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Moms Can Handle Chaos

February 5, 2016

Moms can handle a lot, right? Blah. I don’t even know where to begin to tell you how crazy this week has been. We took a semi-spontaneous trip to Florida because we really needed to get away from everything for a few days. While it did us a world of good, we all got sick and have been feeling bad all week. It is not easy taking care of two sick babies while you yourself are feeling bad. On top of all that, I had a procedure done yesterday to take a spot off of my back and I have stitches and the works so I have been super sore. The icing on the cake? Last Saturday we got a call that the seller of our new house backed out. They have decided not to sell their home at all. While I am trying so hard to be okay with this, respect the sellers’ decision, and to know that God has a plan it has been hard. I have not had the best attitude about it. We had gone through the entire process minus the closing day. We had it inspected, the owners fixed the things that needed fixing, we had a contractor go over there with us and walked him through all of the changes we were making. We had plans drawn up, I had the entire place decorated in my head and Hampton has been asking to go to the new house every day for the last two weeks. Talk about a dagger in the heart. To say I am bummed would be an understatement because I loved that house. It was perfect for our family. Now, we are back at square one. So, who’s ready for the weekend? This girl! I am ready to blow a kiss at this week.

Moms Coffee Starbucks Mug

Daring Adventure and Weekend Happenings

January 25, 2016

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. – Helen Keller

I am so so so excited to finally tell you all that we bought a house! It is pretty crazy how the whole thing came about and the timing of it was such a God thing. I don’t even know where to begin. Well, yes I do…

Daring Adventure

My New Home Wish List + Hhgreg Giveaway

December 12, 2015

This post is sponsored by hhgregg but the content and opinions expressed here are my own. #blackstainless

After owning our first house, we learned a lot about what we want and what is important to us in our search for our second home. For example, we definitely want a garage. They are very common here and we figured out very quickly that with young children, that is something we both feel like we want and need. Another thing is stainless steel appliances. We had white appliances in our first home and while they looked great in our kitchen, they showed every spec of dirt that touched them. I was constantly cleaning them and somehow they stayed dirty.

Because it is the holiday season, I have been doing a LOT of baking (stay tuned for next week’s yummy treats). My mom has a stainless steel fridge and I love it so! It is seriously wonderful and beautiful. I’ve been searching online and looking at our options for our new home and I must say that I love these beautiful stainless black appliances from Samsung. Are they not beautiful? I’ll take one of each, please!

My favorites are the french door fridge (please, hubby!), Dishwasher, this one and I definitely can not forget this beauty! Now through December 31st, hhgreg is offering the following discounts on appliances (no promo codes needed):

Up to $1000 Off Samsung Refrigerators

Up to $1000 Off Black Stainless Steel Refrigerators

Up to $500 Off Black Stainless Steel Ranges

Up to $200 Off Black Stainless Steel Dishwashers

Up to $100 Off Black Stainless Steel Over-the-range Microwaves

Now, I have a HUGE treat for you! hhgreg is giving one of my readers a $25 hhgreg e-gift card! All you have to do to enter is visit hhgreg and leave me a comment telling me which stainless steel appliance you would like to purchase! Good luck!

Hello, Upside Down Life

December 3, 2015

This year, our Thanksgiving looked very different than most years. Due to a family situation, my brother and his kids moved into my parent’s house the same day we did – last Wednesday. It has been so chaotic, but also really fun. It has been stressful at times because there are so many people crammed into one house with all of our furniture mixed in with my parents. It is not healthy for this O.C.D. mama. Everywhere I look, there are boxes stacked. It has definitely been making me anxious, but I just keep reminding myself this is only temporary.

My mind has been all over the place. I’ve learned that once you become a mom, you become forgetful. When your 6 month old isn’t sleeping, it gets worse. Add moving in with my parents and acting as a mother of 4 this past week, it gets extremely worse. I am working diligently to get my brain back, settle in as much as possible and get organized so that we can get back into a routine. Hopefully, everything will be very manageable again soon.

Saying goodbye to our home on Saturday was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Maybe it was all the stress and emotions from the week, but I was so sad to say goodbye to our first home. We have so many wonderful memories there. We came home to that house after our honeymoon and brought both of our babies home from the hospital to that house. We had 4 amazing Christmases there and birthday celebrations. We watched Hamp’s first steps in that house and had lots of friends and family there for dinner and game nights. We will miss our home, but we are so looking forward to our next chapter. I am being very prayerful that God will place us where we need to be and that He will move in everything going on with my family. I feel His presence and know he placed us all here for a reason. We are all working together and taking care of one another. After all, that is what family does.

Have you ever dealt with a family emergency during the holidays?

A Different Kind of Christmas

November 17, 2015

This post is sponsored by Hallmark but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

A couple of weeks ago, I announced that we had been hit with a couple of big surprises that week. One of them was that my cousin and best friend is pregnant…with TWINS! We are so over the moon for her! It’s kind of crazy because twins do not run in our family and her doctor said this happening was a 1 in 10,000 chance. It is truly a miracle. The other huge news that hit us was that our house sold!! Finally! After 20 months on the market, we are finally moving! The catch? We are moving next week. Yep, right during Thanksgiving. In order to try and enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday and be able to spend time with family, we have decided to move on Wednesday.

So why is this Christmas going to be so different? Well, we have decided to move into my parents house until we find a house in order to save money. They have plenty of room now that the three of us kids are grown and out on our own, but it will be a huge change during a very busy time of year. It will definitely not be without challenges, but we are so grateful to them to allow us to stay there because we will be able to save a ton of money for a down payment on our next home. We are hoping to be there for only a month or two, but one thing I’ve learned is that you just never know what God has in store for you.

We just got back into town Sunday night from Jacksonville and had been gone for 9 days. I came home to a mess and tons of laundry and I am now in the process of packing up our entire house with only a week left to do it. To say I’m stressed would be an understatement.

While we are going to be going through a big move and hopefully another one soon, I am determined to make Christmas just as special. Change is very hard on young kids. This is probably going to be tough on H especially, so I want to keep things as normal and fun as possible. That means sticking to traditions.

My mom has a little Charlie Brown Christmas tree that she let me borrow to mess with Ryan and the kids. I came home yesterday with it and told them this was going to be about as good as it gets this year. Of course, I was playing with them and Ryan got a kick out of it. I also stopped by Hallmark and bought these adorable Charlie Brown Itty Bittys as well as this adorable little Peanuts Christmas Light Show! I bet you can’t guess which one was H’s favorite! He loves anything that plays music. He just giggled and danced and played it over and over. It made my day that he was so happy over this tiny gift.

While I was at Hallmark, I also picked up wrapping paper, ribbon and tags to start wrapping all the presents I bought in Florida. I was a little bit too obsessed with the plaid reindeer paper. It is adorable and I have big plans to sit in the floor in the middle of all of our boxes and start wrapping a few gifts while watching Hallmark Christmas movies! They are my favorite.

Have you ever had a crazy holiday due to a big life change? What do you enjoy buying at Hallmark?

Minted Art

November 9, 2015

Thank you, Minted for sending me artwork as compensation for this post. All opinions and love for the art are 100% my own.

One thing I have not done a great job on in our home is decorating the walls with artwork. That is very strange because I love art. Just ask my family. I have definitely always been the artist out of the bunch, but I also have a deep appreciation for art. Honestly, that is probably why I have had a hard time picking out pieces for our walls because I am so picky and have a hard time settling for the perfect one. Minted is fairly new to me, but I have heard about them through other bloggers. When they let me pick out a few pieces to decorate my walls, I knew it was time and I was more than excited to jump at the opportunity.

There are a few bare spots in our home that I have had a really hard time decorating. The entryway is the biggest. It has always been sort of blah. That was the first space that came to mind. I chose this Season Change piece because it fits so perfectly into the time of year and this season of our lives. Change. There are so many changes coming and I am nervous, but so excited for them. I love the way this art brightened this empty space and brought it to life.

The second place that really needed something was off of our kitchen and living room. This spot has always been so bare and it bothered me. I saw the gold foil prints and jumped on the Alabama one with this spot in mind. I am kind of in love with it and I think it is my favorite by far. Tomorrow through November 16th, Minted is giving 20%off of all their foil products, so I may have to snag another foil print at this great price!

The third was the Twinkle Twinkle print that I knew was perfect for SR’s nursery. I am a huge fan of fairy tales and nursery rhymes, so when I saw this, I knew I had to have it for her. It is so important to me to instill a love of literature in my children. I like to do that through bedtime stories and decorating their walls with these tales is just the perfect way to incorporate that love in their rooms.

While Minted was new to me, I have a feeling that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I am already dreaming of the next prints I want to get for our home! I absolutely love their artwork – in particular this Most Wonderful Time print for Christmas and this Lightly Gilded photo for our bedroom. I also have my eyes on their Christmas Cards! Can you believe it is already that time of year?

Which pieces would you choose from Minted’s Art Marketplace?

Market Town Coffee Co.

September 8, 2015

Ryan and I have big dreams for our future. We would love to live on a piece of land (about 5 acres or so) and build a farm house (think Fixer Upper comes to Alabama). We would also love to open a small bookstore one day. It is very healthy to have big dreams. It is also very encouraging to see other’s dreams actually happening.

I grew up dancing with Laura Jean and her older sister, Becca, since we were very young. In fact, I have a group picture of Becca and me in the same 4 year old class. They are two of the sweetest and most encouraging people I know. Laura married Cody who happens to be my mother’s maid of honor’s son. Such a small world. Our moms are still very close even today.

Laura and Cody not only have a huge heart for those effected by human trafficking, they also have a big heart for our city. Montgomery is the capital of Alabama and is so rich in history. It is full of beautiful homes, young professionals and entrepreneurs, but unfortunately, people have a hard time seeing the city’s full potential because of our growing crime rate. While people are moving further east of Montgomery or to surrounding areas, Laura and Cody decided to move to the heart of our beautiful city.

Not only have they moved to the heart of our city, they have also followed their dream by opening a coffee cart where they sell their own brewed “Bell Blend” coffee. They brew it fresh every night for their customers and let me just say, it is delicious! One thing our city is lacking is a good coffee shop. They hope to open a full coffee shop soon to fill this void. I know I will be one of many many regulars to darken the doors!

As soon as you meet Laura Jean, you fall in love with her sweet and kind personality. Christ shines through her in such a vivid way. She brighten up everyone’s day and is so wonderful to every single one of her customers. I spent an hour down at the Market Town Coffee cart with Laura and caught up with her on all of the latest things going on in our lives. She encouraged me so much just in that one hour. I loved watching how she impacted every person that approached her coffee cart. She put a smile on every face that walked by.

It is encouraging to see someone have a huge impact on people and who are following and excelling in their dreams. If you haven’t gone down to visit The Market Town Coffee cart, you are missing out. If you are not local, they offer to ship their coffee blend and I highly recommend you try some! There is something about freshly brewed coffee that is so pure and delicious! Laura also happens to blog over at The Ivory Bell. She is an excellent writer and has such a natural talent for bringing a beauty to her words that make you never want to quit reading. I’m so thankful for people like Laura Jean and Cody who live so open for Christ and shine his light in the darkest places of a lost city. I have so much faith that as more people and businesses gain courage to move downtown and into Old Cloverdale, that Montgomery will thrive again. It can be turned around.

In addition to their tasty coffee, they sell adorable t-shirts! I actually just ordered one and can’t wait to receive it! Read more about Laura and Cody’s mission and don’t forget to check them out on Facebook and Twitter!

Life Happens

September 2, 2015

Post contains affiliate links.

Romper: Gap via ThredUp // Vest: Old Navy // Birks // Kendra Scott Cuff: Nordstrom // Bag: TJ Maxx (similar here)

Our cooler weather didn’t last very long. It is back up in the 90’s and I’m back to rompin’ around in my jean vest. Oy Vey. So, last week in our small group, we went around the circle and told what are peaks and pits of the week were. I thought it would be fun to do the same this week because it has been filled with lots of ups and downs.

Pits:

Our house has been on the market for a year and a half now. We have lowered the price several times and continue to update it. It has been a really frustrating process. A couple of weeks ago we noticed a spot on Hampton’s baseboard in his room that looked like the wood had been warped. We had someone come out and look at it on Monday and, we have termites. Wonderful. While you may be thinking, “oh, it’s fine because I’m sure you have a bond”…no. We don’t. Or, we didn’t. Our bond expired a couple of months back and we had not renewed it. I’m not even going to tell you what our bill is costing us. Just know, our bank account is crying harder than that guy who loves Britney.

Sophie’s “acid reflux” has been awful. She isn’t gaining hardly any weight and it is really upsetting me. I feel like she is throwing everything up that she eats and then some. She should be growing and getting chunky, but instead she looks skinnier to me. We are going to the doctor later today for her 4 month check-up and I’m hoping she can give me new advice that will help. I’ve been so desperate that I even tried to give her formula but she still screamed the entire time I tried to give it to her. Any advice, moms?

Peaks:

While the termite thing was awful and hurt our bank account a little bit, we are so thankful that we caught it pretty early and have everything fixed now. It could have been a lot worse if we had waited or not noticed it.

Hampton has had a really good week. His behavior has been so much better and he has been so sweet with SR. I started decorating for fall/Halloween this week and he has loved seeing all of the “punkin’s” all over the house! He is definitely my little pumpkin baby! I hope he loves Halloween as much as I do!

Monday night we celebrated Ryan’s great-grandmother’s 92nd birthday! She told me she is now shooting for 100! I bet if anyone can make it to 100, it’s her! She is so precious and uplifting to be around. I love listening to her stories and being around her is such a calming influence. She has the kindest spirit.

My sister is coming home this weekend and I can’t wait to see her! Her and my mom offered to keep my kids so that Ryan and I can go out on a date! I am so excited! We have been out on one date since SR was born and that was over 2 months ago! With all of the traveling he has been doing, I am definitely ready to have a date with my hubby!

P.S. One of my best friends started a blog and launched it yesterday! Check her out over at Stroll Through the South! You will love her!

What was your pit and peak of the week?

How To Clean Your Home In A Hurry

July 20, 2015

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

It is no secret that we are trying to sell our house. In fact, it has been on the market for 16 months and counting. Over the last month, we have shown it at least twice a week. People do not always give us a lot of notice which can be tough since we both work primarily from our house and we have two small children. During the day, our house gets pretty messy. My (almost) 21 month old is into everything. If there is a liquid that he can pour out all over the floor, he will do it. Over and over again.

The other day, we got a phone call that someone wanted to see our house in 20 minutes. We looked at each other in a panic. We quickly jumped up and performed the 3 tasks we always make sure to do before a showing:

1. We picked up all of our son’s toys and everything else laying out.

2. Vacuum

3. Clean the Bathrooms

I always make sure that our bathrooms are clean no matter how rushed we are. I know from experience that the last thing a buyer wants to see is a nasty bathroom when looking at a house. It would absolutely gross me out to stumble on a dirty bathroom.

I start by cleaning all of the surfaces including our counter, sinks, bathtub and shower with Scrubbing Bubbles® Multi Surface Bathroom Cleaner because it disinfects everything and leaves the room smelling fresh. I also found that I could save a lot of time by using the Scrubbing Bubbles® Toilet Cleaning Gel. All you have to do is stick a new gel in the toilet every 7 days and, since it is flush activated, just flush like normal and voila! The toilet is clean and fresh. It is time efficient and touch free!

We live really close to a brand new Dollar General and I love to stop in there about once a week to pick up my Scrubbing Bubbles® Bathroom Cleaner and other supplies that we go through all too quickly. From July 7th – August 2nd, Dollar General will offer these coupons:

$0.50 off any Scrubbing Bubbles® Bath Product
$1 off any Scrubbing Bubbles® Toilet Gel Product
$0.50 off any Scrubbing Bubbles® All Purpose Cleaner

Check out these ways to make cleaning more fun with Scrubbing Bubbles®! Which is your favorite?

Farmer’s Market + Huggies

April 28, 2015

Check out the Huggies contest here!

Growing up, our city was pretty safe and very family friendly. While it still is in some parts of our town, our downtown area became pretty rough for a few years. Luckily, our government leaders have been trying to revamp our downtown area and make it more “family friendly.” We now have a minor league baseball stadium downtown, and a splash pad for children to play however, we still have a long way to go. While our community has made leaps and bounds to revitalize our city, there is still a lot of work to be done.

This weekend, we spent some time downtown walking around a.k.a. trying to walk out this baby. We enjoyed time at the Farmer’s Market and stocked up on veggies and enjoyed lots of conversation with some of our local farmers. They are seriously the sweetest people. I love supporting them by buying as many of our groceries from them as possible. Needless to say, it was a great way to spend our last weekend as a family of three.

Shirts: Jumping Jack

Huggies is awarding 10 community projects $2,000 to improve our communities. You can nominate your community project, too! All you have to do is take a selfie with your baby and post it to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #UltraHug to be entered into the contest! The contest is happening now through June 25th.

Speaking of Huggies, I just purchased the new Huggies Snug and Dry Ultra Diapers for little miss! They have a unique quilted liner to better protect babies from leakage, which is extremely important to me having two kids in diapers and all. The less mess I have to clean up, the better. They also offer up to 12 hours of protection. I can’t wait to try them out on SR! Then, because the bag had Mickey on it, we HAD to buy Hampton some as well.

Be sure to try the Huggies Snug and Dry Ultra diapers for yourself!

Baby update: Despite 4 1/2 hours of false labor Sunday night, I am still very pregnant. Please pray that she comes before this weekend because I have 2 special family members who will not be here for her birth if she waits until Friday. 🙁