Creative Together

Alexa is incredibly creative. Our house is full of charming, quirky, cute, and/or useful touches that have made our apartment feel warm and inviting (see here, for example).

Recently, we decided to work a project together, and I got to take a more active role (when compared to, say, sanding...). After a speed bump or two that delayed the project, we finally finished!

Here's what we did.

First, we got four blank 16x20 canvases.

Then, we painted the canvases four different colors (colors that matched throw pillows in our family room).

We had a plan for each of these canvases. Since getting married, we've spent time in four different states - California, Utah, Oregon, and, now, Washington. We wanted to create recognizable skylines representative of each of those states. From here, we found shapes and buildings for each skyline, and drew those shapes on a piece of vinyl that we then stuck to each canvas. We also cut out the state name in vinyl and stuck in near the bottom. It went sort of like this.

That was definitely the hardest step. Lost a little hair doing all of that.

After that, we painted everything on the bottom of the canvas black.

Once all the paint dried, we pulled off the vinyl and here's what was left.

California, where we both grew up. San Francisco is close to where Alexa grew up, and the Oakland Temple (overlooking the city) is where we were married.

Utah, where we went to college and did most of our dating. We did a blend of Provo and Salt Lake City, with the mountains (even Squaw Peak) in the background.

Oregon, where I spent a summer. I had gotten an internship in Portland, but we were house-sitting for family at the time, so Alexa had to stay behind in Utah. It was a long, tough summer, but Alexa was able to come out often enough to visit. We had a lot of adventures.

Washington, where we've ended up for now. My internship led to a full time job, and took us to Seattle and the greater Puget Sound. We moved here just two weeks after Will was born.

It feels nice to finally have them all up on our wall!

And our next project? Well, we're going to take it easy. We found an awesome little ferry at a garage sale just this past weekend, and we're going to paint it. Suggestions?

Dancing Baby

In these videos, you will learn a few things:

1) Will loves to dance.

2) Nodding your head counts as dancing.

3) Daniel is a pretty awesome dancer on crutches.

4) We like Justin Timberlake over here. Two videos, two JT songs.

Some New Projects

We have been in a crafty mood around here lately.

This is a menu board that we made together. I LOVE it. I first saw this on a friend's blog here.  I thought it was genius! You write all of your most frequent meals on cards. Then you clip it onto the appropriate day of the week. When you are done, you pick new ones. This has eliminated one of the biggest (and most stressful) questions of my life: "What should I make for dinner this week?" I love that you can easily swap the cards if I change my mind, don't have time, eat out, etc., but I still remember what I have all the stuff for. It helps us to waste less food and have more variety.

This one is still a work in progress, but I'm afraid if I don't share it now, I never will. We are working on skylines of all the places we have lived together. We used a lot of vinyl, modge podge, and paint. We haven't finished California, and Oregon needs to be redone with a lighter paint color, but we are getting there. I love it so far.

Last, but not least, Will has discovered his love of crayons! He especially enjoyed decorating the thank you cards for his birthday presents.

We got him some toddler crayons (above), but we quickly switched over to the real things (below).

What We Do While Daniel is at Work

Because we are driving so much these days, I try to plan activities for us to do so that Will can get out of the car in between trips. So, we have had many more adventures than usual lately!

We explored Pike Place Market (where Will had his first taste of the most delicious doughnuts ever).

We went to see the famous cherry blossoms at the University of Washington. He had the time of his life.

We bought a membership to the Zoo. We have gone twice in the past week - best investment ever.

(He is signing "bird" in this picture. He REALLY loves birds.)

We sure love Washington. We wish Daniel could come play with us, but really he couldn't do these things with a broken ankle even if he wasn't working. We will have to party with him this summer.

One Year Old

Somewhere within all the broken bone craziness, our sweet baby Will turned a year old. What a wonderful, amazing, and joyful year it has been.

A Few Minutes Old:

A Few Days Old:

A Few Weeks Old:

One Month:

Two Months:

Three Months:

Four Months:

Five Months:

Six Months:

Seven Months:

Eight Months:

Nine Months:

Ten Months:

Eleven Months:

One Year:

There is so much to say about this bundle of energy. He is curious, loving, affectionate, mischievous,   happy, giddy, sometimes ill-tempered, crazy, determined, intelligent, silly, fantastic.  He has turned into quite a trickster with a fun and goofy personality. We love and adore him so much.

We had pretty low-key celebrations, but Will was certainly spoiled by many friends and family members with amazing gifts. We probably don't need to buy a toy ever again. Thank you everyone!

Yet Another Broken Bone

We have not had the best of luck. In the past 2 years, Daniel and I have had four broken bones and a sprained ankle. This time, it is a broken ankle for Daniel. We should probably start taking some calcium supplements.

Three weeks ago, Daniel was on a hike with the Scouts, slipped, and caught his leg underneath himself. He hobbled off the mountain, our much-anticipated trip to the temple was put on hold, and we began the whole process of: Doctor #1, X-Rays, boot, Doctor #2, X-Rays, cast, X-Rays, CAT Scan, Doctor #3, X-Rays, cast. Whew!

He is pretty lucky because we got him an awesome knee scooter. I am jealous, but Boeing is just too big to navigate on crutches.

(See his cast peeking out?)

This injury has brought a lot of changes. The biggest change is that Will and I now have to drive Daniel to and from Renton twice a day (because it is his driving foot that is broken). Thankfully, with Daniel's current work schedule we are able to miss traffic. This means that we are only spending 3 hours in the car each day instead of 5 hours. Will has been a trooper. He really has done so much better than I expected!