Sunday Lemons...

I have to say, today was a BEAUTIFUL day. It started off with the hubs taking the babe so I could sleep in (!!), then I had time for a quick bowl of cereal before we started doing some much needed yard work. We have the CUTEST yard, it's honestly what sold me on our house. I love that there's plenty of grass for Lady to run around in and I always picture Finn playing on the swing under the lemon tree. What's even better is the nice paved area that will be great for trikes and chalk pictures. Some day we'll build an awning off of the back for some shade and get the fire pit up and running for s'mores in the summer.

After a long afternoon of lounging in the sun, there are few things better than a sleeping babe and homemade lemonade. :)

With love,

Kayla

Family Big Bear Trip...

Finally got to go on our first family vacation with the babe! Contrary to original thought, he did GREAT on the drive up to Big Bear (hallelujah!). We had SO much fun taking time off from our normal day-to-day to spend some quality time together as a family.

We even strapped the babe on and took him sledding for the first time...and he HATED it!! Haha. Thankfully, we got some cute photos and you can't even tell he's screaming for his life!

Even Lady got in on the sledding action!

And don't even try to tell me he's not the CUTEST moose you've ever seen! ;)

With love,

Kayla

Afternoon Stroll

The Southern California summer is hanging on by a thread and makes for great afternoon walks with two of my faves. The air was crisp and cool this morning, the first taste of fall we've had down here. It'll be back to hot for the rest of the week, but for today we got a little rain and some grey cloudy skies.

Our first walk with the stroller went pretty well. At times, Lady was excellent, at others...it seemed a bit like pushing a shopping cart with a broken wheel through Walmart. :) We'll keep practicing and I know she'll get it down!

It felt great to be out and about and back on my feet. Lady and I got our heart rates up and Finn got to rest his sweet eyes. I wanted to walk around the neighborhood and down streets I hadn't before. We've lived in this neighborhood since the end of April but I'm still not familiar with all of its twists and turns. We ended up walking by the cutest house all decorated for fall with red, orange and yellow flowers. It was too cute to walk by without stopping to take a photo!

With love,

Kayla

The Hunt: Part Two

The house hunt continues! Our roomie joined us for a day of scouting and, unfortunately, it ended up being a bit of a disappointing day. No luck with finding "the one" today, but we did get to tour a Spanish-style bungalow near uptown Whittier. The house was very unique and featured a rustic brick pathway leading up to the front, textured stucco interior walls and an AWESOME vintage industrial style light fixture with Edison light bulbs in the newly remodeled kitchen.

Staying true to the Spanish-style of the interior, the kitchen cabinets featured hand-painted floral motif knobs that were TO DIE FOR. Each pair of cupboards had a different knob style and color scheme that just added to the uniqueness of the room.

My favorite part about this house was that I could truly see our big square dining room table in the formal dining room, overlooking the living room with a stuccoed-in brick fireplace and mantle. It was truly a cozy home that, albeit a bit small, but perfect for our little family. :)

With love,

Kayla

Village Venture

Claremont hosts an amazing arts and crafts fair every year, the Village Venture. The hubs' family runs an adorable shop making succulent gardens in the outdoor patio of an old vintage shop right in the middle of downtown. The streets were shut down for the all-day event and we had so much fun perusing the different streets filled with booths.

On the walk over, we found this cute bench and decided to take a break for a family photo! Quite frankly, it's embarrassing the number of tries it took to get this ONE cute photo of all three of us. :)

Petals n Wings was all decked out and festive for Halloween. They had the cutest pumpkin gardens, and my wonderful mother-in-law saw fit to give me a mini-pumpkin for my desk at work!

Wandering the streets led us to some adorable metal working and hand-made jewelry booths. I absolutely love browsing hand-made shops, you never know what sort of treasures you may find! Brad helped me pick out a beautiful, simple initial necklace that I'm sure will be a staple in my wardrobe right along with my bar necklace he had engraved with our wedding anniversary. :)

With love,
Kayla

The Perfect Saturday

Yesterday was amazing. The last few weeks with Brad traveling have been trying, to say the least. We miss him terribly while he's away, that's for sure, but yesterday he was home, and we were all together and it was perfect. I love long walks on the beach for two reasons: 1) you get to walk with your toes in the sand and the ocean lapping at your heels, there's really nothing more relaxing than that, and 2) walking hand-in-hand with my hubs and Lady running and sniffing everything she possibly can and chasing her ball, but never going too far away because she couldn't possibly want to miss anything, is the greatest example of love I could ever imagine. The comfort and happiness we have together is unlike anything. I love our little family and being together, laughing and walking is the best kind of "perfect". :)

But then, because we can't be TOO relaxed, we met up with some friends to go see The Shining at Sunnyside Cemetery in Longbeach. Now, I'm not a big horror movie kinda girl, but it sounded like fun and I'm up to try anything once! We brought blankets, pillows, wine, snacks and, of course, Lady! She did so great at her first outdoor movie and she honestly made the movie a little more bearable for me! Anytime I was getting nervous and the suspense was killing me, I'd just scoop her up and hug her real close and she'd snuggle in and we'd sit like that together, hoping for the best.

With love,
Kayla

Five Years...

Five years ago this boy asked me to be his girlfriend and today I am his wife. He's amazing, funny, loving, incredibly gracious and I am blessed beyond measure to call him mine. And because I'm feeling nostalgic, I can't help but look through these old photos and reminisce about how late night phone calls, long distance trials, moving to another state and planning a life together all started because this boy asked a girl to go to breakfast on a Sunday morning.

With love,

Kayla