Nursery

Finally getting around to sharing Declan's Nursery, its only been almost a year since he was born but oh well!  I pretty much had everything set up months before he was born and it was so much fun to put together. Though I don't recommend trying to build Ikea furniture at 8 months pregnant. You end up feeling like a beached whale who has to kind of role your body around. I'll just let you visualize that instead of posting the incredibly unflattering pics Tony took of me.

"Choose your Love, Love your Choice"

I've been away for a few weeks now, mainly due to life being busy (in a lot of good ways) which I am sure everyone can relate! With our travels to Japan to visit family, followed up by Europe (plan on doing a blog post going over our travels), and then getting back into our routine, I haven't had much time to sit and update our lives on here!

Children's Books

For all of you who follow my Instagram I mentioned yesterday about wanting to share some of our favorite children's books! Being someone who loves books, I wanted to try to encourage Declan to love them also! I'm a sucker for beautiful illustration and of course cute stories! So here are some of our favorites so far! I would love more recommendations to add to our wish list so please comment!

Posing Littles

I've had a few questions on how I get cute pics of Declan so I thought I would share a few things from a post I recently did for my photography blog on how to pose little ones! When dealing with children you definitely have to work around what they are doing! Here are a few tips on how to get great photos of little ones without too much bribery!

Exploring London

As many people know, one of my absolute favorite places is the UK. I'm always begging Tony to go back! There are so many reasons why I love it, history, architecture, landscape.  I thought I would highlight some of my favorite spots in and around London, as well as walking routes Tony and I have taken!

Digital Scrapbook

Instagram, Facebook, Social Media in general, can create a pretty toxic lifestyle if you let it. From the beginning its always been about the likes, hearts, comments, etc. As someone who relies a lot on social media for my photography business its hard not to get sucked in! Its so easy to compare ourselves with picture perfect images from someone else's life.

Favorite Baby Items

If you are anything like me, I started researching and buying things we needed for Declan way in advance. The nice thing about getting an early start was I had no stress as it got closer to Declan's due date, everything was ready and waiting for his arrival! But as many of you know every baby is different. I was lucky enough to have great advice from friends and family on what items they loved for their own babes. But I soon found out that what works for some babies doesn't mean it will work for yours. So here is a list of baby items I would suggest to others that worked/work great for us!

Declan's Torticollis Journey

I wanted to share Declan's current journey because I've chatted with a few mamas who are recently starting the process with their little one! From day 1 Declan was always sleeping with his head turned to the left. As a new mom juggling my own self care and learning the ropes of everything baby related, I didn't think much of it. It wasn't until almost 2 months that I started to notice a flat spot on that side of his head. I of course mentioned it to our pediatrician and the process began of multiple doctors, physical therapy, and cranial orthosis.

Guest Bedroom/Upstairs Living Room Makeover

One of the first rooms I put together was the guest bedroom to ensure we had a nice space for people when they came to visit! At the time I was pregnant, sick, and tired and so lucky that I found Crystal Mickelsen Design.

Birth Story

My heart!! Writing out Declan's birth story is giving me all the feels! It really is so crazy how fast time flies. Days and nights can feel so long but at the same time the weeks are just flying by! Declan's scheduled due date was February 8th, my baby sister's birthday! But he decided to come just a few days early!

Main Floor Makeover

Once we had the interior of our home painted it was time to start furnishing!! Since we had family coming to meet Declan for the first time I wanted to make sure we had things roughly put together and maximize space to accomodate everyone! Here are just a few Before pics!

Birthday #27

I love birthdays because I treat them like New Years Day! I always find myself looking back on the past year, the lows, the highs, and everything in between! 26 was a special year because it was the year I became a mom. Honestly a lot happened while I was 26. I had another great wedding season, we moved, we got another puppy to join our family, we bought a house, and I have been doing great at keeping the majority of my plants alive! But the highlight and greatest accomplishment was definitely bringing my little guy into the world! Which brings me to something that has been on my mind lately!

Pregnancy...Its An Experience

I know I said I was going to post about Declan's Physical Therapy stuff but since his issues began in my belly I thought maybe I should start there first! I definitely wasn't one of those women who enjoyed pregnancy the entire time. Don't get me wrong, it had magical moments and I am so so grateful and blessed to be able to go through pregnancy and have my sweet baby boy.

Kitchen Makeover

When we bought our house we were so fortunate that it was in such excellent condition already! But of course we had updates we wanted to make.

My Reason Why

As you know, I had our beautiful baby boy, Declan, earlier this year. I always knew that I wanted to be a stay at home mom, if possible, while my kids were young. So transitioning from the day in day out hustling, entrepreneur lifestyle, to spending all day with this little human, nursing, napping, changing diapers, and more was, in some ways, an unexpected struggle.

Travel Planning Process

I've had a few people ask me about my travel planning process so I thought I would share what I have found to be the quickest and easiest way to plan our trips. I've shared a few things already on my Instagram Stories which you can find under my travel highlights https://www.instagram.com/thatbutlerlife/. But I'll go into a few more details here!

Meet The Butlers

We are the Butlers! Playing hard, working harder, and loving life. 

I'm Elina, a new mom and loving every minute of it! I'm a Destination Wedding and Lifestyle photographer as well as Cosmetologist. Because I love capturing moments, you'll see a lot of our life from my viewpoint (behind my camera). Some of my passions include photography, music, books (favs being Jane Austin novels and Harry Potter), and travel. If it were up to me we would always be traveling!