OOTD: Dusty Rose

Happy Wednesday everyone!! I love my white moto leggings from Journey Five so much, I had to have them in their dusty rose too! They are seriously so comfortable, I know I'm gonna be wearing them all the time. How cute will this color be with a deep plum sweater? Or a grey crewneck and scarf? Oh the possibilities!!

Our Weekend

This past weekend was a whirlwind! We had so much fun and it didn't seem like it was gone in a blink of an eye. There was lots of laughs, lots of food, and most importantly some quality time with the girls. We played, cuddled, napped, and ate. I wish all weekends could be like this!

Road Trip Essentials for Baby and Toddler!

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #SuperAbsorbent #CollectiveBias

In the upcoming month, we have a family trip planned for Washington and we’ve been looking forward to this trip forever! We’ll be visiting family on both sides and have lots of activities planned for our stay. One thing that’s been on my mind for the trip is a 4+ hour drive we’ll be making from one stay with family to another. Our girls are great in the car, but this will be our longest ride with them both. I've been worried about what to bring with us, for the trip and the road trip, and the obvious items are easy- diapers, snacks, extra clothes, but what else?

Friday Faves

Friday!! My favorite day of the work week is finally here!! Last weekend was so busy and flew right by and I've been looking forward to this weekend all week long. We just have a few plans, but I mostly plan on staying home and hanging with my littles. Swim, dance, cleaning, purging, relaxing, and lots of ice cream are on my to-do list.

This week's Friday Faves is a little bit of everything and I'm super excited about each one. I love sharing these posts with you guys. It's been a great way to share different items and shops I've found. I try and do them every week, but if I don't have enough things for a post, I just put what I love on the list for the next post. Everything I share here is always items I truly, and honestly use and enjoy, whether they're items I've bought on my own or were gifted to me for consideration. If it's not something I love, I'm either going to give it an honest review letting you know to skip it altogether, or I simply won't share it. You can always know that my posts are a 100% reflection of my true feelings.   So let's get started!

OOTD: Falling for Floral

Happy Wednesday!! Hope you're week is going well, I'm still recovering from the weekend and I'm fine during the day, but am so tired when my alarm goes off! I should probably be in bed now, but I'm catching up on Big Brother!! Paulie, what are you doing? I'm totally team James and Natalie! Are you watching? Who are you rooting for?

Our Weekend

Happy (super late) Monday! I"m finally sitting down after a long day and it's even Tuesday for some of you! We had such a busy weekend, but it was so fun! We were out every night and had back to back activities and we stayed up way too late and were up way, way too early. What I would have given for today off or even an extra two hours asleep!!

Quick & Easy Toddler Snacks

Eleanor has always been a great eater, and I’m so thankful for that. Of course, she’s gone through spurts of being picky or eating a plain peanut butter sandwich for weeks at a time, but having her eat healthy has never been a challenge. Thinking of different meals and options for her has sometimes been tough, but I thought I’d share our favorites and go-to snacks, on the go treats, and what I pack for trips and playdates.

-Veggies
Ellie loves frozen sweet peas and they were perfect for her when she was teething too. She also loves carrots, broccoli, and cucumbers.

-Fruit
Her favorites are grapes and strawberries, but she also loves figs, blueberries, watermelon, plum, and apples.

-Savory Snacks
We love to have something else with our lunches or snacks that add a different texture than fruits or veggies. I make sure to always give her an extra item like veggie straws, string cheese, popcorn puffs, graham crackers, pretzels, or our new favorite Larabar Bars and Bites.

We don’t eat totally healthy all the time, there’s plenty of drive-thru chicken nuggets in our diets, but I really try to have healthy food available for ingredients and snacks for our family. It’s really important to me to teach my girls to eat healthy and pay attention to what they’re putting in their bodies. We can see a difference in how we feel and even our behavior (hello sugar crash) when we focus on eating good, natural foods that isn’t high in sugar, sodium, or has been heavily processed. That’s one reason why I’m so happy to have found Larabar at Sam’s Club. They’re delicious, easy to grab for a quick bite, and have simple natural ingredients (that I can read and pronounce). We enjoy both their bars (the apple pie is my favorite!) and the bites, and because they’re food made from real food, I never feel guilty about having them or giving them to our family. Larabar is gluten free, vegan friendly, and dairy free which makes for a great snack to have on hand in case any of our guests have allergies. My nephew is on a gluten free diet and we make sure to always have items on hand for him to eat when he comes by, and these are perfect for him! We just have a hard time keeping them on the shelves since we love them!

What are your favorite toddler snacks?

A First Birthday Garden Party

Well guys, the day has come and gone. My littlest baby, Emma, turned one and I still can’t stop crying about it. Didn’t I just announce that we were expecting her arrival? Wasn’t I just sharing my hump day bump day pics? Didn’t I just bring her home? Ugh, the agony. Time is so dang selfish! Ok, I’ll stop the pity party to get on to the fun garden party we had to celebrate her.

Since I first started thinking about Emma’s birthday, I knew I wanted to do a garden party theme with soft pinks and a relaxed vibe. She is just the easiest baby, so sweet and always smiling and I wanted the party to reflect that. We’ve also had a bit of a floral theme throughout her first year with her nursery, monthly photos, and clothes I’ve leaned towards when shopping for her so a garden party was an obvious choice. We invited just our families to celebrate her big milestone, which still makes over 30 people, and since it was a small gathering, it was nice to really sit and visit with every guest. It's so easy when you're hosting a party to be so busy that it feels like you didn't get to really talk to anyone. I loved that we were able to enjoy the party and catch up with loved ones. We even stayed up till 230 with a few of my cousins just chatting and eating late night pizza around our fire pit. It was a great end to a perfect day!

At parties, I always like to know what people serve at parties and this year we kept it simple with sandwiches, fruit, veggies, broccoli salad, potato salad, and various chips and dip. Dessert was vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with white frosting and sugar crystals. They were so yummy! For favors, we had pink chocolate dipped rice krispie treats (with pearl sprinkles!) wrapped individually for our guests. I'm glad I made extras because nearly everyone wanted to take one or two extra home. We had them at the dessert bar at Eleanor’s first birthday party and they were gone in minutes so I knew everyone would enjoy them. We set up seating outside, had a bounce house, our guests played cornhole, and we just talked, ate, relaxed, and had a great time!

Emma didn't care much for her cake, even after sissy showed her what to do! We put some on her lip, but I think there were too many eyes on her for to check out the cake for herself. It was so cute and she smiled so big when we sang happy birthday! It was really a beautiful day and the party turned out fabulously.

For her party, I partnered with some really great shops for decorations. Without them, the party wouldn't have had the same feel and I just love how everything looked! The toppers, balloons, florals, everything was beautiful and I saved them for keepsakes or for future decorations in Emma's room and the girls'  playroom. They were all a dream to work with and helped make her party a success!


Floral Headband // Floral Highchair Garland – Enchanted Bow Shop
Tissue Garland// Emma is One Balloons – LoveGarlands
Cake Topper – Rustic Daisy Designs
Cupcake Toppers // Happy Birthday Emma Banner – Good News Lane Get 15% off using EMMA15
Felt Flowers (used for photo clips) – Wholesale Bow Supply
“One” Highchair Garland – Sugar Daisy Doo
Moss Table Runner – Amazon
Pinwheels – Hobby Lobby
Chalkboard signs – Amazon (from our wedding!)

Recent Purchases + #NSale

Yay! My #nsale buys have arrived! Oh wait, I only bought ONE DANG THING from the sale. Everything sold out so quickly! I can’t believe it, next year I’m not gonna wait and instead buy all the things immediately. I did however, manage to buy a boatload of MAC (check out my fave lipsticks post) beauty products that I could have bought at anytime during the year. That’s just how life goes sometimes.

Booties

These booties are a dream! I literally woke up at midnight and added them to my cart as soon as the sale started! I’m so glad I did too, because they sold out so quickly, and since I wear a size 10, there’s typically less of my size in stock. They are so pretty and soft in person and have nice cushioning inside so they should be comfortable for a full day of wear. I’m so happy I bought them, I can’t wait to wear them with skinnies and dresses. I would also really love to add some ankle height flat booties (maybe these?) to my closet too, they had a few pairs included in the sale, but all of them had sold out during early access.

Sunnies

I was so excited about these sunnies, they’re a gorgeous blue and I thought they would be a sure thing. The color and shape are super cute and they were totally perfect, however, they just dominated my face and I ended up returning them. I’m so bummed they didn’t work for me. That’s the biggest drawback to online shopping, you never know how things will fit! Clothing is a bit easier sometimes if you’ve bought that brand before or if there’s a lot of reviews in terms of sizing, but not much can help you with the fit of sunglasses.

Palette

This palette is so pretty!! The shades blend so beautifully together and are a really great mix of neutrals, making it super versatile for different skin tones and events. I’m not sure if I would call this a Holy Grail palette just yet (I want to play with it some more), but it is absolutely fantastic if you’re just starting out. It has fifteen eyeshadows, four permanent shades and four re-promoted shades. I think it’s more versatile than some of my other palettes in terms of every day shadow looks for me, I think I’ll wear more of these colors than I do in other palettes I own- 12 of 15 shades instead of 7 of 12, for example. The pots are full size, so it’s an amazing price point for the amount of shadows you get, and much more cost efficient than building your own palette through MAC.

Springsheen // Dollymix Blushes

So in my Currently Craving post I talked about how I’ve been wanting Lovecloud or Peony Petal and when I checked them out in person, they looked like every other pink blush I owned. If you’re new around here, I own a million pink blushes that all range from light pink, bright pink, cool, warm, blue hued, etc. The colors are gorgeous, but seemed too similar to my faves Pink Swoon and I’m A Lover. Instead, I ended up going with Springsheen, a beautiful pinky peach shade with a golden pearl finish and Dollymix a bright candy pink. Yes, I own a ton of pinks, I just said that, (dramatic pause), but this one is much brighter and has shimmer, where as my other pink blushes do not. SHIMMER guys, I obviously needed it. Honestly though, I felt that it was different enough to add to my growing pile of blushes. Springsheen is beautiful and almost has a highlighter built in, when I wore highlighter with it the first time, my cheecks were like “BAM! Look at me!”. Between the two, I thought I’d be wearing Dollymix every day, but I have found myself reaching for Springsheen more and more. It’s seriously a lovely shade that blends so prettily on the cheeks.

Pure Zen // Crème D’Nude

A few weekends ago, I went through my makeup drawers and cleaned out under my sink and found 12+ MAC products that were empty, expired, or haven’t seen the light of day in I don’t know how many years. If I’m not going to use a bright purple eyeshadow, I may as well turn it in for a pretty nude lipstick right? Pure Zen has been on my radar for a while, it’s a frost warm nude and a lot of my lipsticks are a pink/nude color and I loved that this one had a peach nude feel to it with just a hint of pink. Crème D’Nude is a peach nude as well, but I think it’s more nude than peach and is a warm enough color to keep it looking like concealer or giving me “dead” lips. I’ve been wearing them both a ton and I’m happy to add them both to my beauty drawer.

How did your #NSale shopping go? Did you score a ton of great stuff? I literally just bought this top after stalking it daily, I can't believe it came back into stock! I'm so excited, I know literally everyone has bought it, but I can't help myself when it comes to stripes. They're such a staple item for me and so easy to wear and layer. Did you miss out on anything? Keep checking back!