Weekend Highlights

 Good morning and happy Monday! Today I am recapping our busy but fun-filled weekend as I link up with Heather for Hello Monday. I hope you all have a great Monday and get your week off to a strong start!

On Friday I subbed for a 4th grade class at my old school while Devin worked from home and watched the kids. When I came home from work they were playing with their construction worker dress up clothes. Both of these kids love to play dress up, and the construction outfits are a big hit these days! 

5 Random Things and A House Sneak Peak

 Good morning! I have seen on Erika's blog a couple times where she does "5 Things" and I love the randomness. This week as I was thinking "what do I want to write about" my brain kept dumping out a bunch of scattered thoughts. I decided to roll with it and just like Erika, share my 5 assorted thoughts. I also have one sneak peak picture for your of our renovation as we are slowly moving back in! 

1. Zillow.

Life Lately Part 2

 Hello again! Over the weekend I realized that I had not done a Life Lately post on here in over 2 months... and I had a LOT of pictures to share! On Monday I shared the first half, and now here I am today to share the rest. Snuggle up under a cozy blanket and come see how the Darrell's celebrated the holidays 😁

So where we last left off we were between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We were buckling down and staying home as much as possible due to rising COVID numbers, so we spent a lot of time baking and doing crafts at home. I have to say, while the reason for staying home so much this holiday season was obviously terrible, it was actually kind of nice to be forced to stay home. This was the first Christmas season in years where I didn't feel stressed from trying to do too many things. We didn't have any holiday parties to attend this year. No Christmas plays at school (sad, but it's always another thing to squeeze into the calendar). No "extra" activities because they weren't happening this year. It was the most relaxing and peaceful holiday season we've had in a very long time, and I'm hoping next year we don't go back to all the busy-ness again.

Here we are baking some Christmas cookies:

 

Life Lately Part 1

 Hi there! I hope you had a nice weekend and your Monday is off to a great start. I realized over the weekend that I haven't done a "Life Lately" post in over 2 months. That is a long time considering we've had the holidays and so much else going on! I decided to split this post into a part 1 and a part 2 because otherwise this post would have 50+ photos... and nobody has time for that! Today is going to be  a random dump of photos from my phone from mid November- mid December. Then on Wednesday I will share the rest! Grab yourself a cup of coffee and come see what we've been up to lately:

Life Lately

Good morning everyone! I wanted to just hop on today to share a few pictures of this sweet stage of life we are in at the moment. A couple weeks ago I was playing with the kids around the house and had one of those "this is my favorite stage so far" moments with both kiddos. I know I'm going to want to look back on these moments and remember them forever, so I figured I'd share a little bit of what has made these past few weeks so sweet 😀

 All of a sudden Lily Grace's imagination has just taken off. I love that her vocabulary has just exploded at the same time and when she is playing with her toys, she is explaining what's happening. In this picture LG was playing "mommy" and Elsa was her "baby". She was changing Elsa's diaper here, and was walking me through the different steps as she did it. Listening to her little voice tell me how to change a diaper was so incredibly sweet. 

 Then Elsa got hungry after her diaper change, so she had a bib put on her, was put in the highchair, and was being fed baby food. Apparently it was sweet potatoes.

 We had a surprise little bit of snow a few weeks back! When I say "little bit", I'm not kidding. You can see how little it on my car, right?

 Here is another picture. You can see roughly an inch on the grass and absolutely none on the roads. Would you believe it if I told you that school was cancelled the next day over this?! I teach at a Catholic school and we only had a 2 hr delay, but CMS (Charlotte's public schools) and several other districts were out for the full day. Being from Ohio, it always make me laugh at how much people in the South freak out about snow. 😂

 Meanwhile, we spent our snow days inside doing puzzles. Lily Grace did this puzzle all by herself and was so proud!! As she should be!

 And this little guy just kept smiling and snuggling and stealing everyone's hearts. 

 Another day, same puzzle. Now that she knows she can do this one on her own, we have to do it at least twice a day. It makes me so happy to see how much she loves puzzles, because you all know I do too!

This squirmy little guy is getting harder and harder to get a picture of that isn't blurry! He is always on the move. 

 Our little celebrity here woke up from her nap and came out of her room looking like this one day. 

 And then we picked up some new goggles for her swim lessons and this girly thought she was "big stuff". 

That's just a quick look at what's been going on around here lately. See you all back here tomorrow for another healthy recipe!

Gratitude Journal

Good morning friends! Today I wanted to share with you something that I have read about over and over and over again but have put off doing until recently: starting a gratitude journal. 

Fall Prime Fashion Finds Part 1

Good morning! Today I am doing part 1 of a lengthy post about all the cute clothes I have found on Amazon lately. Just a few months ago I had never thought to buy clothes on Amazon, but now it is one of the main places I shop! You really can't beat it for convenience, and with a 5 week old baby in the house convenience is a priority right now!

Oversized Cowl Neck Sweater/Leggings/Boots
This oversize sweater feels like wearing a blanket! I'm pretty sure you could pull the cowlneck down and do an off-the-shoulder look, but I preferred the cowl neck this morning 😀

White T/Striped Long Sleeve Sweater/Jeans/Toms Wedges
I was unsure about the v neck tees when I was looking online, but am so happy I ordered them. They are super soft and the fit is perfect. I grabbed them in a medium. 

White T/Brown Sweater/Jeans/Toms Wedges
Then I tried the same outfit but with two different scarves:

Leopard Scarf (old-- from Loft)

Yellow Infinity Scarf

Oversized Cowl Neck Sweater/Jeans (not Amazon)/Toms Wedges
Same cowl neck sweater as above, but a different color. Super cozy and comfortable!

White T/Rust Sweater/Jeans (not Amazon)/Toms Wedges
This is the same as that brown sweater but in a rust color. I love the length of this sweater because it covers the booty/hip area, which is always my biggest problem area. 

Those are just a few of the options I've found lately.. come back Friday for the rest! Have a great rest of the week!

A Day in the Life of Us

Good morning friends! It has been 6 months since our last "Day in the Life" post and these are some of my absolute favorites to look back on. Look at how tiny my sweet girl was almost a year ago at this time:

A Day in the Life of Us

Good Morning! It has been roughly 6 months since the last time I did a "Day in the Life" post and wanted to do another one. I have been trying to find a somewhat "normal" (read: relaxing) day around here to document, but it's been awhile since we've had a "normal" day... so I guess crazy busy is the new normal! 

I love looking back on what my sweet little girl was up to 6 months ago and know I'll continue to love to read these as she gets older. 

Weekend Highlights

Happy Monday friends! I hope you all had a nice weekend. Here's a look at what went on around here..

1. Charlotte Christmas Village-- On Friday afternoon Lily Grace, her Aunt Jenni (my sister) and I headed to Uptown Charlotte to the Charlotte Christmas Village. We were looking for a German/Danish Advent calendar candle to start a new family tradition. These are basically the candle version of an Advent calendar. They have the numbers 1-24 written on them and you light the candle each day (typically done as the family eats breakfast together) and watch the flame burn down until the next number. Here is an example below:

What I've Been Wearing

Happy Friday! I wanted to let ya'll know that my favorite Frye boots I wear all the time are on SUPER sale for $199! I wear these multiple times a week and have had them for years. I cannot recommend them enough-- they would make a perfect gift for someone else (or yourself!). Here's a look at what I've been wearing lately.

Don't mind the messy bed, I spilled coffee on the sheets and had to wash them.. woops!

White Pants/Green Shirt (only $10!)/Vest/Boots (on sale for $199!! This is crazy cheap for Frye's!)

Monthly Goals-- December

“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.” ~L.R. Knost
⇧⇧⇧Just a little something sweet to (hopefully) brighten your day.⇧⇧⇧

Before we get to my December goals, let's take a look at how the November goals went down... YIKES! This was NOT my month!

Weekend Highlights

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. We were lucky enough to spend the weekend in Charleston, SC for our friends' wedding. Here's a look at what we were up to:

1. Wedding Time! Our sweet friends Carter and Esther were supposed to get married the weekend of Hurricane Florence in Charleston, SC but had to postpone their wedding due to the storm. The new wedding date was Friday so after working a half day, I drove straight to Charleston. Dev and Lily Grace were already there because they were both in the wedding party and had to attend the rehearsal. Lily Grace was the flower girl and a friend sent me these pics she took of our girl walking down the aisle. They are a little blurry but they can help me hold over until the professional ones come in 

Easy Dinner- Sheet Tray Veggies and Salmon

Weekend Highlights

Good Morning! We had a busy weekend over here and I thought I'd share some of the fun things we did. But before we begin with that, I thought I'd share a pic or two of Lil's Halloween costume. We used her crazy hair to our advantage and dressed her up as Albert Einstein :)

1. Charlotte Half Marathon-- Our race was finally here! We have been training for this for the past few months and were so excited for the big day to finally be here. Dev had been training right along with me but a few weeks ago hurt his knee while running. He took some time off hoping it would heal in time for the race but it was still sore the week leading up to the race, so he deferred to next year. This was really upsetting to him but I am so proud of him for making the right decision and deferring instead of pushing himself through it and possibly injuring himself further. He and Lily Grace were my #1 fans in the crowd and saw me at multiple places along the course. We got to celebrate together at the finish line.

Lil came on a little strong with her kiss 😂

2. After the race we made our way to the library for the last day of early voting. Lily Grace got to vote too and earned her "I Voted" sticker. 

3. I had scheduled a massage for the day of the race, so after rinsing off at home and resting for a few hours, I made my way to the spa for a little post-race R&R. While I was relaxing after the race, Dev and Lily Grace met up with some friends. 

 My trip to the spa was relaxing

Lily Grace and her friend playing (I blurred out his face because I didn't ask his mom's permission to post their picture).
4. Sunday morning we got all dressed up for church and then went for a walk around our neighborhood.

 Outside our church

 

5. On Sunday afternoon we hung out with friends and let all the kids run around together. We are so lucky to have a group of close friends with kids the same age. Getting to parent with a group of close friends makes it that much more fun!

That was our weekend, I hope you had a good one too! Happy Monday friends!

What's Up Wednesday

Happy Halloween and Happy What's Up Wednesday!! This is always one of my favorite posts of the month. I love reading to see what all of you are up to and sharing our updates too :) Just like last month I don't have a legit answer for every question, so I only answered the ones that were fitting :)

What I've Been Priming

Hey all! I figured I was due for another "What I've Been Priming" post since it feels like we are getting a new package in the mail every other day around here :)

1. Duck Marble Contact Paper I had previously ordered a different brand contact paper and was disappointed when it came, so I went with this brand instead. MUCH better looking! I did a little before/after here and plan on posting an updated tutorial sometime next week. 

2. Our Hiking Backpack-- We took this with us to Amsterdam and it was the perfect size to hold everything we needed and it also has a water pouch to help keep you hydrated. We used this last weekend when we went hiking in the NC mountains and plan on using this for many trips to come!

3. Tripod- A friend of our who takes pictures recommended this tripod for traveling. It folds up really small and can fit into our hiking backpack for our trips. 

4. Tanning Wipes- I wanted a little glow and figured I didn't need the full size wipes now that the weather is cooling off. 

5. Girl, Wash Your Face- I loved this book so much I bought 3 copies as gifts for Christmas presents! Yes, I start buying my Christmas presents super early (I actually usually start in the summer). It makes the holidays more enjoyable to me if I'm not stressed about finding everyone the perfect gifts last minute.

6. Cell Phone Holder Clip- I saw this on another blog I follow, the family clips this to their stroller/chair/whatever they can find in order to get pictures of all 3 of them instead of the dad always being left out. I guess it's kind of like a selfie stick except you can get more in the picture because it can be set back farther. The family said they also use it to put on some Youtube videos at the store/somewhere they need both hands. I haven't used it for that yet, but I guess it's good to know its an option!

7. Dried Fruit Snack Packs- We have another big trip coming up where I will want some non-perishable healthy snacks with us. I bought these because they had no sugar added and wouldn't go bad if we didn't end up eating them right away.

8. Polarized Sunglasses- I lost yet another pair of sunglasses last weekend in the mountains and grabbed this two pack of aviator glasses for $17. Anybody else go through glasses like crazy?

So that's what I've been Priming lately! What about you? Anything you'd recommend I add to my cart? Have a good one!