Tag: kids

Odds & Ends, vol. 4: Autumn Reads and an Easy Home Styling Hack

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Autumn Reads

This time of year always makes me want to read The Night Circus. It’s one of my absolute favorite books, especially this time of year. It’s in my top 3 all-time favorite books and is one of very few that I’ve taken the time to re-read. (Also great for fall: Caraval, Harry Potter, Practical Magic, Bread & Wine (pictured above), and Ninth House.)

An Easy Home Styling Hack

This is the easiest way to make all those random dresser-top things look nicer. (1) Get a nice looking hardcover book or two. (2) Line everything up. That’s it – I recently tried this with my dresser and think it made a big difference! Look at this before and after:

Recent Buys

Target has had some surprisingly great workout clothes recently! I’ve been working out much more often and found that I needed some new things so I wasn’t having to do laundry every other day. A few recent buys have been this workout tee (nice fit, good quality) and this tank top (cute pattern and good fabric, but runs big).

Master Bedroom Inspiration

This master bedroom by Studio McGee is so good! It’s been a major inspiration for our master bedroom refresh. I almost bought this very similar (but much cheaper) bed from Target for our bedroom, but we ended up not using it since it needs a box spring.

An Easy Meal Idea

Grill chicken for dinner and made extra to add to a salad or eat for lunch the next day. (Cold grilled chicken is one of my favorite lunches – which may sound weird but it’s delicious.) A simple but tasty marinade we’ve been using is olive oil + salt and pepper + jerk seasoning + lemon juice. It’s great with hummus and pita for lunch or dinner!

Life Lately

Nothing very new here! Jamie still runs around and talks a lot, and he is at a very fun age where he loves to “help” us work on the house. We’ve been (slowly) working on a few fun home projects; our powder bathroom is starting to take shape after a long leak-related hiatus, our upstairs linen closet has nice new matching baskets, and we rearranged our living room!

Room Tour: Our Toddler Nursery

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Image of a decorated nursery featuring a bookshelf wall made of picture ledges.

Today, I’m sharing a few photos of Jamie’s nursery – the first fully finished room in our house! (It’s “fully finished” in that everything has been painted, it has baseboards, and it’s furnished and decorated.) Obviously, we had a little bit of a time crunch since we moved into the house at the beginning of my second trimester and we had a LOT of work to do still! (You can see here what it looked like shortly after we moved in. I almost forgot this room was an office until a few months before Jamie’s birth!) We’re very happy with how it has turned out – it’s simple, unfussy, calming, and uncluttered.

While we didn’t approach the room with a theme in mind, we semi-inadvertently added a lot of woodland/forest/bear elements. We mostly tried to keep it simple and child-friendly, with plenty of room for Jamie to move around and play. We don’t keep many toys in here – just lots of books! (Eventually, we do plan to have a playroom, which will have plenty of space to make big toy messes.)

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3-6 Month Must-Haves

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After writing about my newborn must-haves a few months back, I’ve been keeping a list of 3-6 month and 6-12 month must-haves to share. I have found there’s a bit of research involved in choosing baby items (because there are for some reason 1000 different types of pumping bras and at least that many stroller options). I always have found posts like this really helpful because they provide a personal recommendation from someone who has used and loved the products. Today, I’m sharing my favorite items for the 3-6 month age range!

Image of a 6-month old infant with the title 3 to 6 month must-haves.

Note: this post may contain affiliate links (i.e., if you click my link and make a purchase, I’ll make a small commission at no additional cost to you). Read my full disclosure policy here.

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