Daffodil Hill

We made a trip up to Daffodil Hill on Saturday. There is only a 2 week time frame when it is open each year and this weekend was the last weekend it was open. We decided to go at the last minute with some friends and the weather was cold, overcast, foggy and on the brink of raining. It actually sprinkled on the drive up. The diffused lighting made for great photography, but I am still without my nice camera :( I am starting to go through withdrawals!

Here are some pictures from our day....

Beautiful Daffodil Hill covered in fog...
Issy and Mommy

Daddy and Issy Some of our friends who came with us!

It's a...

Calista Garnette Gallardo

We are very excited and Isabelle is beside herself!

I told her this morning that we get to find out the gender of the baby and she insisted on a pink one! I told her that I may have a boy and she said "NO, I want a pink one!"

Here are a few of the pictures from the ultrasound. They couldn't tell me anything about her health but we are hopeful that she is healthy!

Here is a video of Isabelle when we told her that we were having a girl...

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow we hopefully find out the gender of our baby, and we are looking forward to seeing him or her and checking on their progress. Please continue to pray for the health of our little angel!!

I will update the blog tomorrow afternoon with any news we have... until then keep guessing!! According to my survey most of you think it is a boy.... Isabelle is still hoping for a pink one...

Easter

Isabelle with her Easter loot.

We had an nice Easter. Isabelle woke up and got ready and then we headed downstairs and she was so surprised to see her Easter basket filled with goodies! She couldn't wait to dive right in and take a bite out of her chocolate bunny! She also got a new ballerina Barbie, which was even more exciting to her since we had just gone to the ballet. My friend Sharee had given Isabelle her first Barbie the week before and she loved it! So we thought it would be fun to get her another Barbie for her collection. She is totally digging the Barbie thing now!

We drove out to Plumas lake to go to church with our friends Tommy, Melissa and Lexi. After church they had an egg hunt and Isabelle had a blast. She only picked up the pink eggs....I bet you could have guessed that.

After the egg hunt we went over to Tommy and Melissa's for an afternoon of fun! The girls played together while we played rock band! Even Isabelle attempted the vocals! Rock band is a game you play on Xbox 360 and is a total blast! Freddie wants to buy one now!

Melissa and Tommy cooked up the most amazing dinner ever and after dinner Melissa had another egg hunt for the girls! 2 egg hunts in one day! What more could a girl ask for! She even got to decorate the eggs before hand with Princess stickers! ( Thanks Melissa, for making the day so special for our little Princess!)


In other news, my nice camera died this last week, it is crazy and upsetting cause it isn't that old but apparently it had a rare programing condition that of course we didn't figure out till the warranty had expired. UGH... We will be replacing it soon which is a bummer to have to do that so soon. Freddie had bought me a regular point and shoot for my birthday ( I wanted a pocket camera for those events where you don't want to lug around an expensive camera) and gave it to me early so we could capture the events of the past weekend, what a sweet guy! (Which also needed to be taken back cause it didn't work right, but we the new one works fine.) I love the new point and shoot cause it takes video, so you might be seeing more videos on here cause it is so much more easier to use the small camera then to get the camcorder out and then transfer the file....blah blah blah... Anyway here are some pictures from our Easter Sunday and a video of Issy Easter Egg hunting.

Finding her Easter Basket...

Issy and Lexi

All of us playing Rock Band!

Hunting for eggs... Isabelle with her eggs from the Egg hunt... all but 3 were pink....

The Ballet

Today Isabelle and I went with our friends Kristen and Shaelyn to the Sacramento Ballet. We saw Sleeping Beauty and it was absolutely amazing! The show was a traditional ballet but was for all ages. There were tons of children there. I had no idea what to expect and was a little worried about how Isabelle would do and I wanted to be respectful to people who paid good money to see the ballet.

Isabelle and Shaelyn both did great! They would talk a little here and there about different things happening on stage and they got excited at times also. Isabelle did get a bit squirrelly at one point but we were saved by the intermissions. The show was about 2 hours and had 4 acts with intermissions between each act for set changes. Kristen and I took the girls out to run around for a few minutes between each act to burn some energy which helped a ton, by the time the show started each time they were excited to see the show again! Without those intermissions I don't think they would have been as happy as they were.

Here is a video I took tonight of Isabelle about the ballet. It is totally funny, she answered my questions and then decided she was done....



Some pictures from my point and shoot camera from the day....


AT lunch....

Walking to the theater...

Excited about the show....

Issy with her program...

Issy and Mommy at the show...

A Day At The Zoo Through Issy's Eyes

We went to the Zoo to celebrate a friend's birthday. Isabelle brought her camera and captured a few images....

The Penguins....

This is the backside of a zebra....

Giraffes...

Flamingos....

And one of her taking all the pictures....

I'll have another Issy's Photography post next week, I uploaded all the images from her camera today and there were a bunch of new pictures!

Happy Easter Weekend!

Happy Easter! We hope that you all have a great Weekend! Here are a few more pictures I took in her Easter dress that didn't make the card...

Keep Your Eyes Open!

My Dad submitted this picture to Jones Soda Company a year ago and today he got a letter in the mail that the photo was chosen to be put on the bottles, with copies of the actual label . The picture will be in black and white and on Jone's Soda Berry Lemonade. He would love to get the actual thing but they can't guarantee him where the actual bottles will be or in what stores! So if you see it anywhere pickup a couple of bottles and I will pay you back!!

This is one of my favorite photos he has taken, the first time I saw it framed in his house, I bugged him until he gave it to me and we know have it proudly displayed in our house!

Congratulations Dad!!!!

Easter Eggs and More....

Saturday we decorated Easter Eggs with Issy for the first time. Isabelle even helped me hard boil the eggs. She is such a great helper! She was so excited about decorating the eggs she didn't want to take her nap. It took her 45 minutes to settle down and finally take her nap.

We showed her step by step what to do and let her try on her own. She concentrated and enjoyed coloring several eggs all on her own. After they dried we decorated them with stickers. She had a great time and was so proud of her work. She wanted to crack one and eat it so we let her and she immediately spit the egg out. It was funny!



Today (Sunday) we drove down to the Bay Area for a quick visit with Grandma and Grandpa G. Isabelle had a great time, the entire drive she asked if we were at Grandma's house yet?

Tomorrow Freddie officially starts his new position as Automotive Supervisor for Sacramento County! He has been working in the position now for a week, but he is official tomorrow. We are so excited for him!

Everyone has been asking when we find out the gender of our baby, we find out March 28th. I will keep you all posted, we are eager to learn as well. Any guesses? Boy or Girl?

First Time At The Movies...

Yesterday my Mom's group were taking their kids to see Horton Hears a Who, so I thought I would give it a try with Isabelle. I thought if she got to noisy or not interested we could just go home, you never know til you try right?

I was shocked! She did great! She got a little noisy only once. But she had a blast! I bought her a small popcorn and she sat quietly eating each piece one by one. I also think she was amazed by the large "tv" screen. She laughed when everyone laughed and even sometimes would laugh when it wasn't funny but she was clearly having a great time. I was even able to watch the movie and enjoy it. I also enjoyed just watching her.

It feels and looks like spring....

The weather was beautiful this weekend and even today! Freddie, Isabelle and I spent much of the weekend outside in the yard gardening and playing. Last year I bought Isabelle some garden gloves and tools and she loves them and she loves to help in the yard. Last fall we planted daffodils all over the back and front yard and they are blooming and they look so pretty. Here are a few pictures of Isabelle playing in the yard....





Here is a pic from today she was playing on the slide and Freddie and I got a kick out of her hair!

Our last day in Disneyland...

On our last day at Disneyland we started with a character breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen. When we arrived they have you meet Pluto and take pictures with him. While we were waiting I made the mistake of telling Isabelle that Pluto was a dog... Immediately, I thought how stupid I was. Isabelle is deathly afraid of dogs. She didn't want anything to do with him! We posed for the picture and to my surprise she smiled in the pictures, but she wanted to be as far away from him as possible. Same went with Goofy, Chip and Dale. The only character she had any interest in was Cinderella of course. We sure did luck out that she was there. We had no idea who would be there. Cinderella visited Isabelle right away and Isabelle was super excited. She stopped by our table two other times during our breakfast which made Isabelle very happy. The breakfast was awesome! We all enjoyed the selection of food. Some of the fun things we sampled, peanut butter and jelly pizza... it wasn't bad and Isabelle's favorite was the gummy worms in Oreos and chocolate pudding. There was a lot of normal stuff there but being as how it was Goofy's kitchen there was some strange things. There was also lots of entertainment. Chip and Dale came crashing through the kitchen and let the kids bang on pots and pans and Goofy had circle time with the kids where they got to dance with him. Isabelle actually participated in that but stayed pretty far from Goofy. She had a great time and it was fun to watch her.

We had special passes to get in to Toontown early. (It doesn't open at the same time as the park does) Isabelle LOVED Toontown. Her favorite part was playing in Minnie Mouse's house. She also got to meet Minnie and she loved her. She also loved playing in Chip and Dale's treehouse. I think Freddie had just as much fun in Toontown as Isabelle. He took her through all the houses and playgrounds and they had a blast.


After Toontown we headed back to Fantasyland where we rode the teacups again and many of the other rides before having lunch. We did a little shopping on Main Street. We watched the birds sing in the Tiki Room, Isabelle was pretty fascinated with that. Then we made our way back to California Adventure to play in the Bug's Life park. Isabelle enjoyed all the rides, especially the ladybug ride, it was similar to the teacups. Freddie took her first then, I did and then my parents took her for a third time. We enjoyed walking around the park a little more and found a playground that was a boat that Isabelle got to play in for a while.
Not long after, we said goodbye to my parents, they had a plane to catch. Freddie, Isabelle and I went back to Disneyland and took Isabelle back to Toontown. She played in Minnie's house for a while and then we took her through Mickey's house (Ealier there was a huge line to get in.) At the end of Mickey's house you get to meet him. Isabelle enjoyed meeting Mickey Mouse. Then we debated on taking her on the kiddie roller coaster in Toontown and decided it would be ok. So Freddie and I took turns taking her on it. She LOVED it. The last thing we did before leaving the park was take a family picture in front of the castle. When we got back to our hotel room Isabelle went looking for Nana and Pops through the door in our room but it was locked on the other side. She was a bit confused that they were gone. She even tried again in the morning before we left.

On our way home we stopped by to see my good friend Julie and her family. I have known Julie since Kindergardten and she and her family live in Riverside. It was great to see her and Isabelle loved playing with her daughter Lily, they are the same age.


Our entire trip was great! We had a wonderful time and I can't wait to go back again someday soon!

Thanks for sharing in the fun with us!

***If the slide show stops just refresh and it should start over again***