Here we go! We have another baby joining our family in March! We are so excited and can’t believe we will have another newborn in our arms so soon.
We found out we were expecting in early July (while we were in Jackson Hole actually!) and it’s been a whirlwind ever since. I’m finally feeling somewhat normal again and am officially showing with a little bump!
Our daughter seems excited but honestly, she has no idea what’s going on… when do babies actually realize what’s going on? I have no idea haha. But for now, she’s just pleased to be showing off her smile.
We are going to wait again to find out the gender (at least that’s the plan for now) and can’t wait to see if our daughter is going to have a little brother or little sister! I’m feeling little sister… but we’ll see in March!
Newport Beach… one of my absolute favorite trips in the world. We’ve been coming to Newport every summer since I was a little girl and I can’t believe I now have my little girl to enjoy it with!
…my little girl who can’t seem to stay still for pictures for the life of her these days. Always on the run!
We took it pretty easy while we were there this year. We had lots of pool time, went to the beach one day, went shopping and, of course, hit up all of the restaurants we love to go to while there! I’m just still trying to get used to how much sunscreen Penelope requires… she definitely got her dads skin! 😂
One of my favorite things to do while in Newport is walking the Crystal Cove state park. It is truly one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and I highly recommend you go if you ever find yourself in Southern California. And of course, you need to end it with a shake and fries at their shake shack!
One thing we did a little bit differently this year was rent a boat and boat around Balboa Island! We loved cruising and looking at all of the incredible homes surrounding the island. My brother-in-law also had the Zillow app out the entire time which was equal parts fascinating… and depressing.
And on our last day, we celebrated my 27th birthday at Disneyland! Why do I feel so old when I say 27? I am a 21-year-old at heart, I swear! But 27… man.. I’m getting old haha!
My heart!
Penelope LOVED twinning with her cousins at Disneyland and couldn’t stop chasing them around and twirling in her pretty Minnie dress.
And it’s never a stop at Disneyland without a stop at Willie’s churros! Our favorite churro stand!
Hope you guys are having the best week! I’ll be posting our NYC pictures soon so stay tuned! And if you want an alert via email each time I have a new post, click here.
Santa Barbara has always been a bucket list item of mine and I’m so glad we made it happen! We had our annual family trip in Newport scheduled for August but we had to move our flights up a couple of days since Wills little brother was returning from his church mission. I figured since we were leaving the trip early we should just start the trip earlier… makes sense, right?
We flew in and out of Long Beach which was a tad bit of a mistake since the drive to Santa Barbara was pretty long and we really only had 24 hours to spend there… but, we made the most out of it and I’m so glad we made it happen.
Ever since my friend Christopher posted pictures of his stay at the Rosewood Miramar resort, I was obsessed (literally everything at this resort is my taste… to a t) but it was a little bit out of our price range (okay or a lot out of our price range) so we opted to just walk through it instead and I took pictures of everything I could 😂 Don’t let these pictures fool you… we really stayed at the cheapest Hilton I could find.. which happened to be the airport Hilton located inside a business park. Haha! Maybe one day we’ll afford to stay here. A girl can dream, right?
But seriously, how dreamy is this resort? I was obsessed with every detail.
The rest of our time in Santa Barbara (you know, outside the time we spent walking around hotels we couldn’t afford which is totally normal, right?) was spent walking every inch of it we could and eating through of all the recommendations I received on Instagram on where to eat. We had McConnell’s ice cream, Los Agaves (so so so good) and Backyard Bowls for acai bowls! I wish we could’ve eaten at so many more restaurants while we were there.
One unique recommendation we received that I loved was to go to the Santa Barbara local farmer’s market on Saturday morning and we loved walking around and grabbing some fresh fruit. If only I could’ve taken all the fresh flowers with me too!
Until next time, Santa Barbara! Which I hope is very, very soon…
Our Master Bathroom & Bedroom! (in collaboration with Lemco Design)
We are so excited to share our master bathroom and bedroom!
When we walked through our house for the very first time, I knew that if we ended up getting the house, the master bedroom/bathroom was the only thing I really wanted to fix right off the bat. And I am so glad that we did! It was so fun to dream up what I wanted to do with it and see it all come to life.
Above is the before picture. Nothing was necessarily “wrong” with the bathroom but I really wanted bigger vanity space and a longer/taller shower.
Here is what I drafted up on my computer and we ended up getting pretty darn close! We ended up matching the cabinetry colors and I’m glad we did. I don’t think I would’ve loved the navy as much in such a small space!
And here is the AFTER! I love it so much. The only things we have left to do are hang our towel rods and we are good to go.
As far as the bedroom goes, I really really wanted to carpet the bedrooms (over the hardwood) and once again, I am SO glad we did. However, carpet can be risky with stains so I made sure to choose a carpet that got almost any stain out and we are obsessed with the one we chose!
We went through Lemco Design to get our carpet and I can’t suggest them enough. They were all so kind, great to work with, and had the best options out of anywhere else we looked. It’s also so important to me to use local companies as much as possible so I’m so grateful so many people recommended Lemco Design when we asked on Utah Grubs!
We went with the Mohawk 2S45 Luxurious Escape carpet in Filtered Smoke.
Do carpet lines make anyone else extremely happy?
And of course, I love our Emi & Co paintings in our bedroom.
Drawer organization also makes me extremely happy. Am I insane?
And there you have it! I don’t know how anyone ever renovates a complete home. This one about took the life out of me… 😂
The extended Gochnour family has been doing Jackson Hole every summer for almost 60 years! It’s the greatest tradition that I feel so lucky to be a part of. I have already been on the trip five times but this time was my very favorite since Penelope finally joined us!
We were able to do almost everything with everyone besides run the river. When everyone went to do that, we had the best day as a family and went swimming in the lake, ate the famous Signal Mountain nachos, and had ice cream by the water. Seriously one of my absolutely favorite days as a family that I never want to forget!
We always do the Jenny Lake hike every year and Penelope did great during it! She refused to keep her hat on (hence why it’s on me) but loved being her new hiking backpack!
That SMILE! Hahaha I’m dead. Just a gal who loves hiking…
Also, I don’t know why, but her little shoes made me so happy the entire trip. Why are baby shoes the cutest things in the world?!
If you’ve never been to Jackson Lake, you need to add it to your bucket list! It is seriously the most gorgeous lake right at the base of the Tetons! It’s a view that will seriously take your breath away.
And of course, we continued our morning walk tradition (this time with a LOT more mosquitos accompanying us!) and loved walking in all of the gorgeous trees up to Signal Mountain.
I’ll take a $6 croissant, please. Everything is more expensive in Jackson! 😅
And on the last night, Penelope fell asleep in my arms! This hasn’t happened since April 19th (to be exact) and seriously made me want to cry. I want her to stay this little forever and ever!
First off, so many of you are PASSIONATE about which car seat is best and I am HERE FOR IT. I almost felt a tad bit afraid to post which car seat we ended up going with because people seemed to be SO passionate about one vs. the other… but we love the one we ended up going with and I’m going to share the other results below!
We went with the Nuna Rava and I’m going to tell you why!
When we started looking, were honestly pretty split between the Nuna and the Maxi Cosi Pria. I heard so many incredible things about both and the final decision came when I put both car seats in our car. We had a lot more room for the front seats to move back with the Nuna vs. the Pria. Keep in mind that Will is 6’6″ so we need as much leg room as possible for him! That was the game changer for us.
We also got this seat protector for underneath it! I had no idea how much damage our car seat was doing to our seats until I was switching out my infant car seat for this one! I feel so much better having this underneath.
And of course, I love having this organizer on the floor! Another huge game changer! I just need to restock it with all of her snacks now after our road trip…
And here are the other top recommendations people gave from my poll on Instagram! These 6 were recommended over and over again and all had different opinions.
The most recommended but not by much! The Pria was a close second. People loved the Nuna for the fabric (no flame retardants), 10 different positions forward and back facing, fits a newborn all the way up to 65 lb child and it’s aircraft certified. Con: price point is on the higher side.
I’ve been coming up to Bear Lake almost every single 4th of July since I was a little girl and it is truly one of my favorite traditions. I cherish the time I get to spend up there and love watching Penelope grow to love it too!
My grandparents own the cabin so we share it with all of our cousins and I LOVE all the memories I have with my cousins playing up there every summer. I am going to be one sad girl when our family is too big to go every year! My cousins are all growing their families too (which is obviously amazing and such a happy thing) so I know that one day we will have to all take turns going up and I’m already so sad thinking about it! Change is always good but so hard for me! So I soaked up this year big time.
The actual 4th was surprisingly a little rainy this year but that didn’t stop us from having lots of fun. We made hot dogs, sung to my little brother whose birthday it was, danced around with some sparklers and then watched Dumbo!
Oh, and of course had our fair share of chocolate covered raspberries.
I was also able to take my sisters family pictures while we were up there and love how they turned out! It’s really easy to take pictures when your models are the cutest nieces in the world!
Always love getting out on the boat too!
And of course we all just pretty much sat around and starred at Penelope in her bikini. Can you even stand those legs?!
Also how cute is the back of her suit?!
We may or may not have a discount code to Albion Fit for you guys on Friday in my Weekend Links post… so if you’re not subscribed to my email updates, now’s the time!
One of the things I’ve been most excited about when it comes to moving into our new home is making it OURS. The second I walked through the house for our first time with our realtor, I had visions of what I could do with the space and it’s been so fun to see it all come to life!
Thanks to RC Willey, we were able to find some pieces (like the cube organizer above!) that were PERFECT for our home and I can’t wait to show you them here!
First up, is our WASHER and DRYER! My favorite thing about this specific washer and dryer set is the WIFI! I am able to start the wash even when I’m away from the house so nothing gets soiled. I’m literally the wooooorst at changing the wash so this has definitely made me feel like super wife! I also love the push notifications I get on my phone once the wash is done so I can go change it right away. Complete game changer!
The couch we found for our living room is even better than we could’ve imagined! It is the perfect shade of grey, big, super comfortable, and hides all of Penelope’s messy fingerprints just perfectly! Now I just need to save up for their Rifle Paper pillows! Aren’t those the cutest?
Another thing I wanted to do with our new home, is to make it a little “smarter”. I had no idea RC Willey carried Nest and other smart home products and am so grateful we now have the thermostat, smoke detector and the doorbell. It’s been so amazing to receive notifications on my phone and watch when people are on our front doorstep!
We are FINALLY in our new house and it feels soo good! This weekend was a complete whirlwind but we are officially in and starting to feel settled.
On Saturday we did a complete deep clean of the house + yard work all day long, on Sunday I moved all of our little things and on Monday we moved our big things with the help of family and Wills friends! And I was quite the boss driving the U-haul van around town… 😉
From all of our moving pictures, this one is easily my favorite. It definitely takes a village and I am so grateful to have mine! Eliza gardened for 8 hours straight while Isabelle watched her girls and my sisters-in-laws took my daughter all day. I was soo grateful for everyone’s help! Couldn’t have done it without them.
Carpeting our bedrooms was one of the best decisions we made! I LOVE the feeling of carpet in bedrooms and the carpet we chose from Lemco is hands down the softest carpet I’ve ever felt!
My favorite part of the whole moving process if of course organizing and placing all of our things back together. Some new things, mostly old! But it gives it such a fun feeling to make a space OURS.
Who has time to blow dry your hair while moving?? My curls were out of control all weekend..
Our little girl is also really loving our little home. I still get asked daily when we are going to do a “house tour” and to be honest.. maybe never? Our house is little (under 2,000 sq ft) and there really isn’t much to show! We didn’t want to buy a house “for show” we wanted to buy a house that we felt comfortable in both physically and financially and this is what we found! We chose location over size! We love it so much and still can’t believe it’s ours.
I also didn’t realize how hard it would be to say goodbye to our old apartment. We have been there for FOUR years! Can you believe that? So many of our biggest life moments happened in there and I’ll forever cherish that little basement apartment.
A couple of weekends ago, I met up with 17 of my best girlfriends from college to celebrate our friend Sarah’s upcoming wedding!
It’s pretty crazy to think that out of 17 of us, we came from NINE different states to get all together. We try to get together once a year but I’ve never been able to come because of work!
Out of the group, we have a nurse in D.C., a law school grad from Harvard, two law students at BYU, an aspiring journalist in LA, dance teachers, school teachers, photographers, foot zoners, moms and more! I’ve loved seeing where we’ve all ended up since college and loved having endless time to just talk and catch up.
San Clemente is one of my new favorite places!
Sarah loves poodles so that was our theme from the weekend. We couldn’t pass up this opportunity to take a picture with this poodle on our walk by the beach!
How cute is this swimmer print from Gathre?! I loved bringing it so we could all lay on it at the beach.
I am so grateful to have this good group of girlfriends. I am one lucky gal!
It still feels pretty surreal that we are finally HOMEOWNERS! The entire home buying process has been a pretty grueling one but we couldn’t be happier with where we ended up.
Will and I started looking for a home in July of 2017 and after walking through what felt like 100 homes we finally found the one that felt “perfect” for us.
We were actually under contract back in October on a different house (found out they accepted our offer on our five year anniversary actually!) and decided not to go through with it after realizing how much it would cost to get the home in working order/up to code.
Then we were pretty much under contract again in February (this time on Valentine’s day!) and decided it was a little out of our price range. It was so beautiful and we kept trying to justify it over and over again but knew it wasn’t the best financial decision for us to make. We wanted to be comfortable and not house poor. And although this house was “picture perfect” it stressed us out way too much to spend that much on a home!
And then we found this one in March…
From the second we stepped inside we knew it was right. It was right in our price range, a comfortable size and the perfect starter home. As we were walking through we both looked at each other at the exact same time and said “This is amazing.” and from that point on, we just felt good about it.
No, it’s not huge and glamorous and it doesn’t have a massive walk-in closet or some outrageous backyard with a pool (that I feel like everyone else’s homes on Instagram has)… but it is OURS. And it is PERFECT!!! I cannot wait for the many years of memories we are going to make in this home together.
We truly could not have done it without my aunt & realtor @Becky Diederich. She is SUCH an amazing agent so if you need someone in Utah you should totally message her! She has the perfectpersonality for an agent and she GETS THE JOB DONE. She is also so knowledgable about the entire process and we were completely clueless haha.
Now onto the fun part… moving! (no seriously I love moving so much)
If you know me, you know by now that shoes, dresses, and swimsuits are my WEAKNESS. I feel like 90% of my closet is comprised of those three items haha. Two pairs of jeans but 20 swimsuits? Sounds about right ☺️
Here are some of my favorite suits of the season!
Hope you love them as much as I do! Now go have fun in the sun and remember to wear your sunscreen 😉
-Liv
My suit above is from Roolee but it is sold out! They do have cute swimsuits though!
