Summer

This was one of the shortest weekends EVER. Joe’s contract allows him to have an alternate work schedule, meaning he gets to take every other Friday off but sadly it was not this week. Then I worked on Saturday, which basically made our weekend feel like it was one day. Gah! Oh well, we just crammed as much family time in as we could.

On Saturday morning we did a little yard work, so I wore my favorite overalls (these run small!) and then swapped out my shoes and top for an afternoon shift at Anthro! 

While I was doing yard work, Joe took the kids to Home Depot for class and sent the most adorable pics! I love this little monthly tradition they have! 

After work , we had pizza and watched School House Rock–the kids love it and it gives me all the nostalgia feels.

Sunday we walked up to Target with the kiddos and I wore this adorable cold shoulder dress from Old Navy. I am so impressed by the quality–it is fully lined and a really nice breathable cotton! It’s perfect for these summer days but will also be so cute with ankle boots when it starts to cool off.

To top off this short weekend, our fridge is on the fritz so we have been Googling and fancying ourselves repairmen. Spoiler alert…it still is not working. A Mondayest Monday.

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Oh exercise. Don’t most of us have a love/hate relationship with the thing? Love the way it makes us feel, hate everything else about it. Well over the years my relationship with fitness has started to lean almost completely towards love with only a little bit of hate 😉

Curious to know how I got there? First thing first, and I am sure you have heard it before, but cute workout clothes makes a huge difference in motivating you to get to the gym or even work out at home like I do (getting to that later). For me, it’s even more important that I have good quality clothes because if I have spent our hard earned money on something it’s gonna make me (aka guilt me) into using it!

I get most of my stuff from the C9 collection at Target, which I know is not crazy expensive, but $30 on a pair of leggings I am going to wear for 30 minutes is enough to make it feel indulgent to me. I love the C9 stuff because I feel like the pieces are easy to mix and match and almost all of the pants are high waist with compression which this mama appreciates!

Now as for the shoes…I used to be a Nike girl, but I have found them to be too wide lately? And I have not liked how the toe part is completely mesh, I don’t want to see the shape of my foot lol. Enter New Balance. I have always loved the NB x JCrew partnership but it hadn’t occurred to me to try their shoes for exercise. My parents got me these for my birthday and I LOVE them. Love the fit (TTS) and love the tan sole! The sole is just that little something you need to make these shoes a step up from your basic work out shoes.

Now to the good stuff. What fitness program do I use? I know there is a lot to choose from, Tracy Anderson, P90X, Beach Body and of course lots of great gyms out there (I do tag a long with my mom once a week to her gym where we take a great bootcamp class!) but my main source of fitness is done at home with PopSugar Fitness.  I have been doing their videos (this is not sponsored btw) for over five years and I love them! I used them while pregnant, to bounce back after babies and now as my daily workout.

The best thing about these videos to me, is the variety of exercises and time choices. Usually I only do a 15 or 20 minute workout and then on the weekend, I will try one of the 30 minutes ones or if I am feeling really ambitious I will do a 40 minute one. They regularly add new videos to YouTube (and they have an app for your phone and for ROKU or Apple TV!) so I don’t get bored but here are a few of my favorites that I routinely go back to:

15 Minute Intense Bodyweight Workout–this one is great when you’re traveling to!

20 Minute Tabata Workout

20 Minute HIIT

30 Minute 300 Calorie Burner

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One of the best things about summer is the farmer’s market…and I am lucky to have quite a few here in Huntsville to choose from. On Saturday mornings there is a market in Madison, Lowe Mills and Providence, just to name a few. But for date night this past Thursday, Joe and I hit up the market at Greene Street downtown and we could not have loved it more!

We packed a picnic in this adorable basket and ate in Big Spring Park which was so nice but oh so hot! We are in the dog days of summer my friends and this outfit will come in handy for staying cool while sweating your face off!

These shorts are nice and light weight and this top is 100% cotton and breezy! Perfect combination if I do say so myself. These espadrilles are sold out but they might pop back up so keep checking! They are just perfect.

Do you have a farmer’s market in your town? I’d love to know!

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So it’s like a million degrees down here and I am trying not to buy more summer clothes–trying to be creative with what I have! This tote that I got from my Popsugar Must Have box has been just the item I needed to add a little something something to all my summer basics. My awesome sister got this box for me for my birthday and I have really been loving it!

Now I don’t know you, but my hair does not exactly thrive in the humidity–enter hats. This Old Nay panama one is old but they have it every  year and it’s darn near perfect. I wear it more often than I probably should!

Oh these sandals--I got them on clearance in white and then bought them again in the black. Note, I’m a true 7.5 and bought these classic beauties in an 8. Wondering if I should just buy ALL THE COLORS??

If you have been reading this blog for a while or follow me on Instagram, you know that I am a big fan of the Who What Wear collection at Target. The pieces are always on trend and are such great quality! This striped shell is no exception–I have it in both colors!

How do you keep your wardrobe interesting when you’re in the dog days of summer? Drop me a comment here or on Insta, I’d love to know!

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If you follow me on Instagram you know we spent my 30th birthday in New Orleans and it was just the best! This was our first family vacation that wasn’t to visit family and I am so please with how it went. My husband and I went to New Orleans when we were dating (true story, it was a disaster and we almost broke up!) and I have been wanting a do over ever since so Joe planned this little surprise trip a while back!

He found the hotel on Groupon, we stayed 3 nights at the Wyndham and it was pretty good, lol. The kids loved it, because they love any hotel, but the WiFi was spotty at best, no free breakfast and the room was not up to my OCD cleanliness  standard. All that being said, we got a GREAT price so the room was a steal for New Orleans in July, the staff was incredibly nice and the location was solid–right off to Canal street so we were close to the trolley and could walk to the French Quarter, plus it was in a safe area and relatively quiet. Not a lot of great dining options near by so I would plan of getting dinner in the Garden District, Arts District or Riverwalk before retreating for the night.

As far as food goes, if it were up to me we would just eat Beignets the whole time! I absolutely love them! Judy, however, wouldn’t even try them! Crazy girl. We went to two spots while there–Cafe du Monde (duh) and Cafe Beignet. Not surprisingly, the beignets at du Monde were superior–surprisingly though, the cafe au lait at Beignet was better!

For lunch one of the days we stumbled upon this awesome diner called, The Grill. This place was great! A classic diner serving awesome food and the people were so nice! All the servers and cooks came up to talk the kids–for no reason, just to be friendly! On top of that, the price was spot on and the food was fresh and the air was cool.

Couldn’t celebrate my birthday without doing a little shopping and scored this whole outfit at the Jcrew in Metarie–it rained every afternoon so we really enjoyed walking around and shopping at the Lakeside Mall. There is also a Disney store and another Cafe du Monde. WINNING!

This skirt and top–on clearance to boot!–were a lifesaver for beating the heat! I also wore this little romper on the day we went to the New Orleans Mint and Jazz museum –hidden treasure alert, this place is right off the French Market, FREE and blasting the AC.

If you go to NOLA in the summer, you will soon realize that finding places with good AC is a necessity. I live in Alabama and even I was looking for relief!

The best way to end our trip was DONUTS! District Donuts was recommended to me by an awesome lady and she was right! I only wish we had gone earlier in our trip! Next time we go, I think we will stay in the Garden District where this gem and so many other cool places were!

Any of you been to The Big Easy? Hoping to go? Let me know!

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We are heading into the holiday weekend friends! For me the 4th has always felt like halfway point of summer and I just cannot believe we are already there! So now that we’re here, let’t talk about what to wear!

These earrings really are a no-brainer at $24 and this pom pom hat is speaking my name…I have a birthday reward to spend and I am thinking of pulling the trigger on this one. Tassels, pom poms and now bows! This blue bow front top is an extra 50% off and is so stinking cute. I would pair this white jeans and tan sandals for now and then over a striped tee when the temps cool. And we cannot forget the littles…can’t you just see Louis and Judy in this star tee and too sweet popsicle dress?!

Hope you all have a great holiday weekend!!

I love me a nautical look….I can’t help it. I am pretty sure I have three pairs of pants of just like these. I like what I like!

This particular pair of pants was the result of stalking JCrew and waiting for a sale. Finally, I scored–and got these for around $30! Time and money well spent! Not sure if my husband would agree with that statement but let’s not digress.

So, whenever I wear something nautical, I always want to pair it with navy or stripes. It is just the perfect pairing…like Audrey Hepburn and Rome or pork chops and applesauce (Seriously. Don’t knock it till you’ve rocked it). This bell sleeve top balances out the volume of the pant and I love the crisp and shape and classic color..unfortunately it is from last year but I did link a cute similar one from Nordstrom!

These espadrille sneakers were a major score..found them on clearance at my local Target for $8 so naturally I bought two colors and have been loving them! They fit true to size and are super comfortable. The little platform made them perfect for keeping these longer chinos off the ground but didn’t make me feel unstable and allowed for running around after the kids!

Hope everyone has a great week!

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Hope you all had a beautiful weekend! We really did…went by quickly as they always do, but we got a lot done and had a lot of fun too 🙂

We started Friday off by hitting up the pool after the gym…I love that we have a pool in the neighborhood which means I get to enjoy it but don’t have to maintain it lol

Saturday morning we were up bright and early to hit up NASA in the park. It was really awesome! I kind of expected it to be lame honestly but it was really neat with food trucks, live music and lots of kid friendly exhibits.

This striped maxi dress was perfect for such a hot day! I was seriously sweating my face off but this dress is really light so it helped!

Despite the heat though, the kids had a great time!

Louis loved the rock climbing wall–he didn’t go very high but he was so proud of himself!

We finished our visit by feeding the ducks and meeting a space ranger–Louis was thrilled I promise!

Sunday we celebrated two great dads in our lives, Joe and my dad right down the street 🙂 After a delicious brunch (thanks mom!!) the kids napped at my parents while Joe and I ran to Home Depot and Target. Believe it or not, Joe said it was a perfect Father’s Day…he’s a keeper 🙂

Mascara and coffee are going to be essential to getting me through this day! Who are we kidding?? WEEK. Here’s hoping it’s a good one!

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Hey friends!

Most of you are probably familiar with SheIn, CupShe, AliExpress, ChicWish and other trendy retailers that ship directly from China. These sites are all awesome and I actually blogged about Ali last year –love being able to avoid the middle man and just buy the cute clothes straight from the source.

I was recently introduced to another one of these type shops called, ToSave. They reached out to me see if I would like to try some of their products and this adorable top immediately caught my eye! I will say that it runs small like most of the offerings from these sites–I ordered a small and should’ve ordered the medium. But for $5, I’ll make it work!

Have you guys tried these type of online shops? What do you think of them?

I was gifted this item but the opinion is my own 🙂

Oh Louis. You have been in a rush since the day you were born (3.5 weeks early!)…you are the most articulate, spirited, sweet and crazy four year old I have ever known and I am so grateful to be your mama!

This past weekend (his birthday is actually June 6) was all about celebrating this special boy and while I didn’t manage to get many pictures (Doh!) you can believe, this was a weekend full of love and fun!

Joe’s parents, brother and sister all came down from Maryland for the weekend so we got the party started by going out for pizza! Wore this awesome ruffled WWW dress, which hid the pizza belly! #winning

The next morning it was on to the Botanical Garden first thing. Right now there is a dinosaur exhibit and the kids just love it! It was kind of muggy here as rain was rolling in for the weekend so this lightweight cotton dress was perfect for strolling the garden. Plus I felt like Dorothy which is always a good feeling!

Later in the day was party time! We kept it small with just family and a close friend with her boys. It was perfect and Louis kept saying how happy he was to have everyone at his house. See? Sweet as can be! He got lots of great toys, including the clubhouse we got them…excited for a fun summer in the backyard!

We had such fun spoiling this boy and I cannot believe I have a four year old. True what they say, the days may be long (and some are very long!) but the years are short. Love my babies so much.