goodbye symmetry

After living with our living room for a few months, I felt like something was a little off. We set up our living room with our two leather chairs on either side of the fireplace and left it like that. To me, it felt a bit too symmetrical, crowded, and "stagey". During pregnancy, I did not have the inclination nor the energy to move things around, so everything stayed as it was. 

Yesterday during Hayden's morning nap, I had the urge to finally move the furniture around. Nick gets a little concerned when I do these things by myself, but I figured if it looked good, he wouldn't mind. (And it was also my birthday so he couldn't be mad at me!) 

So I did a little switcharoo and the chair and TV traded places. I also hung a mirror above the TV since the wall looked a little bare. 

 We are living with the new arrangement for a while to see if we like it better this way, but as of now, it's a welcome change! 

frames, frames everywhere

For the first month and a half of living in our new house, Nick and I  had a pile of picture frames leaning against one wall of our bedroom, with the vague idea that we would create a gallery wall again. However, more pressing jobs (the baby's room, bathroom, yard, etc) took over our weekends and the frames remained week after week. 

Nick went on a business trip in June, and I was feeling a little lonely and restless so I decided to start hanging up some frames. I should also note that hanging pictures is one of Nick's least favorite jobs and it makes him super cranky. I have a little more patience for it, so I decided to do it myself.  I decided to hang the frames on the landing wall between our bedroom and Hayden's. Look how sad and lonely this wall looked before it had any frames:

The first thing I did was lay out all the frames on the floor in some kind of order. Being slightly impatient, I didn't make paper templates or measure the wall at all, I just started with one frame and built around it. It took about an hour and half to get all the frames up on the wall and leveled. Luckily, there were only about two oops holes in the entire process, so I'd call the job a success.

In terms of content, some of the frames are empty, and some have random pictures or scrapbook paper in them. There are certain things that I definitely want to keep up there, but my main objective was just to get the frames off the floor and onto the wall. Since they are easy to remove, it will be no problem to switch out the pictures when I want to.

Of course, now that Mr. Hayden is on the scene, we'll probably switch out all the pictures for shots of our boy. I kid... (not)!

first family vacay

Last week, our little family packed up our little car and headed to the mountains for 10 days to vacation at Lake Tahoe. We stayed at a cabin with my family in Tahoe City. My extended family was up in Tahoe as well so we had tons of whole group dinners, beach outings, and meeting up at our favorite coffee house. It was definitely a different experience traveling with a newborn than going on vacation with just the two of us. Little Mister was a champ but his sleep schedule from the first two weeks was thrown off for most of the vacation. Luckily, we had many people willing begging to hold him so we were able to catch up on some rest during the days.  My favorite parts of the vacation were the quiet mornings spent walking to the coffee shop, and our lazy afternoons at the beach. Here's some snapshots from our first vacation with the little man. 

bob marley and baby

{via}

My baby loves Bob Marley... and  Ziggy and Stephen Marley too. When Hayden gets a little fussy, we'll turn on a little Bob and he calms down in 30 seconds flat. We discovered our son's love of Bob by a happy accident. We were listening to a children's Pandora station when Three Little Birds came on and the little mister was suddenly all ears. We created a Bob Marley Reggae station on Pandora and turn it on whenever we see a meltdown brewing. Our little Rastafarian has Mommy and Daddy learning all the words to every single Bob Marley song. Nick has even gotten a little creative with the lyrics to No Woman, No Cry (now sung as No Hayden, No Cry). Don't be surprised if Little Mister starts sporting dreads and a beanie someday soon...

2 weeks

Mr. Hayden has been here for 2 weeks now and we can't imagine life without him. We are enjoying getting to know our teeny guy and his little personality. Hayden is such a sweet baby. He loves to cuddle with Mommy and Daddy, but is pretty good with everyone else that wants to hold him.  He is a great eater, and eats 10 - 12 times a day, which means lots of quality time for Mommy.

Hayden used to dislike diaper changes and getting dressed but he doesn't mind them too much anymore- especially when he manages to get Daddy during open-air "target practice." He's most relaxed snoozing on Daddy or Mommy's chests. 

Hayden is a good sleeper by newborn standards. He usually only wakes up for one or two (at the most) feedings a night. He's working toward spending longer portions of his nights here:

but usually prefers to sleep in Mom and Dad's bed (which is ok, because they kind of prefer it too right now): 

When he's awake, he enjoys listening to music, dancing with Mommy, 

going on walks with Mommy, Lucy, and Daddy (he usually logs 2 walks a day in his stroller) 

playing with his toys,

and hanging out with his buddy, Lucy.

(She makes sure they stick together, even when he's asleep.)

Little Mister loves bath time too and cuddling up afterwards.

Next up in the adventures of Hayden (and his mommy and daddy) is a 10 day vacation to Lake Tahoe. (-which he naturally helped pack for!) We're hoping his "easy-baby" vibe extends to vacation time as well. 

We are loving life as new parents, as exhausting as it can be at times. Hayden has already brought so much joy and love to our little family in 2 short weeks.  We can't wait to share more updates as he grows. 

a little lighting action

Lest you think the only thing I can talk about these days is my baby boy, I thought I would change it up with a house-related post. We continued to make small updates and work on the house up until right before Hayden was born. One such change was the light in our dining room. 

The previous owners left a giant drum shade fixture in the dining room. Not really our style at all. We planned on living with it for awhile until we could decide on something that we really liked. 

My father-in-law, Bob, works in the lighting industry and he asked if we wanted a new light, one that he had ordered for someone else and then not ended up not using after all. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, we gladly accepted the light.

Nick hung it up a couple weekends ago and we have been enjoying the rustic fixture ever since. It is much less top-heavy than the previous light and it looks good with the Oakland picture behind it. Nick also installed a dimmer so that we can enjoy nice romantic mood lighting during dinner...with our newborn. 

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