We are back! We had an amazing trip in Italy- I cannot wait to share photos and more soon (once our lost luggage- with our nice camera inside- gets to us!). The shop is now fully open and we are taking custom orders again.

I came home to some great news- the new issue of Utterly Engaged is live today and our flags are featured in a super fun spread! My friend Jesi Haack invited me to be a part of the shoot and a few different styles of flags were used. Everything is so funky and dreamy!

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I LOVE how Jesi used our flags in the bike baskets- so cute!!

Check out the whole issue here- it is lovely!

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Such a great vendor team:

design & planning: Jesi Haack

photography: Jasmine Star

floral design: oak and the owl

hair & makeup: 1011 makeup

rentals: found rentals & signature rentals

I am running around like crazy trying to get everything for Italy, but wanted to sneak in a recap of my past week, linking up with InstaFriday on Life Rearranged.

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Last week, I joined a bunch of friends to hike Iron Mountain. It was so fun!

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I’m selling a bunch of my scrapbook paper supply. If you are interested in purchasing all of this for cheap, let me know :)

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On Sunday, Isaiah invited Uncle Ryan over for lunch and to play Star Wars Monopoly- without asking us. How could we say no to that? :)

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In the middle of church on Sunday, Hudson’s nose started running. We all got the cold in some form this week and are still trying to kick it out of our house. Hopefully we will all be back to 100% by Monday! Here is the little guy all cuddled up with his Mickeys on the couch while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. So sweet!

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I finished this book this and LOVED it! Best book on motherhood I’ve ever read. I think I am going to have to read it annually.

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Date #13 out of 50 for the year: A delicious late-night dinner followed by game night. Simple, cheap and a lot of fun! We even got dressed up like we were going out on a hot date :)

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I got to sneak away and get my hair done for the first time in almost a year! (thanks Katie!)

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A little evening kite run:

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Doing some research for our trip at bedtime:

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Where I was at 9:00 on a Friday night:

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Having a cold and sinus stuff going on has made me & my doctor a bit nervous that my ear drum may rupture again while on the flight to Italy. I have intense pain on flights anyway, so flying a month after it burst may not be the most fun thing ever. I’m all stocked up with medicine to battle this thing to make sure any infection does not get to my ear and that- if it does- I don’t have to try to spend time in an Italian urgent care.

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Speaking of Italian urgent care, it is unlikely that I will post much while we are on our trip, so see you all in May!

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I cannot believe that we leave in less than 2 days! Ah! I better start packing :) Don’t worry- Isaiah had me look up how to say Star Wars in Italian, so we are all prepared. (In case you are wondering, they say…. Star Wars.)

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Caio!

Just wanted to remind everyone that our etsy shop will be closed started next Monday, April 22nd through May 3rd because WE ARE GOING TO ITALY!!!! So excited!

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So if you have anything you are planning on ordering, be sure to place your order by the weekend. Any ready to ship items will be shipped before Monday and all made to order items will have their normal turn around time.

Friday again! That means I’m linking up with Jeannett at Life Rearranged, sharing moments I’ve captured on my phone throughout the week. I’m @courttoney on instagram if you would like to follow along day to day.

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Flags flags flags! I’ve had 12 custom flags ship over the past week, so it’s been flag land over here. I loved these four pretties:

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In the middle of a crazy week, the Inspired By This girls made my day when they told me I had won ice cream from Sweet Lucie’s! I’m so excited- this stuff is delicious! Isaiah had his mind blown when I told him we would be getting ice cream in the mail :)

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There is not much cuter than a 5 year old in catcher’s gear. People agree- this is my most liked photo ever on instagram & facebook.

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This big ugly contraption is not my favorite. It takes up a bunch of space in our small back yard. Did I mention it is ugly and huge? However- I put it up with it because my husband makes some delicious food in there. Last weekend, he made pulled pork and it was super yummy. (It’s a smoker if you are wondering. And, not only do we have this huge contraption, but also a big BBQ. And my husband wanted a charcoal grill back there too…)

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My husband had never seen The Sound of Music. Crazy, right? Like he had no idea what it was about. He kept picturing Heidi :)  So, for date #12 out of 50 (more info on our date plan here) we watched it! Along with homemade ice cream sandwiches.

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The verdict: he liked it! Way more than he thought he would like an old musical :)

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The countdown to Italy is on! 10 rings left on Isaiah’s countdown chain:

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Isaiah loves Star Wars. Isaiah loves drawing and painting. Put them together: Isaiah’s newest art installment:

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We finally took Isaiah’s training wheels off yesterday. Up until 6 months ago, we lived on a super hilly street with no sidewalk. Nowhere to ride a bike except in circles on our back porch. We would take him to the park occasionally, but he really did not have that much opportunity to ride his bike. When we moved to our new opportunity, we were all stoked that there is tons of room for him to ride his bike and he has been loving it. He was really nervous about taking the training wheels off though, until he watched a special agent oso episode where they taught a boy to ride without them. Then he had to take them off that. very. minute.

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He did pretty good! I’m thankful my husband is so patient and such a great teacher.

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Happy weekend! I’m off to attempt to get all of our orders done so I can focus on getting ready for Italy next week!

Right now, all ready to ship items in our shop are on sale- some up to 50% off!

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These are all one of a kind pieces, so once they are gone, they are gone. I am trying to clear out old inventory to make way for new fun pieces coming later this spring!

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Get them while you can! :)

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Oops. I missed Friday. Happy Monday! Linking up photos from my past 1.5 weeks with Jeannett at Life Rearranged.

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We leave in 3 WEEKS FOR ITALY!!!! I’m so excited. We are staying in Grosetto and taking trips to Rome, Siena, Florence and Cinque Terra. Any recs on places to eat, things to see and kid friendly activities? Isaiah is coming with us but we are leaving Hudson with my parents (nervous already to be apart from him that long!). Since he just turned two, it would have been over $1000 to take him on a trip that he would not remember, so we made the tough decision to leave him here. I know it will be better in the long run, but I am going to miss that curly haired character!

Thanks to my friend Jenetta for the fun vintage italy book :)

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Last weekend we had friends over and Daveed taught Holly how to make pasta from scratch.

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Little bits of Spring around the house:

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Last week was spring break for Isaiah. We started it off with a 3 hour park playdate with a ton of friends from church. The boys had SO much fun!

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Later that day, we met up with Daveed at Sea World for a few hours. The boys favorite exhibit lately has been the arctic. Hudson loved watching the walrus and polar bears swim.

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Isaiah had been asking to make a star wars terrarium (daygoba) for a long time. We finally ran to Home Depot and whipped it up.

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He had a tough star to the week with listening. As a result, he ended up loosing all of his star wars stuff. Shirts, books, toys, everything. He still found a way to “play” star wars :)

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When we were visiting my family this weekend, my mom pulled out my old lite brite. I spent so many hours on that thing as a kid. Isaiah loved it! I wish that the new ones were even half as good as the old ones.

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Date #11 out of 50: A hike at Torrey Pines. One of my favorite spots in San Diego and it was such a nice time to connect and enjoy nature. (if you are new to my blog, you can find out more about our 50 dates project here.)

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Saturday was a great day to fly a kite at the park with good friends.

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Since we were going to stay down in San Diego for Easter, we spent some time with my family in Orange County on Saturday decorating eggs. You can bet there were a few star wars ones.

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One of my least favorite things on holidays? Trying to get a good family picture. I’m know that my boys are little, wiggly and full of energy (especially with lots of holiday sugar) but, nonetheless, I still always fight to get a quality picture. At first, I thought that this was the best one we got yesterday, my eyes almost closed and all:

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Then, as I was looking through the photos on my camera, I came across this gem and realized that I like it even better. We are not perfectly posed, but that is real life. This captures my boys personalities and I love it.

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Hudson was much more into our neighbor’s dogs than finding eggs:

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Cookie decorating (the tongue is always out when he is super focused):

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My husband was inspired by a dish he saw Mario Batali make on Iron Chef and he decided to recreate it yesterday. It was his first attempt at homemade ravioli and it was delicious! They were egg-shaped with goat cheese, sage and an egg yolk inside. He cooked them perfectly- when you cut into them, a bit of the yoke ran to mix with the butter & parmesan to create a sauce. I was highly impressed!

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Happy April everyone!

I love it when customers send me pictures of their weddings! This wedding was a nautical beach destination wedding in Mexico and I just love it- especially the fun attire for the men!

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We made a flag with a cute red and white nautical knot print as well as simple thank you & mr & mrs banners.

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all photos by Natalie Ginele Miller Photography

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As a reminder, we are not taking custom orders (flags, banners, etc) until the beginning of May. I may be able to take a couple more rush orders if they are placed this week. If you are interested, please contact me through the etsy shop.

Friday again! That means I’m linking up with Jeannett to recap some moments from my week, captured on my phone. If you would like to follow me on instagram, I’m @courttoney.

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We started last weekend off with an awesome date night at Balboa Park. Yesterday, I shared a recap of the first 10 dates out of 50 in 2013, if you would like to find out more :)

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At his second baseball game, Isaiah was given a player of the game award for sportsmanship. Made this mama so proud!

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On St. Patrick’s Day, I let the boys have Lucky Charms. Definitely the only time they are allowed to have that sugary of a cereal (and the only day of the year that we have green milk!). They loved it!

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Green juice balances out the sugar, right? Isaiah called it leprechaun juice.

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At another baseball game, Isaiah was given the game ball. I am so thankful that his coaches let us know a few minutes ahead of time so that we could catch his sweet reaction on camera and film.

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He was a little excited about it :)

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Sometimes, when you’re a mom, you wing it and throw some torn up dino chicken nuggets on a salad and call it dinner. Fancy.

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A pretty little flag that we shipped out to a bride this week:

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Isaiah had his class easter party & easter egg hunt today. He was particularly stoked on his bunny hat.

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I hung out with my other kid this week too. I know you wouldn’t know it by my pictures, but I promise we spent some good time together :)

I’ve often heard couples talk about how they have a date night every week. I’ve seen it recommended in books on marriage and have always thought “how is that possible with kids?”. The cost of babysitting weekly is beyond our budget to start with, let alone finding the time every week for it.

Then, for Christmas, my husband gave me 50 dates in 2013. So awesome. It works out to roughly one date per week, with a couple of mulligans.

Yes, our schedules are crazy, but we make it work. Prioritizing intentional time to hang out together weekly has been SO good!

Yes, our budget is super tight right now- but we make it work. One way we do that is having some at home dates- having a late dinner with just the two of us and an activity after we put the kids down. While it is not ideal, it works for this stage of life. While we have paid for babysitting a couple of times for these dates, we’ve been able to work out most when we have grandparents visiting :)

It has been such a great way to start out the year. Every week, we look at our calendar and figure out a time we can either get away or have a date at home. If there isn’t an open night, we move things around to make one. I am so thankful for this thoughtful gift from my husband- it has forced us to get into a routine with dates and I love it! Also a big thank you to my friend Jessi who did this with her husband last year, which inspired Daveed :)

We’ve had 10 dates so far. I have shared some in my instafriday posts, but thought I would do a little recap here.

Date #1: Dinner at one of our favorite San Diego restaurants: BO-Beau (thanks to a giftcard from a generous member of our church!). SO GOOD! I cannot even tell you.

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Date #2: We got to get away to the mountains for a night with another couple and went snowboarding together (my Christmas gift to him). So much fun!

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Date #3: Delicious candlelight dinner made by the hubs after the kiddos were in bed.

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Date #4: Dessert & drinks at a car dealership. Yep. Our local Lexus dealership has a nice restaurant on the roof.

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Date #5: Daveed made pasta from scratch (delicious!) and we watched the Grammy’s- complete with lots of hilarious commentary between the two of us.

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Date #6:  Valentine’s Day. We had a night away up in Santa Barbara while visiting Daveed’s grandma and had a delicious brunch, followed by a walk and some window shopping on State Street.

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Date #7: We used up an old gift card at Cheesecake Factory. Banana creme Cheesecake with a side of hot fudge. The best.

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Date #8: Breakfast at our favorite coffee shop, surfing, reading & a beach walk.

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Date #9: Homemade pizzas (prosciutto & arugula, tomato basil and prosciutto & caramelized onions) and watched Argo.

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Date #10: Picnic dinner at Balboa Park, followed by a long walk and dessert & tea at Extraordinary Desserts.

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I cannot wait for the next 40!!

If you are thinking of placing a custom order or ordering one of our made-to-order items in the shop (flags, thank you & just married banners, etc) the time to order is now! After next tuesday, the 26th, I will not be taking orders for these items until May.

photo by Jose Villa

Why? We are going to Italy!!!!! Because of this, I will only be offering banners that are ready to ship through mid-April and starting the 19th, my shop will be completely closed for 2 weeks.

photo by EP Love

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So if you want an order for a May event, order now :)