Liz Denfeld Blog

A Portland, OR based life + style blog that focuses on honest, approachable, inspirational writing on motherhood, style, travel and more.

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About Me

Hello There! I'm Liz Denfeld, wife to Corey and mama to two spunky little ones - Elodie (4) and James (2). After nearly a decade working in digital marketing at a Fortune 500 company, I recently pressed pause on my career to stay home with my kids and pursue my passions of photography, writing, social media and blogging. Here you'll find honest, approachable, inspirational writing on motherhood, style, travel and more. Thank you so much for being here!

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  • Isn’t it funny how six days in Hawaii can feel like six seconds? ... And how six days of solo-parenting can feel like six MONTHS?? Corey flew out for Thailand right after we got home from California and let’s just say we don’t plan on doing a family vacation right before a daddy work trip EVER AGAIN. His leaving was a shock to everyone’s system and the kids were especially out of sorts (read: unusually emotional/misbehaved/generally crazy). I will be honest and say I experienced some of my lowest parenting moments this week while my patience ran dry. I am human. I apologized to the kids when necessary and tried harder the next day. And failed again. I always tell Corey that it’s actually a GOOD thing his absence is so felt and mourned ... It means he is incredibly involved, helpful and certainly valued around these parts. So glad he is home and off work for the next week. We are going to sneak in a couple day dates while the kids are in school Monday and Tuesday and really soak up the Thanksgiving holiday as a family the rest of the week! Cheers to the weekend and daddy’s return! 💗 #honestmotherhood #soloparentingsucks
  • “Being a parent is like folding a fitted sheet ... No one really knows how” 💗 Hospital forgot to send the instruction manual home with these two. Been wingin’ it and figuring it out as we go the last 4.5 years 🙃 Some days I feel like a rockstar, like I’ve got this whole parenting thing down. Inevitably the next day it becomes very clear I actually have no idea what I’m doing 😂 The most humbling experience was adding a second (very different) child to our family. We quickly learned what worked for one didn’t always work for the other. It’s a constant game of trial and error! The only thing I’m really confident about is that I love these two like crazy and I am trying my gosh darn hardest to be the best mom I can be to them. And I guess at the end of the day that’s all that really matters 💕 #honestmotherhood 📸: @brittanyrossmanphoto
  • We’re back in Portland and my heart is SO FULL after this trip. I know that’s a thing people say a lot ... But really, my heart is feeling extra full of love, gratitude, peace, happiness and deep joy. I recently learned that I am an enneagram type 2 and part of the description of this type says: “Twos are most interested in what they feel to be the “really, really good” things in life—love, closeness, sharing, family, and friendship.” THAT IS SO ME. So it’s no wonder I am feeling so freaking happy after this week with my little fam and a couple days with my sister and her family. Find the things that fill you up and bring joy and do them every day. For me, it’s as simple as spending focused time with the people I love 💗 #honestmotherhood #enneagram2
  • Just like life with kids is hard and exhausting at times, but 110% worth it — so is traveling with kids. It’s not going to go perfectly. There are going to be moments of stress and irritation and exasperation. But it has never occurred to us that getting through those moments to show our kids a different part of our country or the world isn’t totally worth it. Travel was such a big part of our life and relationship before kids, we knew we wanted to instill a love of travel and discovering new places once we had kids. So put the fear and expectations aside and just book the trip. It’s going to be a beautiful $!&% show full of sweet memories (when you get over the OTHER ones 😜 #kidding #sortof) #honestmotherhood #havekidswilltravel
  • Recapped yesterday’s perfect day in my stories just now! I would highly, highly recommend Newport Beach for a family-friendly vacation! We are having the BEST time and this little breather full of fun and sun has been so great for our little fam. I am going to save everything to my highlights for you to reference later and write up a blog post on all our favorite places and activities (including a link to our well-priced @airbnb one block from the ocean)! Our kids LOVE the beach and we love being able to walk to good food and coffee. If you have a great vacation destination that checks off those boxes I’d love to hear about it! Other favs for us have been Hawaii and Charleston 💗 . . . Shop my daily looks by following me on the LIKEtoKNOW.it app! I linked my high-waisted jeans (size down!), favorite t-shirt, cardigan and favorite travel shoes! http://liketk.it/2y6JR #liketkit @liketoknow.it #LTKfamily
  • Five years in, just when you think you’ve figured out how to trick daylight savings time, it likes to LAUGH IN YOUR FACE and remind you who is boss. Kids slept in until their normal time yesterday and we thought we had this system beat! We had been pushing bedtime/naptime later and later every day the last week 🙌🏼 THEN, today, they were up 45 minutes earlier than usual 😒 Side-eye to you DLS. You would have thought the kids spent the whole night awake with how cranky and out of sorts they were, so we quickly threw them in the stroller and headed out to walk to the cutest Lido Isle. Except simply standing on the kickboard was far too tiring for Elodie so she ended up in arms, on shoulders and finally sitting on the kickboard (nearly impossible but she somehow managed 😝). It ended up being such a lovely morning, though. I’m glad we were forced out of the house early! #honestmotherhood #havekids willtravel . . . . Follow me on the LIKEtoKNOW.it app to get the product details for this look and others — I linked our stroller, kickboard, my fav yoga pants, a similar cardigan and similar sneakers 💗 #liketkit @liketoknow.it http://liketk.it/2y609
  • Greetings from sunny Southern California 👋🏼☀️💗 I feel like I suck at posting to my feed while on vacation {but I’ve been pretty active on stories if you want to see what we’ve been up to}! Popping in to say the weather has been glorious here this weekend and I did not pack appropriately at all. Like, I forgot to bring a bathing suit and sunglasses. I have one dress and no shorts. Not sure what vacation I was packing for, but it sure wasn’t for this 80-degree weather we’ve been enjoying 😂 Hope ya’ll are having a wonderful weekend! #darlingweekend #havekidswilltravel
  • Managed to drag myself out of bed this morning when it was still dark (and raining!) for a 7:30AM @barre3 class. I hustled home after so Corey could get to his @orangetheory class at 9. A year ago this would have sounded like one: way too much work, and two: really not fun ... I’d rather lay in bed longer and then go to brunch. But since Corey and I have made working out a priority we have seen how much happier, more balanced and more energetic we are. We’re truly better parents and a better couple because of our commitment to taking care of ourselves. Major bonus that regular exercise results in longer life expectancy, because I want to be around to play with my great-grandbabies 👵🏼 The key has been finding the workouts that we truly LOVE, so instead of feeling like a chore, exercise is something we look forward to. Anyway, this is a lot of rambling to hopefully motivate you to get active and get those endorphins flowing today. It’s so worth the time and effort! And this sweet face was right here waiting for me to snuggle him and his 🐰 on the couch after 💗 Perfect little Sunday if I do say so myself! #honestmotherhood
  • So dang proud of this little lady. After a few false starts (including one particularly scary/scarring incident) we started Elodie in private swim lessons in February. At the time she would literally lose her mind if her face got a few drops of water on it. Full face submersion was not even close to being on the radar. Fast forward to today and she is in the beginning stages of learning to DIVE. She can swim the entire pool length on her back and do all sorts of other awesome things not even I can do 😝 It has been totally inconvenient, costed us a small fortune and has been a huge investment of time on my part, but today as I was watching her in the pool it all felt worth it 💙 Now we just need to teach James how to swim too 💸😂 #honestmotherhood
  • Back in June I posted about how we had a screen-free couple days. I didn’t know how long it would last and have surprised even myself that we’re four months in and still going strong. Aside from the occasional family movie night we have done no screens for the kids since the end of June! This means no iPads in the car, no iPhones when we’re out to eat … Nada. The response I got after posting this last night was overwhelming! And I totally get it, because when we started this summer there was no way I thought we could go this long. But once we got over the initial shock (and whining) we haven’t looked back. There were so many questions about how we did it and what we do instead of screen time that I put together a whole blog post on the topic! You can go to the link in my profile if you’re interested in hearing about our journey. I think it’s worth noting that I have no problem with screen-time and could not have survived having a newborn and a toddler without Daniel Tiger, but now that Elodie and James are 2.5 and 4.5 they are more than capable of entertaining each other (I mean, why else did I have multiple children? 😜) and I really don’t feel like we NEED it. What are your thoughts on screen-time?! #honestmotherhood #momblogger

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