We got our wish! I was really hoping for snow in Flagstaff over the holidays so that we could put holiday time off to good use, and even more exciting, take RaRa with us! The stars aligned and the town got tons of fresh powder over the course of two days. We headed up early on New Year’s Day and got to enjoy lunch (with bubbles!) at Tourist Home and a jaunt through town as the snow came down. We opted to stay at The Little America Inn this time, and we loved it. With its own restaurant and miles and miles of walking trails, it’s the perfect place to stay in a winter storm. As always, we loved our little trip up north <3

Fall in Flagstaff

October 23, 2022

Back when James was our only boy, we ventured up to Flagstaff one October to see the aspen trees turning yellow. Even though we were a bit early in the season, we loved the cooler temperatures and the changing leaves. (We live for small tastes of the Midwest!) This year, we headed back up with both (human) boys in tow and totally lucked out on our timing – the aspens were absolutely ablaze with bright, bright yellow leaves. Yes, trips with small children are a bit more exhausting, but this was worth it.

Summer 2022 in Chicago

October 2, 2022

We love summer in Chicago. By the time July rolls around, the heat is almost unbearable in Arizona and we find ourselves counting the days until we can surround ourselves with green grass, wildflowers, and all the wonderful familiarities of home. With Dot’s birth in June, we weren’t expecting to head back to the Midwest until the very end of August, but as luck would have it, he’s an incredibly easy baby and we felt comfortable hopping a plane with him a full month earlier than planned.

Having two children is certainly an adjustment, but Baba was an absolute superhero and made my life practically stress free for those two months. I was able to have one-on-one time with Ben daily (we really tried to work on socializing him in preparation for school) and snuggle, feed, and get to know Dot without the disruptions of a toddler.

We will cherish these memories forever 🙂

Two New Nurseries

June 5, 2022

Adam’s Nursery

I hadn’t planned on decorating a nursery for the new baby until after his arrival, but the closer we got to his due date, the more eager I became for a good project. This ended up being a simple room to execute since it’s not large and we were able to pull in pieces from other rooms in the house. I started with just a few new elements – a blue Ralph Lauren rug (a Homegoods find that I absolutely love for its design and quality), a board and batten accent wall (the handiwork of the Fuller men), and a Restoration Hardware elephant mobile (which I snagged off OfferUp for a third of the price). I struggled to find a theme to tie these pieces together until I came across Ben’s Elephant Nose Best book and noticed its beautiful illustrations. With a little help from my friends at our local FedEx, I was able to scan the images in high resolution and have them printed, before I framed them in simple white frames.

From there, I added an Ikea dresser we had in Ben’s closet, a few of his old throw pillows, his rocking giraffe, a lamp from our room, and a few plants. I added a new crib sheet as well as these blackout curtains to the existing white panels we already had. The most expensive piece in the entire room is the crib. I had been ogling over various vintage-inspired cribs throughout my whole pregnancy, and decided to splurge a bit on this one (though I’ve seen these used as well.)

This is now my favorite room in the house 🙂

Ben’s Bedroom

After re-decorating both our master bedroom and the new baby’s nursery, I decided Ben’s old room needed a refresh. At 37 weeks pregnant, I knew I didn’t have much time to pull something together, but finding two new items were a top priority for me: a new rug and new blackout curtains. I love the Ralph Lauren rug I found at Homegoods to add to the other nursery, so I searched high and low for something similar and reasonably priced to add to Ben’s room, and wound up finding this one online. These Ralph rugs are THICK, which is perfect (so far) for laying on top of the existing carpet, and they’re soft enough to play on. After seeing how well these blackout curtains worked in the other nursery, I bought an identical pair for Ben and added them to his existing white curtains. We previously had a black curtain permanently hung behind the plantation shutters…. it worked great for blocking light, but unfortunately he never got natural daylight in his room (depressing!). This is a much better option.

After seeing the shades of blue in the rug and curtains, the whale theme came to mind and I ran with it. I started off by buying and downloading printable ocean life images from Etsy, combining them to create a few simple files, and having them printed on 100# matte paper at Fedex. Worked like a charm and was relatively inexpensive. I added in this poster to the corner to add a little more interest there, refreshed the books in his bookshelf, and added some baskets and his little white chair from Homegoods to complete that area of the room.

I added a few more random Homegoods finds to his dresser along with his Jellycat whale and we’re set! Ben’s pretty pleased. Almost as pleased as he would be if the theme were trucks 🙂

Maui 2022

April 11, 2022

It’s funny: when I was pregnant with Ben, I was never interested in taking a babymoon. (If you can’t eat and drink what you want, where’s the fun in that?!) This time around, I saw a babymoon as an opportunity to take the big guy on one last solo vacation, and to soak up his joy and excitement in experiencing a new place.

Unfortunately, we had a rough start. I was struck with food poisoning the night before we were set to fly out, and despite my best efforts to tough it out at the airport, flight delays ultimately did us in and we wound up back at home later that day. Miraculously, we were able to rebook the entire trip for a couple weeks later – and it went off without a hitch. (Bonus: Ben was amazing on his first slightly longer haul flight.)

We love staying in Napili on the northwest side of Maui for its laid back vibe, and it turned out to the perfect choice with a baby. We had a relaxing week – I’ll spare the long drawn out details and just share a few highlights:

Lots of beach time as we had direct access to Napili Bay
‘Hiking’ (more like walking) along the Kapalua Coastal Trail – beautiful and very doable with a toddler in a hiking backpack
A whale watching tour – hard pass for next time (way too hot and nerve-racking with a small child)
A maternity session a la photog Jake (bravo)
An awesome rooftop happy hour at Fleetwoods in Lahaina
An easy and short but beautiful hike on the Ohai Trail

Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Newport

September 19, 2021

I’m keeping this post super short and to-the-point, but I wanted to find time to do a recap of our trip to the East Coast because quite honestly, my memory stinks and I’ve found this to be a perfect way to be able to remember exactly where we went and what we did.

First off, special thanks to my aunt for convincing us to make this trip a reality (over a few glasses of wine of course) and my cousin for helping us plan our itinerary. Now that she’s moved out East, we have a whole new part of the country to explore based on her recommendations, which are always winners.

We absolutely loved Maine last time we were out east and have always wanted to see the leaves changing in Vermont, but we were a few weeks shy of leaf-peeping season so we opted to head south of Boston and check out Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Newport, Rhode Island. All were a hit. I’d rate the latter two more highly than the first – only because there was more to do within a smaller footprint – the Cape is very spread out and requires a good amount of driving. (Which is not as ideal when contending with a nap schedule.)

CAPE COD

So here goes! On the Cape, we stayed in South Yarmouth, which was fairly central and very chill. We had easy access to the beach which was wonderful, and were close to Hyannis for more dining options. We really only had about a day to explore the whole area since we opted to take a ferry to Nantucket on our second full day, so we ended up splitting our time between Chatham for lunch, and Hyannis for dinner. Chatham was beautiful – particularly the area around Chatham Bars Inn. If money was no option when it comes to these trips, I would have booked a room at the inn, but since they were just a *bit* more than we wanted to spend, we had to settle for lunch at their lovely Beach House restaurant instead. Highly recommend – and be sure finish off the excursion with a little jaunt around town.

For dinner, we headed into Hyannis and ate at Spanky’s Clam Shack. Hilarious name, but it has a great relaxed setting outside and lots of seafood options to choose from.

NANTUCKET

Nantucket is exactly as I pictured – extraordinarily charming and picture-perfect. It is possible to do it in a day trip (particularly with the 1-hour, fast ferry option that we chose), but next time, I’d love to plan for an extended stay. We chose Nantucket over Martha’s Vineyard because it’s more walkable without a car – there’s a bustling town right off the ferry that has lots of shopping, dining, and even a beach or two – but we missed out on Sconset which lies on the opposite side of the island. (Note – you can get there by public bus but we didn’t want to push it and miss our ferry back.)

We lucked out and got a fantastic lunch seat at Cru, which fills up weeks in advance for dinner but is open to walk-ins during the day. We rounded out our feast with scoops at Jack & Charlie’s Ice Cream before boarding the ferry back. It was a long day but Ben was a trooper and we’re so glad we squeezed in this day trip.

NEWPORT

We loved Newport. The town has a lot of personality, there are gorgeous old mansions to tour (you’ll feel like you’re in Europe!), and there are some beautiful vineyards and sprawling ocean-front grounds on which to sip rose. We only spent a day and a half there, but it was just enough time to get a good flavor of the city.

My reco: When you get downtown, head for The Black Pearl. It was the perfect spot to dine on the wharf, surrounded by the most charming streets, a view of the water, and a menu that was tasty but not overpriced. We didn’t think we’d have a chance at getting in without reservations, but lucky us, we were immediately escorted to a prime table outside along the water.

The following day we did a lawn & garden tour of the mansions – The Marble House and The Breakers. We didn’t think it would be wise to let a toddler loose inside these grand and opulent estates, but in hindsight, I’d focus only on The Breakers and find a way to see both the inside and outside. It truly was the most spectacular of all the homes. (Though I’d take any one of them!)

We capped off the day with drinks at The Lawn at Castle Hill Inn. The restaurant was nearly impossible to get into without long-standing reservations, but they welcome walk-ins on their Adirondack chairs outside until they reach capacity. Patrons outside can head into the bar to grab drinks, which they can enjoy while looking out at the sunset. It was awesome and one of our highlights of the trip.