found in the Target dollar spot. I've had my eye on Jellycat bunnies for a few years now, they're just so cute and soft and cuddly. Unfortunately cute and soft are qualities that my boys couldn't care less about. Their main use for stuffed animals is to pile them all in a giant bucket and dump them out on each other. Still that soft woodland bunny is finding its way to Declan's basket anyway, to appease me if nothing else.
Just for fun, or if you're looking for some extra inspiration, here's a little look back at Easter baskets past:
What's going in your kids' baskets this year? Anyone else basically buy out the Target Dollar Spot? There were so many cute Easter and gardening gifts I had a hard time narrowing it down to just what would fit in their baskets.
Springtime is for getting lost in nature, smelling the flowers, finding a shady patch of grass beneath a tree and stopping to relax and listen to the birds chirping.
Unless you have toddlers.
Then you're running a mile a minute after them trying to stop them trampling over all the flowers and tumbling down steep little cliffs ;) Either way, Springtime is here and we couldn't be happier to get out and explore all the beauty nature has to offer. Here are a few (dozen) photos from our trip to Daffodil Hill, a private ranch that is kind enough to let hundreds of people traipse around taking in the beauty of thousands of daffodils blooming all at once. I've never seen so many daffodils all in one spot before and these pictures can't do their beauty justice.
I remember after Ez was born it was a long, loonnnggg time before Joe and I took a date night. And even longer before we spent a night away from him. All that first baby stuff about how we didn't want to let him out of our sight and we genuinely just wanted to spend all our time together as a family. Fast forward to having an almost 2 year old and an almost 4 year old and we'll take any chance for alone time that we can get. My parents and brothers were kind enough to watch the kiddos this weekend despite the fact that nearly every time they do Declan brings some kind of death illness into their house. Everyone was healthy this time around so knock on wood we finally broke that curse. Thanks Gangy, Grampa, and the uncles!
Joe and I opted for a mini staycation and decided to explore Sacramento without worrying about strollers and naptimes and carrying around a bag full of snacks at all times. After nearly four years doing this parenting gig I've kinda forgotten how light it is to travel without kids. We actually had a free hand to carry around Starbucks. #itsthelittlethings
We dropped Ez and Declan off around noon on Saturday and then came the big question: Now what??
We didn't have a plan but we were determined to do stuff that we wouldn't be able to do with two crazy, rascally toddlers in two. So first things first we headed straight downtown for a caffeine pick me up at a cute little cafe with homemade coconut macadamia milk. So, SO delicious. And we actually sat down and drank out of real, breakable cups.
The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around enjoying all the random art scattered around Sacramento, venturing into shops with tons of breakable items that we'd normally steer clear of (hello BevMo's 5 cent wine sale!!), eating at restaurants without kid's menus, and stopping to smell (and photograph) all the beautiful spring flowers.
We also stopped by the Leland Stanford Mansion, built in the 1850s and full of tons of cool history - and breakable items. Sacramento has so many beautiful old Victorian era homes and I've always wondered what the insides looked like. This was our chance to finally wander around one and check it out. Not only was the home restored as close to its original state as possible, but it actually still had most of the original furniture as well. It was just like stepping back into the 1800s and it gave us a fun glimpse into the past.
We capped off our evening with cupcakes, wine, and a Netflix movie. A perfectly relaxing end to a perfect day.
By Sunday we were well rested, the house was in a rarely seen state of organization, and we were so ready to hug our babies. There's nothing like a kid free day, but the reunion is always the sweetest part.
For no good reason at all I've been on an unintentional blogging break. Maybe it's burnout from the move? Or laziness because now that blogger and my phone no longer get along I have to actually get out my laptop when I want to blog? Or maybe I've just been reacquainting myself with my bookworm side and have had a lucky string of really good books that have kept me captive. (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet, The Things They Carried, and Some Luck if you happen to be looking for really old book recs).
Joe has been dropping not so subtle hints along the lines of "why do I even check your blog anymore?" which have escalated to "I'm going to unbookmark the blog because you never put anything new up there," so, just for my number one fan, here's a little update on life lately in our new hometown.
When it hasn't been raining in record proportions we've been out and about exploring our new surroundings. On a cold, cloudy day we decided on a whim to visit the Sacramento Zoo, and thanks to the weather we were among the very few people wandering around that day. Cold cloudy days are the BEST zoo days. The crowds are gone and the animals are out. Not only did we see the normally elusive big cats (my fave), but the giraffes put on quite a show for us, sprinting back and forth several times for no apparent reason. I'm not sure if you've ever seen giraffes run in person, but they're a gangly uncoordinated mess and it looks like their long legs are going to get tangled up pretzel style. Check out the video below if my description is lacking ;)
Declan was completely into the whole zoo experience, pointing and yelling at the animals, stomping any puddles he could find, and trying to chase down the train every time it passed by. Ez gave us precisely 2.5 seconds at each exhibit before he demanded we go. Then, as we finally left for real he exclaimed, in all seriousness, "Well that was fun!" Ummm...really? Toddlers will forever be a mystery to me.
One of the first orders of business after the move was to get ourselves a library card. Well, after those other pesky tasks like unpacking, stocking the fridge, getting cable set up...you know, the boring stuff. And I'm very pleased to report that the downtown Sacramento Library does not disappoint. You can always tell a good library by the kids' area, and this one had the best setup I've ever seen. A whole floor all to themselves with a craft corner, an entire wall of toys, that felt board that Ez was obsessed with, and tons of other toys and books. The boys were completely entertained by it all while I got myself a huge stack of books.
And then storytime began.
I'm not sure why, but my kids seem to think storytime is a traumatic experience on the same level as shots at the doctor's office. They love reading books at home, just not at the library. I've tried and tried to make them like it. I have fantasies of us all going to storytime and having a wonderful, magical time. But the reality is that Ez immediately starts whining to leave and Declan starts bolting around the room knocking books off shelves or trying to escape. It's just not happening. So we took the hint and left. The important thing is I got my books ;)
Grandma Kat came up for a visit and we decided to take the opportunity to visit Fairytale Land, a little play area aimed at kids around Ez's age. There were a few farm animals to look at, a playground, some crazy steep and twisty slides that may have traumatized Declan forever, and some other smaller structures for the kids to climb all over. They had a good time but Joe and I aren't convinced it's any better than our neighborhood park so I'm not sure we'll be back.
And of course we wouldn't be real Sacramento tourists if we didn't stop by Old Town. This is probably Ez's favorite spot because of the trains. At first we were fooled into thinking he wanted to see the old trains parked on the tracks there, but it turns out what he really means when he asks to go see trains is to go to the toy store with an elaborate model train setup. And then talk us into buying a toy. Sneaky boy.
As promised, here are those crazy giraffes:
If you made it this far, thanks for not giving up completely on the blog! I know I have some emails to return and I'm sorry for the delay. I LOVE reading your comments so expect replies shortly.
