Monthly Archives: March 2016

The Modern Farmhouse

After looking at a handful of homes we decided that building would make the most sense for us at the time. Since CJ works from home we really wanted to have his office in the basement so he would be on a separate level from all the crazy that happens with the kiddos. *sidenote: you all who work remotely, high fives all around! that takes discipline and you including my husband are special people if you can do that!!  Most of the homes we looked at were OK but not our style but not horrible enough to really feel ok tearing out the kitchen. The last thing I wanted was for our first place we owned to be a place that really didn’t fit our style. They already dug the basement and poured the walls and starting to frame next week!

I wanted to share the style and inspiration for our home. I really loved the modern farmhouse. I appreciate the clean and simple look. I should mention our house is much much smaller than the following homes and doesn’t look like any of these photos, but I loved using them as inspiration.

house_3 image

house_2 image house_1 image

I thought it would be fun do some house posts and document the process. Most of you know my background is in architecture so I love this stuff, but it also makes me a little nervous to talk about it on here because I have friends who are freak’n all-stars in architecture and interior design and so I feel I’m putting myself out there a bit.This is my home so it’s pretty personal. But I also talk about being a mom and traveling and I’m not experts on those items either so I figure why not.

Chapter 7

I should probably start off by explaining. I often like to make each big moment in CJ and my life after our wedding as a chapter, makes sense right? Here’s our story so far:

Chapter 1: Marry my best friend
Chapter 2: Move to Norfolk, VA
Chapter 2.1: Visit San Francisco (little did we know we’d later move there), Seattle, Chesepeake Bay, Outerbanks, Annapolis & Washington DC
Chapter 3: Move to San Francisco/Burlingame, CA
Chapter 3.1 Drive across country pregnant, oh so pregnant, and visit Monticello, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse and Yellowstone
Chapter 4: Have little Nola girl (and started blog :))
Chapter 4.1 Explore as much of San Francisco as we could, Visit Muir Woods, Napa Vally (as many times as we literally could), Sonoma Valley, Point Reyes, Mendocino, Lake Tahoe, Big Sur, Monterey Bay, Carmel, Santa Cruz, Redwood National Park, Yosemite National Park, Los Angeles, Hawaii
Chapter 5: Move to Madison, WI
Chapter 5.1: Drive across country and also being pregnant AGAIN and now with a toddler, need we say more? Probably that we survived.
Chapter 6: Have sweet Jonas boy
Chapter 6.1: Vacation at Rosemary Beach, Apostles Island & Door County
Chapter 7: Build a house

So we are onto chapter 7 and couldn’t be more excited about it. We are all ready to have our own place FINALLY and make it our little home. Throughout all those chapters there were plenty of struggles and hardships, but I have to say looking at this book that’s been written out for my family, guys it’s been a good one. I’m thankful and don’t you know it.

IMG_9682 at our site! IMG_9685 it was cold outside… IMG_9687 jonas’s face cracks me up!

Monday Ramblings

It’s been awhile and this post was started long ago so here I am finally finishing it up. I miss blogging and documenting moments in our lives so it’s my hope to be better at structuring my time in the evenings so I can blog a little more. I always have good intentions during the day and by evening my mind is mush, but here’s to trying at least! Here’s some of my thoughts recently:

– Do you ever see your style evolving? Of course most people do depending on their stage in life and age, but I think my is changing to sporty-comfy these days, what I wonder though was it really my style all along and now I’m finally realizing/consenting to it? Most days my uniform consists of sneakers, baseball hat and leggings. If my budget allowed it I’d have so many sneakers, matching my kids of course! (see the photo on the bottom)

– I feel if I could find a way to invent a contraption that could convert your bed into a crib it could be something big. Or am I the only sucker whose kid loves their parent’s bed more than theirs? I don’t know, these are things I think about every night while feeding Jonas…in our bed. Did I ever mention when helping my mom licking stamps for this big project she was working on when I was a kid I thought they should change these into stickers…clearly I was onto something. I just need to implement an idea before someone else does! I have a couple of other business ideas if you want to partner with me 🙂

– I’m starting to look for a couple of items for our vacation next month and man it’s not easy finding a cute dress I like, not white, my size and that I can wear a bra. What are your favorite places to buy your clothes? I get my jeans (high rise can we say an amen!!) from madewell and I like asos for dresses (they have petites)! I also think I could get my entire wardrobe from target, I can’t even stress how much I love that store.

– Guys I’m pretty down about the primary election results so far. Both parties are disappointing and even more so it shocks me to realize the vast amout of people who are in support of such hatefulness. I read something that hit the nail on the head, it was around the lines that the greater problem we have is the education system and realizing our people need to be educated.

– I have a bad back and with lifting my big boy and breastfeeding forget about it. I was lifting Jonas at the grocery store last week and I felt it go out a little. I was just imaging me lying on the grocery floor with my kids running around crazy. CJ assured me someone would have helped if that happened. I’m a hot mess. I really want to join a yoga class because I think that may help a bit.

– Have I mentioned how fun and cute Jonas is these days? He’s learning something new each day and I’m obsessed with him.

– I’m opening up my etsy shop again so if you are looking for some cute flower headbands, I got you covered. I can also do custom jobs if you need something special!

– I loved seeing everyone’s family Easter photo! CJ and I barely dressed up, but it would have been nice to had taken one little photo of all four of us. My parent’s came over for dinner and by then I was already in my pajama bottoms and sweatshirt.

Hopefully you all are having a good start to the week!

IMG_9734 not only did our shoes match, but we also had coordinating beatles shirts. i had black adidas like these in grade school and i loved them so much.

Jonas’s Monthly Photo Outtakes

When we took Jonas’s monthly photos, if Nola was around we also made sure to take some with her that I wanted to share, along with some pretty epic outtakes. I think these photos are a clearer representation to our lives right now and I love them all so much. One thing that’s pretty clear in these photos is the love those two have for each other. It’s pretty incredible to see their relationship grow and how young this love starts.

Here they are if you care to see:

DSC_0026 DSC_0066 DSC_0158 DSC_0209 this is probably my favorite photo, see nola, it’s the best DSC_0149 i love nola’s smile in this photo  DSC_0108 my silly girl DSC_0109 jonas doing the all done in sign language, ha! DSC_0120 nola holding bear like in lion king DSC_0011 can’t get enough of their kisses
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Jonas’s Month to Month

If this isn’t a real-life mom post I don’t know what is. I tried, clearly not enough, but I did attempt to get an orchestrated photo of Jonas each month during his first year. I am embarrassed to say we got 9 out 12 months. Jonas if you are reading this when you are older just know this has no representation to how much we love and adore you, in fact we couldn’t be more obsessed with you. It’s funny because I have always complained that it felt like I had a little newborn baby for such a short amount of time and felt a little robbed of that time. Well it’s very clear from these photos I was correct. In fact Jonas goes from little baby to next month where it looks like he ate a baby. Ok, ok so I did miss a month here but to be fair that photo was more 1.5 months vs 2 full months apart. Regardless I adore this chunky most delectable baby.

1month 3months 4months 5months 6months 7months 9months 10months 12months

Hope you enjoy the photos. Can’t tell you thankful we are for our healthy growing little man. Just for fun HERE’s an old post of Nola’s first year of monthly photos, time why are you so mean!! Tomorrow I’m going to try to do a post with all the outtakes and the photos with Nola and Jonas. You will want to check these out because they are money.