July 4th Home Decor

After Christmas and Halloween, I think The 4th of July is my favorite holiday to decorate for. I love all the patriotic red, white and blue decorations! We love in such a great country, I enjoy seeing everyone's pride updating their home. It will be especially fun this year cause it means a LONG weekend, SCORE! Come on and enjoy!

I've had this Welcome sign forever, I think I got it from Home Goods and its still going strong, just like America!

I am loving my new God Bless the USA door hanger I got off Etsy. It was a more then I usually pay for door hangers but it was totally worth it! Its huge, has lots of glitter when the sun hits it and so patriotic!

Here is a street view of our house with the front porch decorations. I got these American flag buntings from Oriental Trading, I ended up just using the staple gun to hang them. I love that country feel they give the house.

Here is another view of the front porch, I was holding Nicole while taking these pictures, and sweating...A LOT.

I also tied some buntings on our back patio with some ribbon, super easy! I was sweating during this too :-)

While pulling out all my decorations this cheeky rascal was getting into them!

A little patriotic welcome to all our guests

As you can see, I am all about the buntings this year, I hung 2 over our garage door!

I gave our mantel a little American spirit also, with a bunting, a big stars and stripes bow and some red, white and blue flowers in a vase.

I gave our coffee station a little update with some red and blue pin wheels from Walmart, Taylor and Nicole love these!

A cute little American Stat on my china cabinet, I love this cabinet it was my Grandmother's and the china inside belonged to my Great Aunt Sara. The blue and white china came curiosity of my Mom!

After all that decoating it was time for a special snack, love some patriotic cookies!

I hope you all enjoy the weekend, God Bless American, land of the free because of the brave!

 

 

Flowers, the pool and a guest bedroom update

As the end of June is just around the corner, we are feeling the heat here in GA, it is HOT! But it also means a long weekend for the 4th of July is near and some patriotic decorations! I started pulling mine out of the closed last night, with 2 little ones it takes a while to do any home project but hopefully by this weekend my house will be all red, white, & blue!

These bright & colorful flowers are on both sides of our neighborhood pool gates, I think they are so pretty and look great! I guess that is what our HOA fees cover :-)

My sweet Taylor loves to splish splash at the pool! While my Mom was watching Nicole I got to take Taylor to the pool, just the 2 of us. It was fun, kept us cool and we had a lot of laughs. Summertime fun!

3 years ago for my first Mother's Day my husband planted this beautiful flowers outside our bedroom window. Even in 99 degree heat that bloom big and bright, I just love them!

My awesome Mom drove all the way up from Columbus last weekend to help me with the girls. She went grocery shopping for us,let me sleep in and watched the girls with me. She is amazing and I am forever grateful for her, she is the best Mom ever!

We are so lucky to have an extra room in our house for the playroom, the girls love playing in there!

Look who started crawling this weekend!

 I made a little update in our guest room, I ordered these black decals from Etsy and put them over the bed, I really like them! They remind me of the horns in the Disney movie Maleficent!

Not only is my Mom super sweet, she is super stylish too! She picked this dress and cardigan up for me at Target! Working in the office having a short sleeve cardigan is a most for those cute summer dresses. I paired it with this pink necklace.

If you don't follow The Small Things Blog, you should, Kate has a great Instagram feed! That is where I saw this adorable while summer dress from Target, I love it and its great for summer time!

The girls and I picked up some McDonald's for dinner and her Happy Meal came with this hair piece, I wish my hair curled that good!

Good morning smiles to get the day started!

I read some sad news today, the Tennessee legendary basketball coach Pat Summitt passed away, although I am not a TN fan, I really admire her work ethic and they way she handled everything life gave her. I love this quote cause attitude is a choice. Think positive thoughts.

Simple Joys

I usually only write about one simple joys post a week, but since this week has kind of been crazy caring for my husband and going back to work I had some more I wanted to share. And who doesn't love more JOY?!

Sometimes when life gets hard you wonder where God is, and you ask for His help, its hard but I believe you most keep finding the joy and happiness life has to offer. Especially when we have been given so much be happy about :-)

 

Let's be honest, its not much fun getting up and getting ready for work everyday, I would much rather sleep late and hang around in my PJ's, but getting to see this smiling face while a get ready makes my morning!! RISE and SMILE!

Like so many others I LOVE my Time-hop app, especially when it pulls up old pictures of Taylor. Since both my girls are September babies I can use all of Taylor's cloths for Nicole and of course a side by side comparison is a must! Both girls at 9 months old.

 I could never say enough great things about the ICU staff at Northside Forsyth Hospital. The way the cared for my husband and my family outshines anything I have ever seen. By far the best nursing staff, they saved my husband's life and for that I will forever be thankful. So what's up with a pimento cheese sandwich?! One of our favorite nurses, Patrice, owns a lovely restaurant in Johns Creek called Never Enough Thyme. We stopped by these this week and I ordered the special grilled pimento cheese sandwich. I have to say it was THE BEST pimento cheese I ever had. It was so cheesy, warm, and yummy, I could have eaten 3 more. If you live near there, try it out, you will LOVE it!

To say Father's Day didn't exactly go as planned this year would be an understatement :-) But hubby is a great Daddy and I had a few special gifts for him, my first Vineyard Vines purchase! The box was beautifully wrapped and he really likes how comfy the shirt is. He said all the middle schoolers wear it...was that an insult?!

The backside of our house is our main entrance, so over the years I've been trying to make it prettier. A recent visit to my Mom's house inspired me to purchase this metal piece from Hobby Lobby, I took this pic in the evening so its a little dark but I really like it. I just screwed it in. I hope I can do a post about the garage door make over my Mom did, you will LOVE it!

One of the biggest blessings we have received since my hubby has been in hospital is the out pouring of meals. This act of kindness has helped me so much. Coming home to dinner after work is one less thing I have to do, and right now that helps BIG TIME. My sweet cousin Mindy not only picked my girls up for me, she baked her Grandmother O'Brien's caramel cake and boy is it good!! You can't beat a homemade cake, unless it comes with a....

Homemade lasagna!! Mindy didn't stop with a cake, she made the Pioneer Woman's lasagna and it was the best ever! Do you love cheese? Do you love meat? Well this is for YOU!! It's layer on layer of goodness!

Biscuit's and gravy is one of my all time favorite meals and having it served a Cracker Barrel just makes it better. The people there are so sweet, the food and great and I love the country store, I picked up a Yankee Candle on my way out!

This is one of my favorite songs I never hear!! The day my momma socked it to, the Harper Valley PTA!!!

I have been seeing this Starbucks Pink Drink all over Instagram so I wanted to give it a try and its great! Strawberries and Coconut Milk, so refreshing and pretty!

My smiley sweetheart XOXO

My favorite to go meal called Lemon Poppy Seed Chicken from Never Enough Thyme, just pop it in the over and enjoy, its delicious!

Friday means its water day at school for Taylor! They plant outside in their bathing suits and a snow cone truck comes around!

This entire process with my hubby and his hurting back have caused a range of emotions, one of them is I feel overwhelmed with all I need to do and something as common as a flat tire can really stress me out. That's when you find you have the best friends ever. They come bringing food and love, helping anyway they can. I am truly grateful for all their love. Enjoy the weekend!

 

 

 

 

Sweet sisters & simple joys

We are slowly getting back to a different kind of normal around our house since my husband came home Sunday night from the hospital. He still has a lot in front of him but we are just taking it day by day. Our girls, on the other hand have not missed a beat! They have been busy too, visiting their cousins and grandparents. And I've found some simple joys in between!

My baby girl looking adorable in some strawberry overall's, stop the cuteness! Actually, please never stop!!

 The week my husband was in the ICU my Dad told us all to come outside, this hot air balloon was floating over our house, and this never happens. It was full of color, I took it as a good sign!

This is one of my favorite pictures ever, it was taken 2 days after my husband was released from ICU and moved into a regular room, first time he has seen the girls in over a week, pure joy!

 

 Nicole turned 9 months old, can you believe it! She is SO close to crawling, I won't be surprised at all when she figures it out. She is a good sleeper, she smiles, she loves her sister and watches everything she does. She loves her blanket and laughs when Taylor makes fart noises!

I posted this picture on Father's Day, it's me with my Grandmother, Granddaddy and Dad, all right beside me, having my back as my family continues to do every day.

It's hard to get a picture of these 2 girls both looking at the camera and smiling, but I snapped this one when they were playing in a little ball pit in the playroom, I love seeing them start playing together, I hope its something they always will do!

Daddy and Taylor went to go see Finding Dori this week, I think he was more excited then Taylor, they both love some movie theater popcorn!

The girls got to spend last week in Asheville, NC with their cousins and I know they had a blast!! We are so blessed to have some many sweet cousins in our family, she even came back more mature I think!

Our office had a summer picnic for all the employees to enjoy some hamburgers and BBQ, it was fun, they even had a snow cone truck!! I got chocolate and strawberry and it was GOOD!

 

I've got a lot more simple joys to post tomorrow, TGIF almost!!