Making Valentine's Day special

 I don't know about you, but I love Valentine's Day. I love pink and red together, all the hearts, flowers... pretty much everything about it. I'll take any reason to celebrate, but love is something worth celebrating every day in my opinion! Since Matty and Hannah have gotten older, I've especially loved making the holiday memorable for them. I usually put foam hearts on their doors with V-day sayings on them, make heart pancakes for breakfast, make sure we're all wearing pink or red, and have little gifts set out for them in the morning.

A couple of photos from V-Day last year - cuties!

Since this past year has been challenging in ways none of us could've imagined, I've been looking for ways to make our celebrations and holidays even more exciting and have already started planning for February. Some of you might think I'm crazy, but like I said...I love a reason to celebrate!

I recently picked up this mini waffle maker from Target (only $10) and was too excited to wait to use it. It works really well and the size makes for an easy cleanup. It looks like the pink version is sold out, but it's still available in red.

I've taken all the chances to spend a day in pajamas recently and have been loving these! I love the softer pink color. If you live in the Virginia/Maryland area, Petite Plume ships from Richmond which makes for fast shipping - another plus!

I also got this set from Lila and Hayes for Hannah. She loves hearts just as much as I do and was very excited to get these in the mail. Some other options for girls: Mon Cheri sweater, heart socks (20% off), simple heart tee, and I'm loving this heart bomber jacket that's 20% off!

I think companies are doing a great job in increasing holiday themed clothing for boys! It used to be much harder to find pieces for them, but I found a few options that I think are adorable: this tee is on the way for Matty (currently 20% off), a quality long sleeve polo that can be worn after Valentine's Day, and a whale-y cute tee here (also 20% off!). 

If you're in search of a special gift and are local to Northern Virginia, I highly recommend Ashby Mae Boutique! They always have such sweet surprises for children like jelly cats, bows, jewelry, and themed books. If you're not local, just message them on Instagram. They ship!

As for the actual day, we plan on decorating our driveway and inviting friends to drive by and pick up their Valentines (we got Matty this pack and Hannah this one) + a cupcake from the kids. We'll bundle up, turn up Michael Buble's Love album on the speaker, and enjoy spreading all the love we can on the 14th! 

What are your Valentine's Day traditions? Will write soon - Alex 

Life & home update

 Hi, friends! I haven't written here in a while and wanted to send out an update. It's been quite a year with a lot of changes in our life. We recently bought our first house (just one neighborhood over from where we were renting), Matty switched schools and started 1st grade, and Hannah has been growing so fast (and even lost her first tooth a couple of weeks ago!).

We love our new neighborhood! We're even closer to my parents, have met a couple of truly great families close by, and feel really at-home and settled here. We're working on making it more "ours" slowly but surely and I'm loving the updates we've done so far! 

We (read: Matt) painted the kitchen cabinets and added new hardware, updated our exterior light fixtures, and switched out the foyer light fixture (plus a couple of smaller updates here and there). For the kitchen cabinets, we tried a more cost effective paint first but wound up going with Benjamin Moore Advance in the end. The price difference is worth it! The white we used is called Simply White and the green is Willow Grove. I love the natural tones of our granite countertops and I think the two cabinet colors add to that nicely. This project turned out to be a much larger undertaking than both of us imagined. I'll share tips and tricks we found useful along the way in another post! 

We plan to update the backsplash in the kitchen and make our living room more usable next. Can't wait to be able to spend time on our main level more comfortably!

I hope you've been doing well and taking care of yourself during this time. I'm trying to focus on doing things that bring me joy and spending quality time with Matt and the kiddos. What have you found that makes you feel the most joy lately? I'd love to know!

Will write soon - Alex