Easy Summer Looks

 

Summer! Finally! I took a swing at my first product collage and put together a couple of summer looks to go along with the recent toastier days we've been having. Links are below!

Target dress, Emerson Fry dress, Thrive mascara, Laura Mercier lip gloss, Bare Minerals faux tan bronzer, Laura Mercier tinted spf moisturizer, Le Specs Air Heart sunnies, Theodosia necklace, Ancient Greek sandals, Studded sandals

The Theodosia line is new to me and I couldn't love it more! I could look at their site all day! What is your favorite kind of summer outfit? Let me know in the comments! 

Talk soon - Alex 

Warming up the Winter blues

 I've never been one to enjoy the cold and snow. Of course, I look forward to it every fall though. It's romantic to think about snuggling down for a good glass of red and a movie with snow gently falling outside. That sounds nice even now as I type this. But the truth is, winter is difficult for me. Simply getting around, having fun with the kids outdoors, and so many other things become an inconvenience under layers of clothing. So this year (especially with more snow than we usually get), I've been trying to focus on finding warmth in the winter. Positivity has always been one of my strong suits, but so has throwing myself pity parties every once in a while. Comparing the two, positivity feels much better at the end of the day than wallowing!

One thing that has brought me joy and a sunny disposition in the midst of all this gray is adventuring in the kitchen.

Cracking open a cookbook or perusing the internet in search of a new recipe has been one of my favorite things to do. I go through phases of experimenting in the kitchen and every time I do, I'm glad I did! It's fun to try out new recipes and when you're done, you have something to not only enjoy yourself, but share with your family. Brings me a smile every time! Try frowning while eating pasta. Im-pasta-ble.

P.s. - a few of my new favorite kitchen accessories have been from Food 52. I found this brand while wondering Nordstrom a few months ago. I have the silicone oven mitts, apron, and dish towels now and really enjoy all of them! The apron is a beautiful rosy pink with a couple of unexpected surprises built in and the towels soak up messes quite nicely without getting too dirty right away. Worth a try if you're in search for something like that yourself!

Will write soon. - Alex 

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

Update & Random Things

This past week has flown by! Matty is in full-blown homeschool mode and I'm finally getting used to alllll of the apps we need to use in order to get his assignments done. He knows how to navigate everything more easily than I do. He's had several Google Meets calls now (one was with the entire Kindergarten class...I'll let you imagine what that was like). 

He's been writing Matt as his name instead of Matty recently. I'd say I don't know how I feel about that. But, I know exactly how I feel about it and it's not good. Just another reminder that he's getting older and time is flying by so fast! 

Sometimes Matt and I get on margarita kicks (not complaining) and I wanted to share how we make them! It's not really a recipe since we eyeball it every time, but here it is:

- 1 shot of tequila (we've been loving Casamigos)

- splash of Trader Joe's Margarita Mixer (I had no idea, but this stuff doesn't expire for a good while)

- splash of La Croix (I like tangerine, but their lime or key lime flavors would be good too!)

- either a little bit of bottled orange juice or even better, fresh squeezed!

- lime slice (I recently got these so we'd have lime slices on hand without having to think about it in the future. Excited to try them out!)

I recently got Hannah this Lila and Hayes set from Ashby Mae (a local children's boutique we've loved for years) and she wore it for 3 days straight - no kidding. She loves how soft it is and the fact that it has short sleeves. For some reason, she absolutely despises long sleeves so I've been trying to buy her more short sleeved tops. I just love this picture of her!

One local/small business that I forgot to mention in my last post that I absolutely love is Doukenie Winery! We've been going there for years and just recently became members. We should've done it sooner! They have wonderful grounds with a gorgeous pond that the kids really enjoy playing around. They just had their first "Virtual Release Party" over Zoom and we had so much fun "socializing" (aka people watching through the computer). The winemaker taught us a little bit about the wines, took us through a tasting and some pastry pairings, and then answered questions that people submitted in the chat! Obviously, it wasn't how they wanted to celebrate their release, but they made it work and we had a great time!

Well, I didn't think I had much to say. But, I guess I did! I hope you all are enjoying the warmer weather we're starting to have! Thank you so much for reading :)

All Things Peloton

Peloton - something I could talk about all day (and quite frequently do - haha). There hasn't been a time that I've gotten off the bike feeling ungrateful and unenergized. Dead? Yeah. But, always grateful and happy. Exercise has always been something that has made me overall much happier, but it hasn't always been easy to fit in (especially with a 4 & 5 year old). So this bike has literally changed my life for the (much) better.

I do rides about 5 times a week (sometimes more, sometimes less). There was a time when I was very strict on myself when it came to my ride schedule, but since schools closed and homeschooling became a thing, I've given myself a bit of slack when it comes to that. I also often add in an arm or core workout (included on the app) after the rides that I've found to be very effective. They have different lengths; I mostly do the 5 or 10 minute exercises. The kids really enjoy doing those with me too!

There's so much to talk about when it comes to Peloton, the community, the instructors, my personal experience, etc. I'll start with the instructors since I got that question on Instagram. When I first started riding, I solely did rides with Ally Love. She's uplifting, her energy level is always spot on, and I love her music choices which is a huge part of it for me. It's hard to enjoy exercising without music that pumps you up.

After my first 100 rides ("Century Ride"), I started to branch out as to who I was willing to try and now I've taken classes from 12 different cycling instructors. A couple new favorites:

Cody Rigsby - I love his energy! He is absolutely hilarious and it's always grounding when he says "It's not that deep, boo." It's so easy to get wrapped up in your workouts, thinking about how hard it is and suddenly you find yourself clenching your fists or scrunching up your face and it's just. not. that. serious.

Alex Toussaint - To put it in a few words, he just asks for your best. He makes you reassess how much effort you're putting into your ride. He's real and that's something I appreciate. "You woke up today" is something he says often and it's an easy reminder to stay grateful.

Another question I got on Instagram asked how I stay motivated. And the answer to that is, I'm really not sure other than I genuinely enjoy working out now which I never thought I'd say. I dance on the bike, sing the songs out loud, laugh, cry (yep), and celebrate milestones with friends, family, and total strangers. This community has brought out something in me that I would've never guessed was there. I'm literally getting sappy over an exercise bike. Lol.

By the length of this post, I think I've proven that I could talk/write about Peloton all day. If you have any more questions, I'd be happy to answer them! Let me know if posts covering rides I've done and tips I've picked up would be interesting to you!

As always, thank you for reading :)

Navigating Homeschool + Local Takeout

Happy Monday! It’s the second official week of distance learning for Matty! We've gotten into a groove of doing his schoolwork in the morning so they can play in the afternoons. Honestly, I don't push him too hard to do a certain amount of work each day. Just as long as he gets his assignments in on time, I'm happy! While Matty is doing his work/watching teacher videos, Hannah is usually coloring, playing by herself, or watching the videos too. Maybe she's picking up some Kindergarten material! Who knows.

I'm not super crafty, but I tried my best with Matty's morning binder. I got the idea from a post from one of his teachers on Google Classroom. He has a few different pages in there where he can keep track of the day of the week, number/word of the day, rhyming, and letter practicing. He's one that really thrives on structure and routine and has been enjoying it!

For math, we've been using either pom poms or cut up construction paper for his counters. The pom poms work better, but we only have a few since they seem to keep disappearing - haha.

This is our "homeschool" set up! Luckily, the kids got the table and chairs from Santa this past Christmas or else we'd have to turn our dining table into their work area. I love the table because it's super easy to clean, has a couple of drawers, and is the perfect height for them. I've found that the more containers we have for organization, the easier it is for the kids to clean it all up when they're finished. It's only this clean in the early mornings and is usually a mess by 8:30am every day :)

Parents, do you have any tips on staying organized for homeschooling? And if you're a teacher reading this, I'd love to know what ideas you have to enhance home learning! Thank goodness for teachers, am I right?!

We have been doing really well with making our meals at home, so we ordered takeout a couple of times this weekend from some of our favorite local restaurants (King Street Oyster Bar & SideBar). I love the crab cake sandwich from Oyster Bar - it's one of my favorites around! Plus, their fries are so good!

On Saturday, we ordered from SideBar's Brunch menu later in the morning after we realized that they take Brunch orders until 3pm. I got their avocado toast (which is amazing), Matt got "The Hangover," and each of the kids got a jumbo cinnamon roll. Everybody wins ;)

Some other businesses we love to support that are going above and beyond to continue serving their customers safely:

Tuskies (Tuscarora Mill) - one of our very favorites for any meal, especially Sunday brunch!

King Street Coffee - love their iced honey lavender latte!

The Wine Kitchen - their croque monsieur and burger melt are absolutely delicious.

Ashby Mae - a children's clothing boutique where I love to shop for the kids' clothes.

27 South - the most gorgeous home design store and they currently have a 20% Off Everything sale going on!

Tuckernuck (local-ish to us) - simply love everything on their site.

Are there businesses you love that are trying to make the best out of the new regulations? I'd love to check them out!

As always, thank you so much for reading :) Hope you have a great week!