Kenzie and Cousins

Kenz is becoming quite the star player on our blog lately. As she should be. Because it was all thanks to her that Jeff and I were able to escape for our first babyless date in roughly a year! We were th-a-rilled.

We were going to try out a hibachi restaurant close by. We walked in, saw the place, and slowly backed away before anyone noticed we were there. We quickly rerouted to a restaurant that seemed less likely to give us food poisoning -- Texas Roadhouse.

We then wandered over to a frozen yogurt place and told each other childhood stories we've managed to make it through this long of life together without hearing from each other. It was fun and perfect and we're grateful Kenz entertained the boys so we could sneak away.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of helping Abe and Klarissa sneak away to Abe's friend's wedding. I got to watch Newland for an afternoon! Newland was very interested in watching Eli and Carson play with cars.

We had to seize the moment for a cousin photo shoot. Hello doll faces. Can boys be doll faces? I vote yes.

I love Newland's arms reaching for each of my boys here.

And even better -- the hug that Newland initiated with Carson.

Newland was such a good boy! He seemed happy to be right along with us doing whatever we were doing.

And he fell asleep on our way to drop him back off with Abe and Klarissa. We loved the worn out cousins crashed together in the back seat.

A couple days later I was watching the Golden Girls (and Boy). It was kind of a rainy and cold day, so I made them clean the house to keep them busy. It took them at least an hour to pick up all these blocks. Mostly because Eli kept dumping them back out. But hey, I watched with a smirk on my face as the cleaning/block basketball playing kept them busy for so long.

On Friday I returned Kenz's babsitting favor by modeling some vintage dresses she sells on Etsy. You should stop by her shop, Seagulls and Salt to see all the adorable things she has found. The dresses I modeled will be up soon so check back often!

Here is a sneak peek of what Kenz did to me. Pink lipstick. High knotted hair. Vintage Dress. I had so much fun! It took me back to our college days of doing photo shoots every other weekend. It's kind of our favorite past time.

You should also like Kenz's page on Facebook to keep up with her latest. She's awesome! I'll model in exchange for babysitting any day of the week!

E is Three!

I'm having a hard time believing Eli has been a part of our family for three years already! I have a three-year old?!?

Eli is really excited about his birthday. He went with me when I got party hats for Carson's birthday, so he is demanding party hats for his birthday celebrations. He is also really excited about his cake.

Here are some cute things about our almost birthday boy: First, when you ask him a question he's not quite sure about, he scratches his head like so:

.

I love it when he does that. Makes me laugh every time.

For the last 3-4 weeks, he has thrown a big fit when it's time to go to nursery on Sundays. I'm talking screaming, leg clutching, arms flailing, tears streaming, rosy-faced crying. Jeff's been spending the sunday school hour in nursery helping Eli warm up to the idea of playing with hundreds of toys and all his friends.

After one particularly rough nursery experience, he came home and crashed. It's tough to be a toddler.

Here he is after an encounter with my blow-dryer.

We're loving the warm weather with lots of play time in the backyard.

Eli figured out night-time potty training seamlessly. He can now go to the bathroom all by himself. I don't know if I'll ever get used to hearing him flush the toilet after a successful independent potty moment.

Eli is such a daddy's boy. If Jeff is home, Eli will not even talk to me.

The other day it rained and Eli escaped out the front door. He went straight for this gutter. His favorite spot in the neighborhood.

Eli is still uninterested in the alphabet, colors and numbers. His version of the alphabet is "A-B-C-D-Elmo-G."

We went over to my sister's house this week. Eli found something that sparked his interest. Luckily he never was able to figure out how it works.

I love Carson's arm around Eli in this one.

I was surprised Eli couldn't figure out the car after this incident happened earlier in the week:

Eli kept escaping out our front door, so we put a high lock on the door. After about a week of watching in frustration as we slid the lock closed every time he was about to break free, he made his move. I was upstairs cooking breakfast and I saw Eli fidgeting with the deadbolt. I grabbed the eggs from the fridge with a smile, grateful to finally have a lock on the door that was out of his reach.

Eli successfully unlocked the deadbolt and the door knob before looking up to be reminded of the extra restraining device we installed. After a second of staring at it, I thought I heard him say, "Oh. My have an idea." But then he ran out into the garage (one of his favorite hang-outs these days), so I continued with my cooking.

A few seconds later, he emerged with my mop. What the heck is he doing?!? I asked myself. My questioning was quickly answered as Eli began swatting at the lock with the handle of the mop.

I laughed at his cleverness. Then muttered no repeatedly as his efforts began working. Then shrieked in horror when the top lock was slid open within one minute of his first attempt.

It's hard to raise a genius.

Eli is so independent, strong-willed, curious, clever, handsome, fun, hilarious, coordinated, energetic, loving and determined. I love seeing all the things he comes up with and he teaches me patience on a daily basis. Happy almost Birthday Eli. We're glad you're ours.

One is Fun!

Is it bad to say I have a favorite age for my children to be? Granted, I have only seen up to three years' worth of ages, but so far my favorite age is 1. Innocent, fun, light-hearted, relatively obedient, still napping one-year olds. They're the reason people have babies.

Okay. Almost three-year olds are pretty great, too. But we'll get to that age in another post. This one's all about our little Carson boy.

I can't describe Carson without the word "goof" coming to my mind. He is just so funny and goofy. He is always cracking us up. He is out to have a good time wherever he goes.

This is the face he makes when he thinks something is really funny. It looks and sounds like a fake laugh, but this is his genuine ROTFL face.

His goofiness comes with a charming side as well. Look at those eyes!

He is in the stage where he is doing something new every day. He follows Eli around all day long copying his every move.

He has also started up another sleep strike. This kid has only slept all the way through the night maaaaaaaaaaybe 10 days total in his entire life. Here he is after refusing to go to bed one night at 10:00. Turns out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is what finally did the trick.

He has started talking a lot lately. Jabbers constantly, but he's starting to say recognizable (to me) things. My favorite thing he says right now happens every time he hears a loud car drive by. He immediately looks at me excited and says, "Whedada." (Where's da da?)

He also points at things all day long saying, "Whadat?" (what's that?)

He occasionally says mama. He also says baba, ball, dog and sometimes Eli. He also weirdly said temple the other day after he was looking at a picture of the St. George temple and kept asking me what it was.

He is trying to be a one-nap-a-day kinda boy lately. Makes for grumpy evenings and early bedtimes!

Jeff made a stool so that Eli can wash his hands more easily in the bathroom. Carson has taken a liking to it.

He's a fun little kitchen helper.

I love my little Carson man! He is so fun and he's growing up too fast!

Aesthetics

You know. When I got a marketing degree, I thought my degree would mostly teach me about advertising and even include a few graphic design classes. Unfortunately, my degree included zero graphic design classes and focused more on the process of getting a product into the hands of consumers rather than specifically dissecting the advertising aspect of it all. It wasn't until my senior year that I learned SUU offered an Advertising major. That included graphic design classes.

Seeing as I wasn't about to change my major one semester away from graduating, I took it upon myself to learn what I needed to learn to satisfy my graphic design/advertising cravings. Enter -- curtain business.

I recently changed the name of my Etsy shop! It is now called The Crooked Branch -- inspired by my childhood street name. I have loved rebranding my shop and coming up with cute things to make my company more aesthetically appealing. Here is a card I include when someone requests swatches:

This one is kind of like my business card. It is included in all the packages I send out.

I was really honored a couple months ago when a website contacted me and wanted to feature my curtains on a project they were working on called The House That Etsy Built. They decorated a house with products from almost 100 different Etsy shops. These three pictures are from that project:

Another thing I'm feeling the need to show off is an invitation I made for a Young Women's activity we had recently.

 
I've also slowly been working on making our house more aesthetically appealing. It took me a near 6 months to get both of these curtains finished and to decide on throw pillows for the couch. I am completely loving the way our living room is coming together.

I have serious commitment problems when it comes to fabric. I don't even want to tell you how many hours I spent and how much fabric I bought before deciding this would be perfect.

My dream is to turn the basement living room area into a playroom. This is the first step in that process. Next step is adding shelves for storing the mess of toys we currently have down there.

It is so exciting to me to see design ideas come to life!