Been a hot minute since I’ve come on here to share a sale with y’all but the items on sale at Nordstrom right now are just wayyyy too good not to post! There are so many great basics and staple pieces on sale right now, and I actually already own a good amount of these items!
These items sell QUICK, so I would order ASAP.
Hope y’all are having the best Thursday!!
Happy Monday y’all!!
I originally started typing up this post on Valentines Day, but wasn’t able to get it up in time…
So hopefully that explains why I’m sharing photos of Hayes with kisses all over him! haha
I’ve been getting so many messages asking to share some first birthday gift ideas so I figured I’d share them in a blog post so it’s super easy to just click and shop each item!
Hayes’s first birthday party is in just 5 days and I am SO excited!
Kyle and I actually aren’t getting Hayes a gift…because in all honesty, he has WAY too many toys already…and we know he’ll be getting tons of stuff from friends and family! BUT there are a few things that I know he’s getting and I just know he’s going to LOVE them! I’m going to share some toys that we already have that Hayes loves and some other toys that I think would make a GREAT first birthday gift! You can click directly on the photo of any item to shop it!
What do y’all think about this list?! If you have a toy or item that your baby loves send it my way and I’ll make sure to keep this list updated!!
Love y’all!
2018 was the best year of our lives.
In 2018 we became parents, the day Hayes was born will forever be the most memorable and magical day, I could still tell you every single little detail of that day as if it happened yesterday.
Bringing Hayes into this world was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and the most physical pain I have ever experienced, but I still wish I could relive it over and over again.
2018 was full of blessings, and love, and tears, and arguments, and laughter, and shock, and confusion, and questions, and happiness, and excitement, and changes, and GROWTH.
In 2018 Kyle and I grew so much together and we learned so much together.
Becoming parents is absolutely life changing, having a baby will rock your entire world.
You will experience a love that you’ve never known before, both for your new baby and for your significant other.
And you will experience a level of exhaustion that you’ve never known before, but don’t worry friends,
it’s worth it.
Now let’s talk resolutions…I have always been someone who loves to document things, even before iphones and social media were around I would always have a camera on me and I LOVED taking pictures of everyone and everything and capturing moments so that I’d always have a photo to look back on. That’s just who I am. That’s one of the main reasons I started my blog in college, I wanted to remember all of the little things, the simple days of when Kyle and I had just started dating and when he’d leave me little love notes in my apartment bathroom and of course the big moments like our engagement on the beach. The blogging world and social media have come a LONG way since I was just a college girl, and it’s so easy to get caught up in that world of perfectly edited and staged photos.
I have a lot of goals for 2019, but I’ll start with this one.
In 2019, this little blog of mine will be filled with a lot more daily life posts and imperfect photos. I will still share fashion and sales and deals for y’all but I want the main focus of my blog to be more lifestyle & family related. I’m hoping y’all will be able to relate more to these posts, BUT of course you’ll still be able to come on here and find a super affordable and cute outfit that you feel awesome in.
Basically, my goal in 2019 is for my blog to be the best of both worlds!
Kyle and I have moved a lot since we’ve been married, and we still aren’t in our forever home, but one BIG goal is to find a home church and go regularly. We haven’t been to church since Hayes was born and I’m so ashamed of that. I’ve had pretty bad postpartum anxiety and honestly, the thought of just dropping Hayes off at the church nursery with “strangers” makes me sick to my stomach. BUT I’m determined to get past that this year, because WE need more Jesus. Another goal of mine is to let Hayes spend the night with one of our parents so Kyle and I can have some time together. I’m just such a control freak and worry wart but gosh we NEED some good ol quality time together. So prayers are very welcome because this goal will be VERY hard for me.
Kyle and I both do a lot of work from our phones, so we’re both guilty of being on our phones a lot when we should be spending time together or with Hayes. We both agreed to choose one night a week where we turn off our phones and the TV and just BE together and do some kind of activity as a family, I’m REALLY excited about this one and I hope it turns into something we do more than once a week.
For those of you who don’t know me personally, I am SUPER ADD. Like cannot focus on just one thing for the life of me. I’m always doing 5 things at once and my mind is always going crazy thinking about 82819 things. Like it takes me DAYS just to finish one blog post. The point of telling y’all this is because my
MAIN GOAL for 2019 is to be more present in whatever I’m doing. Whether it’s playing with Hayes, writing a blog post, responding to DM’s, having lunch with a friend, whatever it may be, I want to be FULLY present. This is another one that will be extremely hard for me but it’s something that will make my life so much happier and more fulfilled and honestly I think it will help me tremendously when it comes to getting things done.
I can’t end this post without talking about health & fitness because fitness has always been a huge part of my life… but then I became a mom and to be totally honest, working out took a backseat and I didn’t find it as important or necessary. Since I became a mom the way my body looks no longer makes or breaks who I am as a person. I used to be SO concerned about the way my body looked and always felt the need to be “bikini ready”. I’m happy to say that I have never been more content with my body. It looks totally different and I have extra skin and less muscle but y’all…there are SO many more important things in life than having a picture perfect body or obsessing over fixing the flaws on our bodies. I used to pick myself apart daily (whenever I looked freaking phenomenal *insert eye roll emoji*) but I just don’t have time for that anymore and I don’t want to waste my time doing that, because it’s silly, and I’m so much more than my physical appearance.
WITH ALL THAT BEING SAID, Please please don’t get me wrong. My goal this year is to start working out at least 3 times a week…I still want to be strong and healthy and of course I still care how I look and I want to be physically attractive for my husband and want to feel good about myself, I always feel best whenever I’m in shape and doing some kind of work out regularly. I guess I just felt the need to mention that stuff before because I’m honestly so proud of myself for not picking myself apart anymore and focusing on every little flaw.
Anyways, I really am SO excited about 2019…I asked all of you on instagram what was one thing you REALLY wanted to see from me this year and the overwhelming majority said MORE HAYES and ANOTHER BABY! haha
Kyle and I want a big family and most days Hayes makes me want 10 more babies, so we’ll see…
We’d love to have another baby in 2019.
But the Lord made it very clear when we were trying for baby #1 that it’s not up to us and it’s not going to happen when we want it too…it’s going to happen when the time is right and when God says so.
If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading!
I hope this post left you feeling a little inspired and I hope 2019 is the best year of your life.
I have never been more excited about Christmas than I was this year. It was our very first Christmas as a family of 3 and I could NOT wait to start our own little family traditions! I’m not going to lie though, I totally stressed myself out trying do all.of.the.things and come up with the most perfect traditions and finding the cutest most creative way to document them all…which is honestly ridiculous because Hayes is litarally 10 months old and won’t remember any of this and doesn’t even understand what’s going on…BUT I just wanted it to be perfect, which is understandable right?! Well, the good news is, it was perfect. And it was perfect in our own special way. I don’t think we did ONE of the traditions that I had in my head that I wanted to do, but WHO CARES.
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Kyle has a really big family so we typically spend a few days with his side. We spent the 22nd and 23rd over at his Nanas with the whole crew and it was pure chaos but SO much fun! All of his cousins were in town and we’re all SO close so it’s just a ton of fun every time we get together.
The weather was so beautiful the days we were over there so we spent the majority of our time outside playing games and wearing the kiddos out and did a WHOLE lot of eating. So far Hayes is the ONLY boy on both sides…he has two girls cousins and will be getting two more girl cousins in the Spring!! Hoping and praying someone (or we) have a boy soon so he has a buddy to play with. Kyle’s family is mainly boys so it looks like the roles are reversing, funny how it always seems to do that!!
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So I fully intended on our Christmas Eve being filled with decorating Christmas cookies, driving around looking at Christmas lights, eating a special dinner together, and just doing all of the picture perfect things that families do on Christmas Eve. Well, none of those things happened…The majority of my Christmas Eve was spent running around Target by myself in a panic searching for last minute gifts (typical Monica), getting home to realize we have no food to eat, sending Kyle off to get fast food and him calling me 3 different times to tell me each place was closed. We ended up eating grilled cheese sandwiches and sipped on some eggnog, which was honestly phenomenal, so looks like grilled cheeses and eggnog just may be our new Christmas Eve family tradition!
We also let Hayes drive to his Uncle Bryan & Aunt Skyes house on Christmas Eve…10 months old and already behind the wheel, Lord help us!
After we put Hayes down Kyle and I got to play “Santa” together for the first time and it was honestly THE BEST. I was so excited to set out all of Hayes’s new toys. When I was little we’d always wake up on Christmas morning and have some presents wrapped underneath the tree and those were from my parents and then the ones Santa brought would just be sitting out and ready to play with (because Santa is always in a hurry, duh)
Christmas morning was spent playing with all of his new toys!
Then we got ready and headed over to my parents house to celebrate with my side of the fam! Which is WAYYY smaller and more chill than Kyle’s side haha It’s usually just my parents, my sister and brother in law and us 3!
It was a perfect day of opening presents, eating a TON of food, and relaxing together. We were desperate for a chill day after all of the Holiday festivities all week long.
Hayes’s first Christmas was definitely a success. Cannot wait for next year when he can really understand more and enjoy it!! So far he has been LOVINGGGG all of the gifts he got and plays with them every single day!
Okay y’all I know Christmas is LITERALLY in 6 days but I’m still purchasing last minute gifts so I’m sure some of you are as well!! Don’t worry, I’m only sharing items that are guaranteed to be here before or by Christmas so if you still need an item or two for your sweet babe or someone elses sweet babe…I’ve got you covered!!! I’m only sharing items that I KNOW are awesome. Hayes has the majority of these items/toys, and the ones he doesn’t have he’s either getting them for Christmas or I know someone who personally has the same item/toy and absolutely loves it! So basically, you will not be disappointed whatsoever with any of these!! I also linked our playmat because I get questions about it ALL the time and our exact one is finally back in stock
WHOOP WHOOP!!
These are some of Hayes’s absolute favorite toys, just click on the photo to shop the item! Most of these are extremely affordable, there are a couple pricier items, like the red flyer wagon but holy smokes y’all I truly do not know what we would do without that thing! Also, our playmat is THE BEST, especially if you have a dog, this one has a tougher top layer so claws don’t go straight through it! Let me know what you end up grabbing and
Merry Christmas Y’all!