Baby shoes!

Elsa is knocking off milestones left and right around here! One day she was crawling and seriously the next minute she was hauling ass all over the house. She's a fast and determined little crawler. This week she was able to pull herself up to standing in her crib for the first time (that we witnessed) and she can do it with no effort now. We posted videos up on our YouTube channel if you'd like to see.

Anyways, it's probably just going to be minutes before our little girl is walking. Elsa is almost constantly barefoot, and will stay that way through most of the summer I'm sure, but she's her mother's daughter so she needs to start amassing a little shoe collection, for those times when shoes are called for. I realized that she didn't have many pairs (ones that fit her at least) when I was dressing her in her party-ware for Jude's birthday, so I hopped on to Etsy and found a couple awesome vintage pairs:

I love this style. The double buckle mary janes with little cutouts are just so classic. I got them from Little Reader Vintage. I love their stuff and the prices are great.

These ones I couldn't resist. The little heart cut outs on top are colored in. So cute. I think both of these pairs are going to be too big for now, but she'll eventually grow into them. I also couldn't resist this little pinafore to go with them:

I mean, seriously. A blue gingham embroidered cat on an apron dress. Size 12 months. Sold! I got the white shoes and this dress from the shop LaDiDottie, another Etsy favorite. 

And then I got a text from Karen this week who had apparently read my mind, because she scooped up these adorable little German shoes for Elsa's birthday:

I just about had a stroke when I saw them. SO cute, and the color is perfect. They're so Euro, and how I always thought I'd dress my baby. Can't wait to see her toddling around in all of these!

Recent Instagrams

For those not on Instagram, here are a few recent favorites...

I wish he was always sitting on my desk like this while I work.

Karen took this one in Santa Barbara. I love the colors. So vintage!

Thor giving me nuzzles.

From this morning. Chipper little baby. Comatose dad.

Baby Adirondacks

Check out Elsa's new outdoor lounge area!!

So cute, right? I found these little gems at my neighborhood shop Magnolia & Willow and drove by them about 53 times before not being able to stand the cuteness anymore and running in to buy them. They were a steal, probably because the paint was a little scuffed up. This is what they looked like before:

Nothing that a free paint sample can of Benjamin Moore paint in Watermelon can't spruce up! *Note: Sunset magazine is awesome, but even more so because there is always a coupon for a free sample can of BM paint in it. And it's not a dinky little test cup either, it's a solid pint size can and you can get any of the colors matched to it. Deal!

I love that one of the chairs is a two-seater. It's going to be perfect for Elsa/Jude, Elsa/Shalom, Elsa/Henry photo shoots. :)

I painted one coat of the red on the smaller chair and then gave up, deciding to go with spray paint instead since painting with a brush in all the nooks and crannies was taking forever. Jeff stepped in and did another few coats on both in about an hour. Did I mention my husband's a painter? Comes in handy. So he gets credit for the excellent paint job. Love them! Friends- bring over your children and let's take some crazy cute pictures.

Camp+King+Jeff

This is the mural Jeff was commissioned to do up in San Francisco a few weeks ago, shown by time lapse video. Awesome!

New desk and some prinstagrams

My desk used to be Jeff's art table, and then a friend's dining table before that, so it's seen some days. When I inherited it, there were a ton of scribbled drawings, paint streaks, x-acto knife gouges, and spilled coffee all over it. I covered it up with some oilcloth and lived with it for about 4 years. Whoa! That's probably the longest I've EVER sat on a project that was eating away at me. Anyways, I tackled it this weekend and sanded and repainted it and it's a shining beauty now. I love it. I used the flat white paint from our hallway stripes for the legs and the high gloss gray from the bathroom vanity for the tabletop so this project was free fifty free! I almost want to work now so I can go and sit at it.

I'm waiting for the paint to really cure before styling it up with my desk goodies so this is a place-holding after shot. We FINALLY got our printstagrams in the mail (srsly, they took forever and they don't send you an order confirmation or a tracking number or anything which is frustrating, AND we're still waiting on the postal pix!! Ugh.) so I lined them all up to look at them. Even though it was a long wait getting them, they're pretty rad.

The tiny books (to the right in the pic below) are TINY and kind of silly, but I like anything in miniature so of course I love them. The mini books are better, and will be nice little photo albums our parents can carry around and bore people to death with. :)

I like the card stock they're printed on. I have them in my little berry basket right now that will go on my desk so I can flip through them when I get wistful of how little my baby used to be. Tear.

Happy Dad's Day!

I'm so lucky to have these amazing dads in my life. Elsie and I cherish you.

4 years

Four years ago today I married my sweetie, and the good life began. I love you babies. To many more...

So handsome.

Santa Barbara

To celebrate Andy and Karen's birthdays, and our 4 year wedding anniversary, the six of us took a 3 day, two night trip to beautiful Santa Barbara this past weekend. It was so needed, and so very awesome. Great friends to travel with, and the babies didn't bring down the party too much. We stayed in the Presidio Motel on State which was great, although the addition of a hot tub and a fire pit would have made it awesomer. Can't complain though, the rooms were super fun and we had a great patio right outside our rooms to party on while the littles slept, and it was a short walk down to the shops and restaurants, and a short bike ride down to the water.

Our room had this giant mobile hanging above the bed with origami shapes strung from it, which Elsa loved. The decals on the walls were fun too.

Out on the patio, baby monitor in the pocket.

Karen of course took a crazy ton of great pictures I'm sure. I'll need to snag some of those from her at some point. Karen! Burn me a CD.

Fat head.

Our room number door plaque.

Poor Jeff did the lion's share of childcare during the meals. We're a little hypersensitive about Elsa whining and crying in restaurants so Jeff would strap her in and walk her around outside after wolfing down his meal. We can distract her with Cheerios for only so long.

We borrowed four of the motel's bikes and brought Jeff and Karen's bikes with the baby seats and rode down to the beach. Elsa loved her new iBert seat! I knew she would. It's like the Baby Bjorn, except she gets to go a lot faster.

She was so entertained that she didn't mess with her huge helmet at all, and kicked up her little foot to relax on the ride.

Chilling out on the patio lounge chairs.

When we got home, we walked down to our neighborhood park and put Elsa in the baby swing for the first time. That girl has a taste for the wind in her face, she loved swinging too. She's turning into a little toddler in front of our eyes (minus the toddling part. Still can't even crawl.)!

Catching up... New veggie garden!

With a lot of my dad's help and a little of Jan's, we got all the ice plant out by the patio and replaced it with a sweet new raised veggie box! I love it. Getting there was awful though. Apparently spiders totally love making ice plant bushes their homes. As my dad was ripping it up, spiders came pouring out onto the dirt and concrete patio as he shrugged and I screamed and stomped around on them with my clogs. *shudder*

Here is the before, almost snapped too late because my dad was ripping it up about 10 seconds after we unloaded the Home Depot supplies from the truck. Such an eager little Norwegian.

It took him no time at all to clear it up and level out the dirt. I really helped minimally here, mostly because of the spiders, partly because I was making sure Elsa wasn't putting dead grass or a spider in her mouth.

Jan arrived around this stage and helped my dad to lay down the weedblocker fabric and assemble the raised box kits. They're these ones from Home Depot and they were great. Inexpensive, nice cedar, and super easy to assemble. I like the modularity of them too.

We (they) dumped in the soil and spread out the black mulch around Linus the Lemon Tree and the bed, and then I planted the little seedlings I started in my mini greenhouse a few weeks back. We're going with lemon cucumbers in the back box, and radishes, bell peppers, zucchini and beets in the front box. I think I'll have to pull a few of those out so it's not too crowded, so it's a race to see which seedlings are the strongest and get to stay in their new home.

TA-DA! It looks so much cleaner than all that greenery from before that was spilling out over the concrete patio, and much less of a spider haven.

That white fence and garage wall are begging to be decorated somehow. We need another fence painting party.

About an hour after all the work in the garden:

Thanks Dad and Jan!

Nerd.

So sorry for the absence, my dear blog fans (all four of you). I feel like I have to explain. You see, we decided to give up cable (partly to save our brains, partly to offset the cost of our new alarm and monitoring system) and with that, my passion for reading has been renewed. I sound like Jeff (I think paddleboarding is my new passion) or Brooke (literature is my passion...) but it's true! I'm such a nerd now, looking forward to Elsa falling asleep so I can curl up with my Kindle every night. Anyways, I'm obsessed with Jo Nesbo's murder mysteries so I've been tearing through those, letting this blog and my reader languish in neglect.

I'll try to be better though. Here are some recent snapshots.

I love her new rug. It's such a fun backdrop to my pictures, but it's cushy and lovely to play on. No more head thumps on the hardwood floors!

I love how relaxed she looks sleeping, with her hands behind her head. She had her lovey draped over her eyes as usual but I pulled it off so I could see her face for this picture.

My dad is here visiting this week to babysit while Jeff is up in SF for a commission (picture him in denim cutoff shorts and no shirt, painting a mural in a crowded office) and he's been having a blast with Miss E. She took to him right away and has been such a little peach. It was warm enough today for the pool (we got a new smaller one that heats up quicker than the last), but she just stayed in for a bit. I think she's still a little unsure about the whole play pool thing.

And the boys. Thor flopped over their bed and Tyr styling his back fur. They seem to be more needy than usual, I think because they miss their Alpha Cat. Good thing he'll be back in a few days, we're all missing him....