Entertaining

The BEST Birthday Cake EVER!

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Okay guys, I have to share something with you. Something that you need in your life right now. Triple layer chocolate fudge ice cream cake. There. I said it. Here's how it all started. Last week was my 34th birthday, and two days before that, our mayor mandated a stay-at-home directive in the wake of all of the coronavirus cases going around. Now, I'm not a person who has big, extravagant birthday celebrations, but it is nice to be able to see some friends and go out for a nice dinner on your birthday. Well, that wasn't going to happen,…

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Crafting

Kate’s ONE Party Animal

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A couple weeks ago, before all this coronavirus stuff started happening, we celebrated our youngest child turning ONE! We celebrated in Dallas, at my parent's house, so some of the grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins could celebrate with us. Kate is a very happy baby and is always in the mood to hang out with others (as long as her mother (me) is within a 2 foot radius at all times) so I thought "Party Animals" would be a fun theme. So, I'm sharing how I put together the decorations and food for a fun party. Decor When planning…

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Crafting

A Pinterest Party: Resin Coasters

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What's a Pinterest party you ask? Only the most fun, relaxing, creative Saturday night you'll find anywhere. And its right here in Austin, Texas, hosted by yours truly. I've always been a crafter, and with the rise of Pinterest, ideas and tutorials for projects has only skyrocketed. Years ago, I would talk with friends about how we should all get together and make a craft from one of our Pinterest boards, and that, my friends, is how the Pinterest party was born. I hosted my first Pinterest party 5 years ago. It was spring break (I'm a *retired* teacher) and…

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Our House

Throwback Thursday: The Bathroom (Part 2)

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Hi! I'm back to share the second part of our bathroom renovation. You can read about the first round of renovations we did back in 2012 here. I expressed in that post that the bathroom was the first room I ever designed from scratch and I've learned a lot in the last 8 years. By 2018, I wasn't in love with all of my choices anymore and decided to give the bathroom a little refresh. If you can recall, this is what the bathroom looked like when we finished it in 2012: For this refresh, we focused on changes that…

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Money & Finances

My 100-day Challenge: February Update

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Hi ya'll! Can you believe its March already? February seemed to fly by and all the sudden, here we are. I promised an update on my 100-day challenge for the month of February and I'm here to do just that. If you have't already, you can read this post on the inception of my 100-day challenge. To recap, my family is trying to spend less money on stuff, so we can save money for intentional purchases (a new car down the road), experiences, and travel. Our guidelines are: Acceptable Spending/Purchases: Necessities (mortgage, utilities, insurance, groceries, preschool, etc)Kids activities (such as…

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Our House

Throwback Thursday: The Bathroom (Part 1)

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Hi Y'all! I'm back for another Throwback Thursday and this week I'm sharing our bathroom renovations. This will be a two-part post; the first part will be the bathroom as we originally renovated it in 2012/2013 and the second part will be the updates we made to it in 2018. But let's start with the OG bathroom. Now, this wasn't the original original bathroom that was built with the house - that was replaced with what you see below, probably in the '80s (I'm convinced this is worse than what it would have looked like in the '50s). Here's what…

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Furniture

Weekend Update

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I'm trying a new type of post and I'm calling it my Weekend Update, so when you're done reading, let me know if you like it. Andrew and I were out of town last weekend (first trip away from our youngest child, her and I both did fine) with some friends, so this weekend we had a few projects to tackle. First up was our front deck. Every couple of years it needs a new coat of deck stain. We've only re-stain/sealed it once since we built it in 2014. It was looking weathered and my father-in-law offered to help…

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Our House

Throwback Thursday: The Laundry Suite

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Howdy! Today I'm sharing the renovations we made to our laundry suite. We call this room the laundry suite because at almost 100 square feet, its proportion to our total square footage (1,273) is highly unusual. Most people with a house our size are lucky to have a laundry closet, much less an actual room that works as hard as ours. But let's start with the what the laundry suite looked like when we bought our house. It had a "walk-in" pantry (as seen on the right, above) and a cabinet with a *convenient* folding surface. On the opposite wall,…

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Favorites

My Favorites: In the Laundry Room

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How many loads of laundry do you do a week? With 3 kids and a husband, I'm sure you can imagine the amount of time I spend in my laundry room, so today I'm sharing my tried-and-trues that make laundry day(s), dare I say, enjoyable (okay, maybe just tolerable). Okay, yes, everyone has hangers (I hope). But, have you tried having all the same hangers? There's nothing that makes your closet or laundry hanging space look more organized than unifying your hangers. I use this style, in white, for the majority of my clothes, but pick a style and color…

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Our House

Throwback Thursday: The Master Bedroom

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Hi y'all! This week I'm sharing the renovations we made to our master bedroom (Bedroom 1 on the floorplan). There's really nothing that makes this bedroom the master compared to the other bedrooms, except that it's the largest bedroom in our house. There is no ensuite bathroom (remember, we only have 1 bathroom total) and the closet in this room is the exact same size as the closet in bedroom 2 (both of which are smaller than the nursery closet). The master bedroom is in the front of the house, and it has 3 windows, so it gets tons of…

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