Freckle Eye Fancy

It's very obvious that our life is sort of torn in two 100% of the time. It is very  easy to be both sad and okay at the same time, but I don't think that is something that everyone understands. Lately, I've been feeling like this blog is very polarized. Some days I talk about my grief, and other days I'm talking happily about Disney. A few months ago, Brandon suggested starting a different blog solely for the heavier posts, and I was really adamant that I didn't want to separate them. Grief is a big part of our lives, and I almost feel like it would be a disservice to ourselves to try and hide it, or give it a more "appropriate" place. I can tell you for a fact that grief has literally zero understanding of "appropriate" when it comes to timing or placement. I started Freckle Eye Fancy with the intentions of having it be a lifestyle blog. In our lives, lifestyle includes food, travel, home decor, daily life, and essentially whatever else I fe...

Let's be honest, one of the best parts about Disneyland and Disney World is the food. There are so many great choices for meals and drinks, but when it comes to snacks, Disney always  outdoes itself. We have a few snacks that we get every single time we go to the park: a Mickey ice cream bar, a Mickey Pretzel, a dole whip, and a churro. And we usually get popcorn too, because no matter how hard we try to resist, those dang carts basically throw the smell of buttery-goodness at our heads and it's really hard to ignore. Anyway. I had a fun new shirt to wear to Disney this last time, and I felt like I needed to actually live up to what I was advertising. My goal was to eat as many Mickey-Shaped foods as I could find in one day. I'm sure I missed a few, but I went with what I could find! If you know of any other Mickey-shaped foods, let me know! [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="810"] Mickey ice cream bar - sold at nearly every single ...

I meant to type this up and post it yesterday, but we have been so busy between the blog, vlog, and Flying for Time that spare moments have been in rare supply! We wanted to say thank you to everyone who has donated to Flying for Time. We met our goal in under a week, and have continued to see more orders rolling in each day. Our primary goal was to donate one CuddleCot, and now our secondary goal is to donate another! We are still in the process of getting the actual CuddleCot (why don't people respond to emails fast enough?!) but are excited to posting some new items that will help purchase the next one. Thank you again to everyone, we never be able to tell you how much we appreciate your support! Even if you weren't able to donate or purchase a necklace, your words of encouragement mean so much to us. Thank you!!

I've debated countless times whether I wanted to share the name we gave our little bean. I wrote most of this post clear back in June or July, when I was sharing all the bumpdates, but I couldn't ever decide if I waned to share it. This weekend though, after leaving her little grave marker at the cemetery, I decided that I wanted people to know how much she matters to us. We may have only had her for fifteen weeks, but she has been such a big part of our lives that it would be an injustice to not share her more. I've mentioned in previous posts how close I felt to our little bean before we even got pregnant with her. After we lost Carter, I could feel him a little, but I could feel her more. I had this little female guardian angel that was always there when I needed comfort. One day in February, I knew I was pregnant. It was like someone had snapped their fingers and all of a sudden, I just knew. That little spirit was gone, and I knew I was pregnant with her. After we g...

This weekend was full of so many emotions! Friday morning, I got a call from my mom saying that my brother and his wife were on the way to the hospital to deliver their baby. I waited for updates all day, but it was a slow process, so I tried to be patient! Our power went out at work that morning, so I spent the bulk of the day writing thank you's for people that have donated and/or purchased a necklace. I was running on adrenaline all day, trying to get all my things done before leaving work. That night, I worked on more thank you's, and Brandon edited a vlog. We had a nice night, just hanging out, still waiting for updates on our little nephew. Finally, at 10:43, he was born, and I officially became an aunt! And guys, he is the cutest! Saturday morning, we woke up early to drive to Logan. We hadn't been to visit the babies in a month, so it was really nice to get up there and do some maintenance. We cleaned off the headstone, trimmed the grass around it, reorganized ...

The cover picture for this is funny, because people always joke about living at Disneyland. I wish!! You guys today is kind of a big deal!! As of today, Brandon and I have officially been in our house longer than we've ever lived in any other place!! We have lived in our house for 19 months and 1 week. The previous record was 19 months and 6 days haha. We mentioned it in the vlog that went out last night , but we have moved almost every single year that we have been married. Not necessarily to a different city, but we've at least moved to a different apartment/house every year! We were in our first apartment in Logan for just under a year before moving to a different apartment about a mile away. Our first apartment was fine (it was a first apartment, you know), but the second apartment was seriously so good.  It had a half bath on the main floor (two toilets is a big deal!), and just seemed so much cozier and homier than our first. We stayed in our second apartment for 19 mo...

Our weekend at Disney was ridiculously wonderful. We left Salt Lake Thursday afternoon and flew into Long Beach Airport (which I love, by the way. never flying into LAX again), then went directly to our AirBnb to drop off our things. We called an Uber, and got to Laguna Beach around 6:00. Neither of us had ever been to Laguna Beach, as far as we could remember, and it was BEAUTIFUL! We took way too many pictures of the sunset, but it was unreal. We hung out there until it was dark, then stopped for dinner at Urth Cafe before heading back to our Airbnb. Shortly after, our friends Sam and Jennika showed up with their kids! The kids were already asleep, but the grown ups stayed awake for a while and caught up. They just moved to Arizona, and even though we didn't see each other all that often before they moved, I had missed them so much! Friday morning we all woke up and went to Disneyland!! Brandon and I were so excited to go with the adults, but we were also really e...

I promise to get some new content out soon (in all honesty, it will probably be a Disney post), but I just wanted say a quick thank you for all the support we've received since launching Flying for Time yesterday! We've already sold out of ALL necklaces!!! For those of you that are on backorder, I promise we'll get them out as soon as possible!  But we have more coming of every variety, and we just placed another order for another option that I'm really excited about.  Not only does this project give us a place to direct our energy, but it also gives us a chance to send a little piece of our boy to people across the world. I have no doubt that, every time they look at their necklace, they will think of Carter, little bean, and all the other babies that were taken too soon. But most importantly, we are helping other families that will be handed this difficult time, and we're doing that with your help. Thank you so much for your continued support! A friend of ours...

We are SO excited to share our secret project with all of you!! We've only been working on it for a few weeks now, but I feel like I've been keeping it a secret forever. That changes now! After a baby is born still, their skin can start to quickly deteriorate. The cooler the temperature around them, the longer their body is preserved for. When we lost Carter, exactly 46 weeks ago today, our nurse kindly offered to take him back and forth between our room and a chilled room where his body could be kept for short periods of time, to allow us more time with him. Neither Brandon nor I wanted to let him go, and we agreed that saying goodbye once would be hard enough, so we kept him in the room with us for a few hours until we decided it was time to say goodbye.  Weeks later, as we immersed ourselves more in the loss community, we learned about the CuddleCot , a cooling pad that can be placed in a bassinet or cradle at the hospital in the same room as the parents. The CuddleCot k...

Since our miscarriage, I have found myself just itching to do things. I have too much energy that can't be spent taking care of a baby, so we've been trying to find other things to do. We redid the office, painted the guest room furniture, worked on the blog, worked on my second novel, and still we found ourselves with too much time and energy (although not enough of either to clean the house or make dinner apparently haha). We've been working on our secret project for a couple weeks now, so that has taken up some of our time, but I'm really excited that we have found one more thing to fill our time! One of my best friends from college does YouTube full-time with her husband. I've always told Brandon that we should do that too, but he never really was interested. Through those friends, we met another couple that live just a few houses down from us, and also lost a son last year. They have a YouTube channel as well, and introduced us to another couple that has a c...

Brandon and I have been working on a very special project (not a baby) that we are so excited to share with you soon! It's something that is very dear to our hearts, and we're hoping to see you all back here when we announce it (which I promise, is soon). I'm going to say thank you in advance, and we'll leave you with a little peek at what's coming.

When you lose a baby, you don't just lose the baby.  You lose dreams and hopes, goals and milestones. Plans you once had for holidays, vacations, life in general, they are all gone. You miss out on baby snuggles, late night changings and feedings, watching them sleep. You miss out on that first smile, first steps, first words. You miss out on the phase when they begin to explore anything and everything around them, when they start to develop their own personality. You miss out on first days of school. You don't get to watch them learn how to drive, go off to college, get married, and have babies of their own. You don't just lose out on the one moment of delivering a live baby, you lose an entire future. There is a lot of preparation for bringing a baby home. You buy a crib and a dresser and a stroller and a carseat and a diaper bag and blankets and clothes and diapers and wipes and bottles and pacifiers and sheets and a pack n' play and toys and socks and bibs. We ha...

The last six weekends have been the bomb. Brandon and I have had no commitments, and no plans, really, so we've had a lot of time to spend together just the two of us. There have been a few things we were supposed to go do, but my social anxiety got the best of me and we ended up staying home. Have I said before that Brandon is patient? If I haven't, I'm saying it now!  This weekend was no different than the others, and we had so much time to relax! We spent watching the Utah State game, and having our traditional pizza and (root) beer. On Saturday, we went to Swiss Days in Midway, where we bought six holiday pillow cases because why not, and even found a little wooden airplane! We had family over on Sunday for a late lunch, and ended up chatting until almost nine! Yesterday we slept in and shopped for hardware for a dresser (to no avail) and rounded off the night with Bachelor in Paradise. On the note of hardware, we need suggestions of places to look! We looked at Lowe...

A couple weeks ago, I was working on something on the computer at home, and was getting so frustrated with the glare on the screen. I took a Thursday off a few days later, and one thing on my to-do list was to rearrange the two pieces of furniture in the office so that the computer wasn't facing the window anymore. Literally all we had in there was a desk and a little cube shelf (and my piano, I guess). Our "office" sat empty until just over a year ago, when I got tired of it being boring, and finally bought the desk and shelf. Since then, it has seen more use, but it still didn't feel complete. When I was rearranging, I suddenly had a vision for how I wanted the room to look, and Brandon was sweet enough to indulge me. We went to Target and Hobby Lobby (the only important places, really) and spent waaay too much money. I initially had wanted a new desk, but I'm actually pretty pleased with how everything turned out, and don't feel the need for a new one an...