I think the anticipation of flying by myself with Matthew today has me up early. We have a stop in Phoenix. This should be interesting. I woke up at 4:30... which isn't so bad... but then I realize that that's 2:30 California time and I think I'm going to be paying for it later today. Hopefully Matthew will cooperate and nap on one of the flights.

Well, here's home. We don't have pictures of our bedroom, the empty bedroom upstairs, or the bathrooms (who wants to see bathrooms anyway?). I was packing when Gilbert was taking pictures so our room was a total mess. So... We are the Saldanas and welcome to our crib (sorry, I had to):

The boy scouts came and put a flag up for Memorial Day


Living Room



The new furniture




Matthew trying out Daddy's new oversized chair


Dining Room



Kitchen



Eating area in kitchen



Our bedroom is also downstairs, but as I said, it was a mess.

Backyard



On to the upstairs

Game Room



Guest Room



Matthew's room







Gilbert's "Office"





Well, that's home.

Now for some gratuitous pictures of Matthew =)

Well, our boy is 8 months old. He's getting heavier and heavier. He's eating more solids now so he's putting on more weight. I'm going to have some strong arms by the time he starts walking.

We got some new furniture this weekend. We still have one completely empty room upstairs, but we finally filled some other empty spaces. Gilbert's mom gave us a gift card to buy our table for the eating area in the kitchen. I can finally keep Matthew in the kitchen with me while I make dinner or clean. The chairs of our formal dining set are too heavy to carry back and forth. We were also able to buy a new couch and chair for our living room. The couch we had before went upstairs to the game room. We have more seating now! I'll post pictures of the house soon. I know people have been waiting a while for those.

Matthew has figured out how to army crawl... kind of. He can inch his way forward now.


Untitled from Melissa S on Vimeo.

I can't believe he's getting so big...





So cute when he's sleeping peacefully









Breakfast. Prunes and rice cereal



I won't say why his face is turning red here...



In his stroller while Mommy helps get the hospitality table ready at church



"Me and Elijah, just hanging out in our strollers... chewing on our toys..."



One of his new favorite toys

Matthew had his belated 6 month appointment on Friday. It took us this long to get insurance sorted out and find a pediatrician. So at almost 8 months, Matthew got his 6 month check up.

21 lbs. 8 oz. (90th percentile)
28 inches (75th percentile)
19 inch head circumference ( >95th percentile)

No, that's not a typo. His head is above the 95th percentile. Everything looks good. He'll go back next month for his 9 month check up and his 9 month shots. He'll actually be getting his shots the day before we fly to California so hopefully he'll do as well as he did this last week.

Matthew and I leave for California a week from today for a week of wedding festivities. My big brother is marrying his amazing (and beautiful) fiancee. I'm excited.



Seriously, how cute are my nieces and nephews going to be?

Not a whole lot of new developments in the last week other than the shots last week. He is trying to get up on his knees now, but that usually only last a couple of seconds and then he'll roll away. I'm not in a hurry to have him crawl. I'll enjoy him being somewhat immobile for a little longer.

So cute just out of the bath



This is what I've had to resort to so I can clean





Well, we found a Batman mask that fits him (and his giant head) so we decided to do some Bruce Wayne/Batman pictures.









Having fun playing on the floor





He's been introduced to a sippy cup, too. Of course, it's a Dodgers sippy cup.



This video is a month or so old. You can't see it in the video but Gilbert is actually jumping in front of Matthew. That is why he gets so excited =)


Untitled from Melissa S on Vimeo.

Daddy introduced Matthew to the lightsaber collection.


Untitled from Melissa S on Vimeo.

Matthew gets excited when Mommy says "YAY!" and claps


Untitled from Melissa S on Vimeo.

Bath time fun =)


Bathtime fun from Melissa S on Vimeo.

Long update

This week is a big one in our family. Mother's Day on Sunday and today Gilbert and I are celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary. We're not going to be doing much. I'm making pot roast and then the three of us will probably just spend some time together. A relaxing evening together.

My Mother's Day was great. Gilbert called me on Friday and told me that he and Matthew would be giving me my gift early. He said Matthew had been telling him that he wanted to take me shopping because I needed new clothes. So Friday night my boys took me to the mall and I got some new clothes =). Sunday morning we got up early and went to church. The boys and the Pez gave me my cards. After church they took me to lunch at Panda Express. I know that doesn't seem like a big deal but Gilbert doesn't like Panda Express so when he asked what I wanted to eat on Mother's Day I figured I'd take advantage of the opportunity to eat whatever I wanted. So Gilbert says we had the typical redneck Mother's Day because he took me to my favorite fast food place. I didn't care. The food was good and there were no long lines. We totally forgot to take pictures of me and Matthew until right before I put him down for the night. Gilbert was busy doing something so I ended up taking my own pictures. Either way, at least I have something:





Here he is grabbing my face:





Of course on the days that the Celtics play he has to wear his jersey:







Here's his new thing. He's not crawling yet but he's trying to figure out how to. He'll go from sitting straight up to leaning on his hands and one knee with the other leg stuck under him. He usually goes from that position to his stomach and then proceeds to roll around. I'm sure he'll figure it out soon. Here's a picture of him sitting like that:



While rolling around on the floor he found one of the door stops.



Speaking of things he's found, I'm lucky he hasn't tried this without a diaper. I'm sure it's Cookie Monster that's drawing his attention there:



These are just cute:







Well, Saturday morning Gilbert was outside and he decided to check some insect traps that were laid down in the garage. He noticed one of the traps wasn't where it was supposed to be and when he looked closer, he realized there was a snake stuck to it. The head and tail were stuck to the trap and the rest of its body was inside the wall. Well, Gilbert has a phobia of snakes and he started freaking out. We went next door to see if our neighbor would help us out and they weren't home so we called a couple of our friends to see if they knew anything about snakes. One of our friends offered to come help us out and we took him up on his offer. While we waited for him I decided to see if our other neighbor could help us out. He's a fire fighter and he said he could go get his fire gloves and get it out for us. We called our friend and told him not to come out anymore. Our neighbor pulled the snake out and it was about 18" long. He went down the street and threw it in a pond. We owe him. Gilbert wouldn't let me take a picture of it. Sorry.

Gilbert got this sprinkler as a gift one year for Christmas. He decided to use it so he could send a picture of it to his friend:





Well, last week I posted a picture of the Pinche Burger so in keeping with the oddly named businesses in our area, here is The Happy Hooker: