Easter Weekend Recap

Ello Ello!

Hope everyone had a fabulous Easter weekend filled with tulips and chocolate covered Peeps

and bright colors and Easter egg hunts and honey glazed ham! 

Or was that just me? 

Spring is officially the cutest season ever and I was taking full advantage.

Here's a quick recap!

Saturday night was spent crafting Easter goodies (in a jar!) for my niece and nephew.

And okay mayybeee polishing off a bottle of Southern Red?

Sunday morning we awoke to this darling alarm to get our butts up

and start getting ready for Easter service.

Then THIS beauty of an Easter basket greeted me when I walked

into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.

I have been obsesssingggg over the "Southern Darlin'" tees & koozies

they just started carrying at A Cut Above, a local boutique here in town.

I still can't believe Bryan even step foot in that store. Proud wife moment!

Find the "Trophy Wife" tee here!

...aannddd it didn't stop there.

I could not WAIT to give Bryan his man basket.

I would say a step up from last year's.

Just what every fishin' guy needs! 

(Seriously this was so much fun to make.)

Did you think we would forget about Jake?!

He wasted no time in pulling out the only thing he actually cared about- the duck.

Pay no mind to the sweet little biscuit that was tied with an Easter bow.

#priorities

Mom came over later that morning, we snapped an obligatory Easter photo

in our obnoxious outfits. Then, off to church we went.

After church we poured ourselves a glass of champs, stuck a Peep on it

and voila! You have yourself an Easter cocktail!

My parents and Bryan's family came over for Easter dinner and I

stuck to my usual job of setting the table.

I seriously love a good tablescape.

I swear I missed my calling as "professional table setter."

I had been Pinteresting (that's a word, right?) Easter tablescapes

all week and I was ready to set my linen napkins on fire during the process

of figuring out how to fold them into bunny ears.

Next year, bunny ear napkins, next year.

Housewife 101

If you know me personally and you read the title of this post, I know what you're thinking:

"Yeah? This should be interesting." 

As soon as Bry & I got engaged I knew it was time to kick

it up a notch in the housewife department.

I mean how did I even get this guy to want to marry me?

I can throw one heck of a party and I make a mean cupcake but

it is absolutely noooo secret that I DON'T love cooking and I have

to physically force myself to do laundry.

Well, girls.

Let me introduce you to two new items in my household that have

become an absolute staple in my routine. 

Item One: The Crock Pot

WHAT.

To say that I have been missing out on this little beauty of a kitchen

appliance is a major understatement.

Problem: Don't like cooking?

Solution: Crock pot.

Problem: Don't have time to cook?

Solution: Crock pot.

Problem: Have a full time job and you enjoy after work activities such as going 

to the gym, tanning, shopping or partaking in happy hour 

but you still need to feed your Hulk of a man?

Solution: Crock pot.

You get where I'm going with this don't you?

Find yourself a good crock pot recipe book.

Gather your ingredients.

Throw 'em all in.

Crank that baby up and go.

Literally, go... go to work, go to school, just leave.

Dinner will be waiting for you upon your return home.

It is just fabulous. 

Item Two: The Steamer

Okay...again on the in the dark about things.

This thing is ridiculous.

My Mom, to this day, still spends like a solid day ironing clothes.

I'm sorry but ironing was a luxury in this household.

Laundry would get done and folded if Bryan was lucky.

My method of ironing is called the ol' throw it back in the dryer trick.

But nowwww this gal is wrinkle free! 

I still grab my clothes right out of the dryer and hang them up but

I have so many of my dresses and Bryan's work shirts that wrinkle so easily.

Now the night before, when I'm picking out my outfit for the next day, I steam! :)

SO. FUN.

Where has this thing been all of my life??

If you're newly engaged or just married and still have some polishing

to do on your housewife skills, seriously, INVEST.

Happy Happy Happy!

Fall Sangria and Back Porch Pavers

I have to admit.. I am sounding like such a DIY housewife lately.
Do I have y'all fooled yet?
I SWEAR I'm not as domesticated as it appears. The only thing I can cook is
pasta and I literally have to force myself to do any crafting cuteness.
Basically, unless it's cupcakes or cocktails (I foresee a themed holiday party to that effect)
..I'm practically useless.
I'm giving cupcakes the weekend off so I present to you... TA-DA!

Back up, back up, back up a second there. 
I won't even try and act like this was a quick casual
foodie photo shoot. No, no. I was in my backyard for almost 
45 minutes hovering over my picnic table with my Canon 
like a total freak until Bryan came outside and said,
"Uhhh, what's going on out here?" 
I am so not a skilled photographer so let's all just take
this somewhat visually pleasing picture in for a moment, shall we?

Annddddd done.
Moving right along.

So I had a ridiculously painful looking to do list the other day..

We're planning on setting up a sangria and champagne station
at our cocktail hour and sangria, my friends, is an easy thing to screw up.
I didn't want to wait the week before our wedding to toy around with recipes
so I took this fabulous weather as an opportunity to start getting creative.

Fall Sangria
1 bottle dry red wine (I used cab)
2 cups pomegranate juice
2/3 cup Brandy
1/2 cup orange juice
1 can Sprite
1 sliced Granny Smith apple
1 sliced orange
1 sliced lemon

Now stick a straw in that puppy and drink up.

Now put it down... 'cause we're not done here yet.
Bryan, being the back porch loving grill master that he is, decided
we needed pavers in our new home stat.
We had been weighing out a few different options for the past few
weeks and just decided to have it all done professionally since we got a great deal.
You know how there are just some things that should NOT be DIY?
In this household, pavers and weddings are one of them.

Now if Florida would just get a leeeeettle bit cooler we
could get a fire going. Throw in some adirondack chairs and we will be 2 happy people.

I have a couple other porch projects to work on.. including hanging all of these
babies that my mom made for our engagement party.

Happy Weekend :)

5 on Friday!

Five on Friday?! Why not!

- ONE - Family Christmas photos. I. Am. Obsessing.

No sooner that Halloween was over did my little ol Pinterest feed

just start to flood with Christmas-ness. I don't hate it.

I'm thinking this: 

via

Plus this... 

And then... there's this one.. I can't even handle.

You're welcome. 

- Two - Giving up soda. Yep, this is happening. 

It really is just awful for you. For the last few years I have been hooked on Diet Cherry Coke...

and diet sodas?  

Don't even get me started. 

La Croix is my new jam.

- THREE - Upholstered office chairs! 

Since moving into our new home, I can't complete decorating

one room at a time- oh no, that would just be too easy.

Since Captain Scatterbrain is all over the place, I have now started

on re-doing our home office. That being said, I am on the HUNT for the most perfect office chair.

These are some of my favorites.. 

- FOUR - Our engagement pictures :) 

Our photographer did an amazing job at our engagement shoot last month.

I ended up with almost 200 images from an hour and a half long shoot. 

We were suuuuper crunched for time- literally that morning I had to drop off 100

cupcakes at a shower, have my "goodbye lunch" with my Orlando girlfriends and

finish loading up the U-Haul that afternoon. Once we wrapped up our shoot-

we literally jumped in our cars and moved our butts back to Ocala.

It was a ROUGH day. But all of the images turned out beautiful! 

Except the bags under my eyes.

- FIVE - Farmhouse Tables. 

via

I have had my eye on these tables for the longest time. 

Now that we're in our new house and hosting our first Thanksgiving, this is happening.

We first just looked into buying one instead of making our own, uh, no. 

The cheapest one at Restoration Hardware was like $1500.

After checking out the wood situation... 

..it will be around $150 to make. 

Check back in a week or so for an update :)

And Happyyyy Weekendddd!

October Photo Recap

I can NOT BELIEVE the month of October is already over.

We are 4 months away from wedding day and I know it's going to just fly by.

My new little Canon has been coming out to play quite a bit these days.

Here's some snap shots from the past month:

We decorated.

We took festive Halloween photos of our fur baby.

We went to the pumpkin patch.

We pouted like a small child when we were told "no" to getting

the lacey-looking pumpkin. ....still pouting over that one.

We baked Halloween ice cream cone cupcakes for our niece and nephew.

We forced our niece and nephew to eat the cupcakes so we can take pictures.

We burned through 4 Sweather Weather candles.

I know, I have a problem. 

We went to the carnival. 

We also watered our mums twice a week just like Mom said to and 

they still never fully blossomed like they should have. 

#overit

We watched our soon to be husby coach his football team.

We attended Mom's Zumba class for their annual costume Zumba party.

We carved a pumpkin.

Go Knights!

We went to the Coon Hollo corn maze.

We dressed up and passed out candy.

Correction: I passed out candy. 

Bryan went all out and purchased a smoke machine

and a strobe light and scared every small child that walked up our driveway.

Our neighbors hate us. 

I miss you already sweet October!

50 Shades of Gray

Moving is SUCHHH A BLAST!

Said no one. Ever. 

On a happier note, we're all pretty much unpacked and ready for the fun to begin..
decoratingggg WEEEE!

On our Lowe's trip a few weekends ago, we were checking out some different

options for pavers in our backyard and naturally I was drawn to the walls and walls

of brightly colored paint samples, so down that aisle I went. 

^ If that doesn't make you gravitate towards it something may be wrong with you.. ^
We decided to go with a gray for our bedroom.. we'll tackle the

other rooms later but moving in with the current color of OLIVE 

in the master was simply not an option. 

Seriously how stressful is olive??

Not a fan.

So gray. When they say fifty shades of gray, they ain't kiddin.

About 30 samples of gray and 2 trips to the paint store later, we finally settled on a color. 

I also may have left out the two petty paint fights via text message. 

Word to the wise for any men out there who are considering assisting in the paint process:

the phrase "JUST PICK ONE!" should never come out of your mouth. 

Just pick one? 

I'm looking at a gazillion frickin shades of gray here to the point where I feel

like I'm going cross-eyed and most of them are starting to look purple. 

And if our walls end of purple? Game over.

Second piece of advice: sample swatches. Lots.
Also be super excited about the swatches that you have gathered and take an obligatory selfie.

You're about to commit to slapping one particular

color all over your bedroom walls- where you will wake up every morning,

where you will go to bed every evening, where you will down glasses of wine
while in bed watching Disney movies.
Pick a good solid color for your bedroom, if nothing else, for crying out loud.

Here are some rooms I found on Pinterest for inspiration..

via

via

We decided to go with Valspar's Woodland Colonial Gray.
Perfection :)

I LOVE the way it pops with the white!

That's the only room shot you get at the moment since my bedroom is
in minor disarray and I am DESPERATELY in need of a new duvet cover...
WHICH WE HAVE REGISTERED FOR WOOOOOO HOO!

via

Barbara Barry, I can't wait to have your fabulous pattern

spread ALLLLL over our king bed :):) 

Happinesssss!