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Ezra is 11 months old today! He’ll soon be transitioning to toddlerhood — wow. He now proudly says “mama” and “dada” and “Daaa” for dog. He’s also said “bana” for banana a few times and he’s attempting to say bird, as we generally go out to our back yard and observe the hummingbirds in the morning.

I put him on our bathroom scale and he’s somewhere between 18 and 19 pounds as best I can figure. We haven’t got our insurance all figured out yet, so hopefully he’ll get to go when he’s around 1 year. His first birthday party is coming up in a few weeks! Anyone have any great party ideas? I’m looking for an activity that little kids and their parents can do. Our friends did iron-ons and that was fun…so something like that.

Oh, and we’ll get some pictures taken and up soon! We’re just trying to keep getting our house picked up, the ants killed, and keep unpacking a few more boxes. One of these days we’ll get things more like home.

We all went to a few shops yesterday to look at fabrics and furniture. The clincher is figuring out what to do with our brown and black checked couch. It’s been great to have — it’s from Bryce’s folks — but the color and style don’t go with the look we’re going for. We’re trying to decide if it makes sense to buy a slipcover if that’s not even the look we want; so we’re checking out some model home furniture places to see if we can find a modern black couch. Something like this would be ideal:

I’ve found a dark silver silk (or imitation silk, not sure) fabric that would make great curtains. And there are a few fabrics on Etsy that I’m excited about:

We’re planning to revamp our small wood china cabinet into a bar (painting it black, mirrors on shelves, etc) and painting our white mirror w/ hooks black too. I want to find some cool lampshades or recover the ones we have with fabric. Anyone know how to do that?

We’re at a bit of a standstill as we can’t do much until we’ve solved the couch dilemma. Nonetheless it’s been fun researching and I’m looking forward to getting started soon.

One of the boy names we liked when we found out we were pregnant was Knox, both for the coolness of it and because it was after the Scottish Reformer. When we arrived in Pasadena some new-then now very close friends, Brian and Joy, had named their son Knox, born a year and a half before Ezra was. So we nixed Knox and chose Ezra.

I guess Knox would still be an option for a future child, however, now that the Jolie-Pitts have snagged it for one of their twins, it’s likely to rise in popularity. So that’s out. Bummer.

So, we’re all moved in to our place in San Diego and have a few things left to unpack. I’ve been absolutely hooked on HGTV’s Design Star and have been procrastinating from the unpacking process by watching episodes online. The good thing, however, is that it’s getting me all crafty and Bryce and I are really excited to get working on pulling our living room together into a cohesive style.

We’ll have to do things in stages and since we can’t paint (since we’re renting), we’ll have to be creative about what we hang on the wall. Bryce and I stayed in The Viceroy(pictures below) in Palm Springs for a get-a-way last fall and loved the bold, geometric designs and colors and were hoping to copy some of that when were buying a downtown LA loft. The color palette at the Viceroy is bold black and white with accents of yellow and feels like 30’s Hollywood glam. So although that would’ve been perfect for a loft space, there is a bit of it that feels mid-century retro, too. We’re going to do our best to adapt the color palette for our current living room space (sage/seafoam green, black and white) and are looking for a slipcover for one sofa and some great accessories. Bryce is also going to build some wood panels for our walls that we’ll paint (putting his new table saw to use!). It’ll be a mix of minimalism, clean lines, geometric shapes with a touch of old Hollywood glamour (and perhaps a bit of the Hollywood Regency style). I’m so excited to get going!

We have a bunch of red accents right now in our living room that we’ll have to transition to the kitchen eventually. It’s hard as we’ll only be in our current space for a year, to know how to purchase and make things as this isn’t a permanent space to work with. So it’ll have to be a transitional design. Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions. I’m scouring Etsy for ideas and great finds!

I guess it makes sense that I really liked Katie’s bathroom: