Christmas 2016

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas at home this year which was much needed after our emotional Christmas last year. It was low-key with nothing on the schedule besides exploring downtown and meeting friends at the Christmas train display at Belmond Charleston Place on Christmas Eve.

That evolved into throwing pennies into a nearby fountain, which I think Rowan enjoyed even more than the trains, and a stop at Revelry Brewing for the parents. Quite the nontraditional Christmas Eve!

On Christmas morning I expected Rowan to tear into his presents but he was so laid back! We practically had to talk him into opening his gifts because he was so into his new easel and slide, which Santa's elves lovingly built Christmas Eve!

(Excuse the grainy photos, it was so dark Christmas morning despite Rowan sleeping in a bit!)

He was a big fan of his stocking, which is my favorite part of Christmas morning too! Also, that bed head. I love it.

After presents and a big breakfast, we walked around south of Broad Street to see the gorgeous homes before all of the decor is taken down. It's kind of become a tradition which we started when I was super prego two years ago.

I know most people have their trees down by now but we're still celebrating with family so I'm still in Christmas mode over here. I don't think it's even hit me that 2017 is in a few days!

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Christmas Around Here

It's so hard to believe there are only 4 more sleeps until Christmas! This month has flown by and I've tried to make a conscious effort to soak in all of the craziness.

But you know you've reached bad blogger status when you are posting Christmas decor this late. Oops! I had plans to do this sooner, but as some of you may have seen on IG stories yesterday, I've been dealing with some back problems for the past month and sitting in front of a computer longer than I already do for my day job was not an option. Thankfully I think I'm finally on the mend, which is great because my 30-pound toddler didn't get the memo that mommy can't hold him all of the time!

Anyway, on to the fun stuff! Usually I decorate with a lot of reds but this year I switched it up and I love the little change! I mean, aside from the garland that dried out about 2 weeks ago and the Trader Joe's wreath that somehow smells more like body odor than evergreen?

I think we may have bought one of the biggest Christmas trees on the lot this year. We loved it so much but failed to take into account our 9 foot ceiling so it sort of felt like a Griswald tree once we got it in the house. "It's all part of the experience, honey."

Rowan has done surprisingly well with the tree, knock on wood. We put all of the toddler-friendly ornaments on the bottom and he has about 5 that he takes on and off which is fine by me!

I'm really missing a fireplace mantel again this year but our tv stand is tall enough that its a decent alternative topped with some live-ish garland!

The car pillow just might be my favorite new addition... I was trying to find one that I liked everywhere but ended up adapting Lisa's idea by cutting the car from this placemat and ironing it on a white Ikea cover using this method.

If you follow on Snapchat, yesterday I shared a quick real life tour. You know, the kind that shows all of the junk and toys dispersed throughout the living area that you shove into a closet before taking the pretty photos!

I have Rowan's room and the guest room decorated a bit, but there is zero hope in making those picture ready. Maybe someday I'll get it together!

Hope you've all have a fun Christmas week!

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Our Weekend + Favorite Sugar Cookies

I've been trying my hardest to get a little Christmas home tour for you guys but as it turns out, I really dislike cleaning my house. Our "live" garland has seen better days and I'm slowly having to move ornaments higher and higher on the tree, but hopefully I can snap a few photos before everything dies on me!

Also I realized I forgot to share our Minted Christmas cards here! I love them so much. Our photo was one of those moments where I'm glad there is proof I gave birth to my child because he is a spitting image of his Daddy.

Our weekend was filled with visiting Santa, a stop at the aquarium, and perusing our favorite streets in South of Broad to see all of the Christmas decor. I officially came to the conclusion December is the best time to visit Charleston. You just really can't beat the cool temps and charming doorways with giant wreaths!

I don't know why I didn't think of giving R the cookie cutters to play with earlier, we got like 20 solid minutes of independent play out of that.

On Sunday we stayed in our pajamas and baked sugar cookies. It was a mess with a toddler involved but he loved it. He dipped the cookie cutter in flour first then pushed it down aimlessly wherever he could reach.

My husband claims he doesn't want to screw up the cookies so he'd rather not help decorate. (Insert eye roll here). But honestly I kind of don't blame him. I have to be in the mood to decorate them otherwise they all get some frosting slapped on with the same sprinkles.

But this year I got smart and used a pastry bag to frost them all and it was the easiest and quickest way to frost a sugar cookie! I know Pinterest and bloggers love the look of royal icing cookies but who really has the time for that?! I'll take funfetti frosting over royal icing any day.

I've tried other sugar cookie recipes but always come back to this one! Once the frosting sits on there overnight they soften up and are so.dang.good. The problem is that working from home means I'm 20 feet away from them all day. Cookie for breakfast? Yep. Lunch? Yep.

Hopefully I can whip up a few more types of cookies so we don't eat all of these too quickly! Tell me some of your favorite cookie recipes!! 

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Toddler Advent Calendar Ideas

It's been such a fun Christmas season over here, we've been so busy despite it only being one week into December!

With Rowan just a few months shy of 2 years old (cue my ugly crying), he is starting to understand more about the holidays and I've been excited to try a few new things with him this year. I thought an advent calendar would be a fun way to incorporate some festive activities and make sure we cross off some of our holiday to-do list!

 Last year I picked up a stocking advent calendar during the after-Christmas sales (similar here) so it was just a matter of finding easy things to do during the week and filling in the weekend with bigger things like visiting Santa and baking cookies. With Rowan involved it's inevitable a few cookies will get "boo boos" and need to me eaten immediately, so you won't hear me complaining!

I know a lot of people do small gifts each day but I wanted to keep it simple because the last thing the kid needs is more stuff and I really want him to start learning about giving and helping others. The only gifts I included in his advent activities are a new Christmas book, a Finding Dory figurine (which he is oddly crazy about), and some stickers or crafts we can do together.

These free printables for activities from i heart naptime are so cute and made my job so much easier! I love that there are blank cards included so you can add your own.

Make Christmas Cookies

Read a new Christmas book

Make Christmas cards for the military

Decorate the Christmas Tree

Drive around to see Christmas Lights

Take Ruby for a walk and give her a new dog treat

Pass out Christmas cookies

Listen to Christmas music

Watch a Christmas movie

Visit Santa Claus

Playground date with Daddy

Decorate Gingerbread Houses

See Scuba Santa at the Aquarium

Drink hot chocolate with marshmallows

Make reindeer food

Make a Christmas ornament

Make paper snowflakes (I'm going to make them in advance and let him open them up)

Learn about the Nativity

Donate to Toys for Tots and the Humane Society

Make a Christmas treat

Have festive pancakes for breakfast (or dinner!)

Take a family picture with your Christmas tree

Sing Christmas carols

Paint a holiday picture for grandparents

Read about the Christmas story

Rowan is really into art (especially painting) lately so I picked up some wooden ornaments and little craft projects from Michael's for some of the activities. Try not to be too jealous of his coloring skills!

Also if you're looking for a new Christmas book, a few of our favorites (other than Little Blue Truck which has been well documented) are Olaf's Night Before Christmas, Bear Stays Up for Christmas, and my personal fave, Home Alone! Seriously, its Home Alone in a children's book form with the cutest pictures. I admit that one may have been more for us than R though!

If you have more ideas for an advent calendar with a toddler I'd love to hear them!

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Favorite Cyber Monday Deals

This weekend has been nothing short of chaos with Rowan's newfound ability to climb out of his crib. Sooo needless to say I'll be getting all of my holiday shopping done online today!

There are so many good deals out there so if you've been putting your shopping off like me, here are some of my favorites!

Pehr Pom Pom Bin. Bannor Toys Wooden Camera. Gap Softspun Hi-Lo Tee. Childhoods Clothing Hoodie.
Toddler Hunter Boots. Capri Blue Candle. J. Crew Messenger Bag.

Pehr Designs: 30% off all storage and free shipping with code STORAGE30. We love our Pehr bins so this is a great deal!
Bannor Toys: 15% off with code CYBERMAMA
Childhoods Clothing: 25% off with code BLACKFRIDAY
Hanna Anderson: 20% off everything with free shipping 
Joss and Main: 30% off everything with code CYBERDAY
J. Crew: 40% off and free shipping with code
J. Crew Factory: 60% off everything and extra 40% off sale with code HAPPYSALE
Gap: 50% off everything (no exclusions!) with code CYBMON
Old Navy: 50% off everything (discount applied at checkout)
Nordstrom: Extra 20% select sale items and 25% off Hunter Boots!
Anthropologie: 20% off full price items and 30% off sale with code STACKS
Target: 15% off your purchase. I love the Cat & Jack line for kiddos!, especially these soft skinny jeans for playdates and school!
Minted: 20% off everything with code CM2016. They have so many good gift ideas... R's footprint art is still my favorite!

Hope you all find some great deals!!

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Holiday Card Inspiration + Minted Giveaway!

This post was sponsored by Minted. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own!

I saw something on social media the other day... you know the usual "this many Fridays until Christmas" kind of thing and my jaw dropped. I have so little time to get my act together!

The moment we get home from Hawaii, you'll find me frantically searching for coordinating outfits and crossing my fingers our unpredictable toddler responds well to my bribes during our family photo session.

Thankfully that's the hardest part, because I've already narrowed down some of my favorite Minted holiday cards! Our photos always come out so clear with Minted, which is one of the main reasons I love them! If you're paying for a photo session, the last thing you want is a grainy image on your holiday cards.. right?! Plus the quality is so, so good.

I like to look for cards before our photo session in case there is a design I really like, that way the photographer can tailor a pose around that, but Minted also has a Find it Fast option which lets you upload your image and see it in all of the holiday card thumbnails. I used that last year and it was so helpful!

Here are a few of my absolute favorites from Minted's new collection! All of these have different wording options if you are looking for a more general "Happy Holidays" message.

Gilded Evergreen Foil Pressed. Wintertide. 

Merry Steps Foil Pressed (also love the non-foil option!)

Merrier Than Ever. The Happiest Holiday.

This year I'm obviously loving all of the white backgrounds and pretty greenery. I'm usually drawn towards the script designs but I think it's going to be tough to talk me out of the Wintertide card.

I admit I can get a little carried away with the pretty add-ons for each of the cards between the foil pressed print, shapes, and backer options but the free Recipient Address Assistant is a MUST. Seriously who has time to write all of that out these days?! You can also use the Buy Now, Personalize Later option so you don't miss any of their good promos going on like their current 15% off orders over $150 or 10% off orders of $100 deal. 

I cannot wait to wrangle my toddler for photos and see how they come out this year! In the meantime if anyone has already done family photos with their toddler and has some tips or tricks to getting them to cooperate, do share! Have you picked out your holiday cards yet?

Now the fun part, head on over HERE to enter to win one of TWO (!) generous $125 Minted credits for your holiday cards this year! It's super easy, all you have to do is enter your name and email address and you're set.

Giveaway is only open to U.S residents. You have until 11:59 PM on November 11 to enter! 

Good luck!

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Christmas 2015

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! It's hard to believe its over already, I'm kind of torn about the Christmas décor that is still scattered around our house.

We're still trying to get life in order this week but I wanted to stop by and share a few snaps from Rowan's first Christmas.

Rowan was a champ opening gifts, I was shocked how well he did ripping the paper off. He only had about 3 gifts to open plus his stocking but we spaced them out throughout the day since he really just wanted to play with his Puppy Activity House.

This Melissa & Doug sound puzzle and Pottery Barn Kids Anywhere chair (Sherpa sold out but I linked a similar one) were also huge hits.

Seriously why don't they make those chairs for adults? It's so soft, we're all obsessed. Now we just need to teach Rowan a more graceful way of getting down from his seat.

I'm so glad we had our little celebration at home because as I mentioned last week, we lost my Grandmother just before Christmas. Needless to say our time visiting family was not like we expected.  Christmas Day started early... like 4 AM-early, because our sweet boy was cutting 4 teeth. FOUR! Poor thing, he has been such a trooper.

I didn't take many photos on Christmas itself and we never managed to get a family photo, but I am so grateful that we were there with family.  We are very close and did our best to make it feel as normal as possible given the circumstances.

I also want to thank everyone for the sweet messages, flowers, and support. It is very much appreciated and I cannot even begin to tell you how wonderful this blogging community has been!

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From Our Family to Yours...

Merry Christmas and happy holidays from our family to yours!

Friends- I am sorry for the radio silence over here! It's been a whirlwind of a week (or two- I can't keep track of the days).

Part of that silence is because the world lost a beautiful person this week, my grandmother. Rowan won't remember her but I will remember for him how much she loved him and the rest of our family.

So this Christmas I'm hugging my family, my husband, and my sweet baby boy tighter than ever.

I hope that you all get to spend the holidays surrounded by those you love!

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Friday Favorites

Happy Friday, friends!! Only one more of these before Christmas and we are oh so excited over here!

Glad to be linking up again with Christina for my favorites from the week! Here goes...

ONE. Quick DIY Restoration Hardware Knockoff Shelves

 

I promised I'd share some details from these shelves from our Christmas decor post, they are so easy! I used this tutorial from 7th House on the Left, except after purchasing all of the pipe materials from Lowes and spending $70, I took them all back! Not long after, I found Supply House which had quick shipping and the materials were only $25. Waaaay better!

Our boards (leftover from our DIY coffee table) were 6" x 1" so to make two shelves I ordered four 3/4" x 6" Black Nipples, four 3/4" Black Caps, and four 3/4" Black Floor Flanges. Assemble the pipes and spray paint them before installing with heavy duty anchors. I did this project all by myself so its totally doable for us ladies!

TWO. $150 Minted Giveaway

Yesterday I shared this precious Minted custom artwork I had done for a gift for Rowan's grandparents and there is a $150 giveaway you can enter to win your own! You can also use it for holiday cards if you haven't ordered yours yet! Don't miss it!

THREE. Favorite Loungewear

Gap Cotton Leggings

Y'all these pants are the.best.ever. I love them so much that I own two pairs and I'm fighting the urge to buy another because there are so many fun patterns! They are perfect for cuddling around the house, chasing after a wild child, and make me feel less like I'm wearing pajama pants all day.

FOUR. Rowan's First Santa Visit

We took Rowan to see the James Island Festival of Lights last night and he had his first visit with Santa! He looked like he was about to lose it but the photographer cheered him up pretty quickly! I have to laugh because he is actually wearing longalls but they are riding up on him so bad.. oops!!

FIVE. Red Lipstick Help?!

This weekend we've got a date night on the agenda and I totally dropped the ball in my outfit planning for the wedding we are going to! I'm hoping I can pick up a little black dress and maybe venture out of my comfort zone with some red lipstick. I'm not usually a lipstick person, so if anyone has a recommendation please share!!

Hope you all have a fab + festive weekend!!

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Custom Letterpress Art + $150 Minted Giveaway {Closed}

I'm not sure what it is, but parents are the hardest to shop for when it comes to gifts. When I saw Minted's new custom art it hit me that something completely personalized would be absolutely perfect! Rowan is their only grandchild and even though he isn't quite advanced enough to draw them a picture yet, we can definitely use his hand and footprints!

I love the idea of creating a letterpress or foil print from your own design. Honestly you will make some mama or grandma's heart so happy with a personalized gift like this!

To start, I prepped myself with some paper, a baby-safe stamp, a scanner, and way too much confidence. Turns out, my almost 10-month old wants nothing to do with getting his hand and footprints done.

Shocker, right? If we did manage to get him to sit still long enough by bribing him with puffs, he thought it was hilarious to curl his toes or try to grab the paper. It was pretty darn cute but needless to say I had to go to plan B and use his newborn prints.

First I scanned Rowan's prints from his baby book, uploaded it to Pixlr Editor (kind of like a free version of Photoshop), and copied just the hand and footprints onto a white background.

If you're babe cooperates with the prints or you use a picture they have drawn, you can skip this step and just scan it onto your computer!

The next step was picking the orientation of my art and uploading the print to Minted, which was definitely the easiest part of this little project.

With the letterpress art, you can pick from tons of colors for the print but I went with black to keep with the original hand and foot prints.

Since these were Rowan's newborn prints, I thought adding Rowan's birth information would be a fun addition to his name at the bottom. So I shared the information in the "Special Requests" section for the Minted design team to review and I'm so happy they created my vision during the proofing process!


It's safe to say I'm crazy about how it came out and I'm totally jealous I didn't get myself one! They aren't the exact size of his original prints but they are pretty close and so, so precious.

How cute is the whitewashed herringbone pattern on this frame?! I've never purchased a frame from Minted but I couldn't pass this one up.

And because Minted is awesome, they are giving you a chance to win $150 credit! Use it for custom art like a drawing, wedding vows, a portrait of your first home, or even holiday cards!

To enter, follow this link and enter your information. You have until December 17th to enter. Good luck!

Disclaimer: I was provided custom art by Minted for the purposes of this review. 

As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own!

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