last weeks recap and high-waisted jeans

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Yep, I’ve found myself the ultimate mom JEANS!  They hug you in the right places and have a relaxed fit everywhere else.  I love a good pair of comfortable high waisted jeans and these ones are the winners.

I can’t say enough good things about this TEE.  First, I love that it is a pure white and isn’t sheer.  Secondly, it looks cute paired with some high waisted jeans, skirt, and pretty much anything.  It’s my go-to top these days!

Raen’s romper is from REVERIE THREADS.  It’s the cutest shop with the best cause.  Two sisters decided to start it because the oldest sister has had breast cancer three times and is in remission causing her to be unable to bear her own kids for the next 10 years.  Her younger sister said she would be her surrogate so this shop is how they are raising the money to support the surrogacy!

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The home that we bought was brand new but it was already being built by the builder meaning that they picked out everything for the house.  They picked out the paint, hardware, layout, tile, carpet, evvveerrryyything.  It’s so great because it’s a brand new build but the bummer is that the details are not what we would have picked out.  It’s still absolutely beautiful but we figured that before we move in, we might as well make the changes now, especially because my kids have asthma and taking out tile is insanely dusty.

This past week we’ve been busy finalizing the home updates.  We decided to have Ben tear out the tile that was everywhere on the main floor of the house, which is a big amount of tile.  I was the moral support!  If you are debating on whether or not to tear out the tile on your own, I don’t suggest it!  We had no idea what we were getting ourselves in to.  Ben was even able to borrow professional tools from our friend who is a contractor and it’s taken far more time than we expected and was way more work.  But, if you have the drive to do it and want to save money, then go for it!

We decided to replace the tile with a hardwood and I cannot wait to see it in the space.  The tile before was a dark grey and I’m thinking that this wood will help to open everything up and will add more light.  Once that is done, we can finally move in!  We will be replacing the countertops, hardware and light fixtures as well so I can’t wait to share photos of the finished product!

Milo started dance twice a week for two hours at a time and she loves it.  If you followed along on Instagram last year, Milo would come home from gymnastics and would show everyone what she learned.  It was one of my favorite story segments because she is so uncoordinated that watching her try and do a summersault or splits was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!  It usually ended with her flopping uncontrollably in one direction or another.  I’m thinking maybe we should start it back up again.

Ben decided to take the kids along with him to Utah this weekend because he had a wedding he was photographing and wanted to make a road trip out of it.  Because we used to live up there we have lots of friends and Ben’s family who could help out with the kids while he was busy working.  I’m not going to lie, the idea of the kids being away for the weekend gave me anxiety.  I’ve never been home without Milo and Ruck.  Ben has also never taken them both on a road trip so combining the two things together, (let’s be honest, it’s probably my hormones that are getting the best of me) it made me nervous.  When I said goodbye, I cried.  I know, I’m lame and normally I’m down for some “me” time but this was all too unfamiliar.  But, the more that time went by I realized it was something that was needed for all of us!  The kids are having the time of their life with Ben.  He’s probably the funnest person around so I’m sure no one is surprised by that but it has been good for them to spend some one on one time with him for several days.  They are all so excited because on the way back they are sleeping at Lake Powell in Ben’s van.  I did learn that most motherly things go out the window like brushing the kids teeth, making sure they have good meals, and putting Milo in her own clothes and not Ruckus’ but hey, this is a trip they will never forget.  Don’t worry, never in a million years would Ben read my blog so I’m safe calling him out on those things!

Raen and I got some much needed one on one time as well while the rest of the crew were away.  I didn’t realize how much of it we were missing until this weekend.  It’s been good to sit and snuggle my newborn, uninterrupted.  He’s been sleeping better than he has since he’s been here with us and I know it’s because he doesn’t have the kids around to wake him up.  He’s getting those z’s that he needs for to cover him for the next few weeks when the kids are around again I think haha.

I hope you all enjoyed your Labor Day weekend!

Paige

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What we’ve been up to + how we get through those crazy times

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It’s been a minute since I’ve been blogging and I’ve missed it like crazy.  The past few months have been a whirlwind to say the least!  None of it was planned, it was a little scary, but definitely worth it.

We sold our house in Utah and within two weeks were packed up and moving to Arizona all while I was 7 1/2 months pregnant.  Little things kept going wrong during this process and if I listed it all out, you would probably think I was making it up!

Just to scratch the surface, my son was given a bar with cashews in it (which he’s severely allergic to) so after one failed Epipen we had to take him to the hospital where they gave him another one. Then, two days later my daughter was riding on the back of my bike with my husband and her foot got stuck in the spokes of the wheel and it broke the lower portion of her leg.  This all happened while we were packing up our house to move in two days.

At this point you’re probably thinking WHAT IS HAPPENING?! Buuuuuut it’s only the beginning.  My kids and I left before Ben and stayed at my parents house for one night in Arizona before we moved in to the rental.  Well, if you haven’t gathered already, Ruckus has terrible allergies. He has a list of food allergies, asthma and allergies to cats, horses and goats (which my parents happen to have all of) so I should have known better than to stay there but in my mind, I figured what harm could two nights do?  We woke up after the first night and he was having terrible allergy attacks, was short of breath and could not get comfortable.  You could tell he was in a lot of pain and I had hoped that his emergency inhaler would do the trick but it wasn’t helping in the slightest.  I took him in to the hospital and they couldn’t believe how hard his body was working to breathe.  We ended up staying the night and after lots of medicine, an IV and breathing treatments, he was finally back to his healthy self again.

To give you a little idea of why we moved back to Arizona, it was because we wanted Ben to go back to freelance photography because with his prior job, we rarely saw him.  He traveled for long periods of time and it began to take a toll on all of us but especially on the kids.  We love Arizona because this is the place we were both raised and we have lots of family and friends here but deciding to move back with no upcoming jobs scheduled, having to switch insurances mid pregnancy, not knowing where we would be living with Milo starting kindergarten and being nearly 8 months pregnant with all of this happening was scary.

The reason I am telling you all of this isn’t to complain, it’s to tell you about how even though everything seems like it can come crashing down at once, it will get better!  It doesn’t happen in an instant and in our case, things just seemed to keep getting worse before they got better.  But, if you work together as a team, you can make something great happen.  I think what helped in our case was rather than to sulk on everything that was going wrong, Ben and I looked at each situation and thought, “how can we fix this or make it better?”.  Don’t get me wrong, I had spurts of anxiety and my fair share of meltdowns but I knew if I sat there and dwelled on every terrible thing, nothing would get accomplished and nothing would get better.  So, we tackled everything one by one.  It didn’t get fixed overnight, even insurance took a good month to get worked out and is still a pain in my toosh, but it’s something we are striving to work out!  I’m not sharing every single thing that was happening during this time because well, who wants to hear about every single problem, the big and the small?  But you know what is crazy?  Those three months where nothing seemed to go right, everything has turned around, EVERYTHING.  Ben is now the creative director at an amazing company, shooting photos and doing what he loves, my kids are healthy, we figured out where we wanted to live, bought a house and even welcomed the most perfect baby boy into our family.  Life doesn’t happen how you want it to but that saying about turning lemons into lemonade, I GET IT! Don’t get me wrong, I know there are plenty of scenarios that you can’t simply fix but hopefully by trying to take care of yourself properly and responding by looking forward, maybe the burden can seem easier.

I’m so lucky to have been able to lean on some amazing people in my life and I hope to be that person for them and for others. These crazy times do get better and end up being little blips in your past!

Lot’s of love,

Paige

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Our Story

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I feel like it’s been a century since I’ve done a family update.  Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever done an introduction post about our family because for whatever reason writing strictly about myself kind of makes me cringe.  I might butcher this but here it goes!

Ben and I got married when I was 19 and he was 22, so young!  We had known each other since I was 14 so it wasn’t something rushed but it’s like they say, when you know, you know.  We were both going to school and he quickly switched careers from becoming a Physicians Assistant to a photographer.  At the time I was thinking, “exccccuuuuse me!?”.  I was a little freaked out by the change but it was the best thing for us.  Ben has always been so incredibly creative and when he found his passion he ran with it.  I became a Physical Therapist Assistant and passed my boards exam while Milo was in my belly.

Back when we were first married and I had blonde hair

We had Milo 4 years after being married and man, was she the best baby, ever!  I’m not just saying that because I think she’s the coolest, she literally was the easiest baby.  She slept through the night at three months old and didn’t wake up crying, ever.  Milo transitioned from her crib to her bed like it was nothing, she potty trained easily and she was just an all around happy baby who loved nothing more than to shake her booty side to side every time music came on.

I then worked as a Physical Therapist Assistant for a little less than a year when we decided we would make the move from Arizona to California.  I had never lived away from Arizona and my family so the whole thing gave me crazy anxiety.  I started having extreme chest pains and didn’t sleep well at night all because of the idea of jumping out of my comfort zone.  I’m the type of person that has to have everything in order, everything planned out and our life pretty much as stable as possible.  Writing that out, it sounds kind of boring and lame.  But that’s just who I’ve always been.  My husband is the complete opposite, he’s ok with change and accepts it with open arms whereas my little brain goes into full on panic mode.  We’re really the perfect pair, if you can’t tell.  I think we make a nice balance because he teaches me not to stress about the little things and I teach him to make plans when necessary.

It’s funny to look back at it now because I think moving away and experiencing something new as a young couple was the best thing for us and our little family.  My anxiety kind of resolved itself over time and living in San Clemente, California will always be one of the most memorable and special times in my life.  We decided to move there because 90% of my husbands photography jobs were there and he was traveling there almost every week.  We had both loved the idea of living in California and I truly met the most amazing life-long friends while we were there.  I think Ben and I can both say we grew up a lot in the time we were there.  I think it’s mostly because we kind of discovered our relationship a little more by not having any family or friends around.

After being in California for almost a year, I found out I was pregnant with Ruckus.  Ben and I both agreed that we should move back to Arizona to buy our first home where we’d have something a little more “stable” (see, it’s the planner in me that probably suckered us back there).

I had baby Ruckus and this guy pretty much came out as a tank.  He was 9 pounds 10 oz and had the biggest head.  Of course, being his mom, I thought it was perfect and didn’t see what everyone else did.  One time a kid walked past and said, “holy cow, look at the head on that kid!” to which I quickly replied, “excuse me!?”.  See, I didn’t see it but now when I look back at pictures, I do.  Ruck was the sweetest little guy, he was always so happy and was so tough given all of his challenges.  Poor thing was always sick.  He had really bad allergies, asthma, acid reflux and at 11 months old he had to have surgery on his neck because he had a lymph node that was infected with staff infection.  How does that even happen?!  Oh, and one time I thought I was being a great mom by making him scrambled eggs when I quickly found out he is severely allergic and had to call 911.  Luckily, he was OK and now we know not to leave the house without his EpiPen. Despite it all, he was such an insanely good baby!

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While we were in Arizona, we ended up finding what we call our “Palm Springs Dream Home” and completely remodeled the inside.  The house wasn’t huge, it wasn’t lavish, but it was our first and we were able to bring our vision for it into action together.  We tore out walls, we added concrete in the two step-down rooms, redid all the floors, cabinets, lighting, basically everything.  This house was the best and one of the main perks about it was that it had a big pool with a diving board.  Living in Arizona, a pool is almost mandatory during those hot summer days.  We would wake up every morning and go swim in the backyard, put the kids down for naps and go back out to swim once they woke up.  We pretty much lived in the pool while we were in that house.

After six months of being there Ben got a job offer at Backcountry.com and it was pretty much a no brainer.  A job where Ben would be taking photos of snowboarding, rock climbing, base jumping, fly fishing, surfing, etc.  What dude would say no to that?  We moved up to Utah and rented a home in this cute new neighborhood where we got to know and love each one of our neighbors.  We had been looking to buy a home but couldn’t find one that we really loved.  One day I got a text from my neighbor across the street that said, “Sidney is moving to Alabama and was saying she was going to be selling her home!”.  It had absolutely nothing to do with Sidney herself moving but everything to do with the fact that I had been obsessed with this white house on the corner and never in a million years thought we’d have the opportunity to buy it.  They had only been in the home for a few months after having it built so I think we were all surprised to hear they were leaving.  After getting that text, I quickly put on shoes, ran outside and walked straight over to Sidney’s house basically telling her I wanted to buy it.  Long story short, we did!  We moved in about two months later and are so happy to be in the same neighborhood and not only that but on the same street we had been renting on.  Not to mention, we absolutely love the house.  Thanks Sidney!  Haha.

We’ve been in Utah for a little over a year now and I’m not going to lie, it’s been amazing but has also had its challenges.  Coming from Arizona and living in California, I had no idea what to do or how to handle the snow.  I had to ask people how to properly dress your kids when its 10 degrees outside!  I know that might seem silly but I actually had Milo’s school teachers sit me down to tell me what kind of shoes to put on her and what kind of clothes to dress her in.  All I’ve ever had to worry about is a long-sleeved t-shirt or a short-sleeved t shirt!  Guys, I can officially say that I’m doing better and I think I pretty much got the gist of it, but it wasn’t easy.

I found out I was pregnant about 10 weeks ago and we are all so excited for another baby!  Pretty crazy to think that Ben and I will be outnumbered by these little munchkins but we can’t wait.  Is anyone else like me where you wish pregnancy took about the same amount of time as it does for a dog?  60 days sounds wayyyyyy better than 9 months, just sayin’!

If you’ve read this far, I’m freaking impressed.  I thought for sure I would have lost you in the first paragraph but I’m so happy you tuned in and are insanely educated on the life of us, the Christensen’s!

Until next time.

Paige

Paige Christensen3 Comments