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Claire's Peachy First Birthday Party

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Our sweet Georgia peach turned one this weekend & we had the best time celebrating her. As soon as Claire was born, I envisioned having a summery peach birthday party for her, and it was so much fun to plan. I think with each baby, and each birthday throughout the year, each party just get a little less elaborate, but we still love to make them so special in their own way. We loved getting to celebrate her with our friends & family. We had a simple peach double layer cake (I used this recipe , but did white frosting instead) & cupcakes for dessert. I saw a tutorial for apple & heart shaped cupcakes on pinterest using a small piece of rolled up aluminum foil that you tuck between the cupcake paper & the cupcake pan to create a slightly different shape for the actual cupcake. I thought this could apply to the peach shape too, so I made the cupcakes this way, frosted them with a few layers of different colored peach frosting, added white sugar sprinkles & garnis

Strawberry Shortcake Seven Ways

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Strawberry shortcake is our absolute favorite summer dessert around here. My kids are addicted to strawberries, and when they are in season, we can't help but buy them in bulk. Last weekend we made homemade biscuits to throw together a super yummy shortcake, and it did not disappoint! Topped with vanilla frozen yogurt, whipped cream, sliced strawberries in homemade syrup & probably too much powdered sugar. If there is such a thing.   I am rounding up seven of my favorite recipes for strawberry shortcake today, and thinking it wouldn't be a bad idea to try them all before summer is over! ;) 1. Grilled Strawberry Shortcake Donuts // This totally counts as breakfast right? 2. Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Sandwiches // I love these all tied up with bakers twine, so pretty for entertaining or birthday parties! 3. Strawberry Shortcake Overnight Oats // Overnight oats are so easy & make for such a good way to switch up breakfasts, especially for kids. 4

House Progress, Day 4.

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It's official, we closed on our new house on Friday afternoon!! We were so excited to get started, and kicked off the weekend with a bottle of champs in the back yard! Renovations started first thing this week! Here is the before & a few progress shots of the kitchen. The kitchen had new appliances, beautiful (although very purple) granite & a new sink/faucet installed on top of bum cabinets, which kinda stinks. The cabinets needed a lot of work & were also very dated for the look we wanted, so we opted to pull the out all together. Since almost all of this was salvageable, we knew we could not just throw it away. We got in touch with our local Wounded Warriors Project where we were able to donate our entire kitchen to their Homes for Heroes operation. They will demo an entire kitchen, make repairs to the cabinetry & install it into a home that is being given to a veteran. Probably the highlight of us owning this home so far!    The demo is

Five Years of Blogging!

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This week, we are celebrating FIVE whole years of this blog & I honestly cannot believe it!!!! It is so funny to think back to how the blog started, I had just found out that I was pregnant with Harper, we were new to Atlanta, I had no friends here & I worked from home full time. I was desperate for a creative outlet & a way to connect with people, mainly my family & friends far away. My blog has grown into something I never, ever could have imagined, it is such a huge part of my life & I feel so so grateful for this space & this community. I have learned so much over the last five years. I have learned how much you can feel like you know people just from reading their words & seeing their pictures, so many of you are friends to me & I have never met you in real life. I have learned that we all do life & motherhood differently, but we can still support each other & make incredible things happen. I have learned that the things I write can be

House Showings, Potty Training & Coffee.

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Here's a little run down of our week. So we have had a million showings, honestly, but turns out our backyard is kind of a deal breaker for everyone. Which is funny to me because we never thought twice about it as buyers, but maybe we were just naive as first timers, and it is obviously the reason we chose to move, so I guess joke's on us. I was confident that showing our house a bunch would be a good thing, like I would keep my house super clean all the time and we would just go on a bunch of fun outings while people were here, and hahahahaha no . That's actually not even remotely close to how it works. It's more like fourteen minutes before each showing I shove evvvvverything anywhere I can (and obviously can't find anything later because I can't remember where I shoved it) and I swiffer our barefoot selves out the back door. The fact that my kids can fully destroy the entire house in one hour + one meal in between every showing, has me completely baffled,

Mini Style // Back to School

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Only a few more weeks until our girls are headed off to school, pre-k for Harper & 2 year old preschool for Eloise. It's so bittersweet this time, I know they're going to love it so much, but I'm going to miss them like crazy!! Harper is SO ready for school, she used to be so shy but has come out of her shell so much & is such an outgoing little sweetheart. She loves everyone, by nature, and makes friends so easily. She also just loves learning, always asks me to write things out so she can practice them, loves to draw & paint, learn new songs & play make believe. I am so confident that she is going to just love school, and I am so excited for her!! This will be the first time Eloise will go to school, or really go anywhere without me or Brandon, so I worry a bit more about her, but I know she will eventually learn to love it. Although she is a bit shy, she is easy to win over, she loves to play & is never afraid to try new things. She also lives for

House Progress, Day 14!

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I'm so excited to share this before & (almost) after of the back exterior! The one thing I really hated about our house, which almost made me not come see it in the first place, was the (flesh colored) exterior. The neighborhood has some really beautiful homes, but this exterior was so dated & well, just plain ugly. We were confident that we could give it a much needed facelift & couldn't be happier with the outcome! I mentioned before, we had a very dated arch window that already needed replaced, so we actually had it completely taken out. We have an AMAZING carpenter, he did our screened porch & pergola in our current home, and so far has done an incredible job with this window & the giant deck that is bigger than our very first apartment! The deck is almost done, we have to wait a few weeks before we can paint & stain, but we are loving the updated look & modern black spindles. We had the exterior painted white, and decided last minut