What I'm Loving Wednesday!

The list of all of the things I'm loving right now could go on and on; but I'll save you the time and only share a few during this link up with Jamie over at This Kind of Love!

I'm loving that today is Leap Year! I'll be watching the movie Leap Year tonight in celebration of the event. You know me... I'll make any excuse to watch a romantic comedy with my hubby!

I'm loving that the triplets turned the big 3 last week! 

I'm loving all of the events that the month of March will bring! There is my nephew's birthday, my birthday, Spring Break, and a beach trip with my hubby! 

I'm loving that my husband and I are FINALLY getting around to decorating and making changes to our house. Here is some of the inspiration I've pinned!

I'm thinking gray, yellow, and white for our bedroom.

I'm thinking green, black, and white for one of the spare bedrooms

Currently, our second spare bedroom is serving as an office. Due to the fact that Kevin and I are getting a king-size bedroom suite (hopefully soon!), we'll be putting our queen-sized bedroom suite in our office. Because I will no longer have a space to do work, I'm thinking of taking the closet in the bonus room and making me a closet/office. I'm loving these ideas!

I'm loving this song. Something about it reminds me of summer and I can't help but get antsy and anxious for summer while listening to it!

There is so much more that I'm loving but I'll save it for another week! I hope you ladies are loving your day! 

Weekend Recap

This weekend I did absolutely nothing and you know what? It felt great! Back in January, my best friends and I had planned to take a trip to the beach this past weekend but having just arrived home from Tennessee four days earlier, I decided I wasn't very anxious to hop in a car and make yet another four hour drive to the beach and come back two days later. On top of that, Olivia is leaving for Disney World on Wednesday so she felt the same way and decided it would be easier to go later so that we all would have more spending money for all of our many shopping adventures! So we postponed our trip for another long weekend.

Usually the group all goes to dinner on Friday nights but because it was Emily's birthday, she and Daniel were going to have dinner with her family so our Friday night ritual was given a detour. Since Kevin was working, I asked Brittni if she wanted to do dinner together. Of course I knew her answer would be yes! So she came by the house around 5:15 and picked me up. We headed back to Eden and had dinner at Ruby Tuesday...only because we were craving their killer salad bar! Which was worth every penny of our meal. After dinner, we headed to Lowes Foods to redbox a movie (and yes, I'm using redbox as a verb!). We decided on "I Don't Know How She Does It". I was unsure if I was going to like the movie or not, but after watching it, I decided I do like it. Though it was extremely hard for me to see Sarah Jessica Parker as a mother after watching EVERY Sex and the City episode. But she played the part well.

Saturday morning, I got up and met Brittni at PG's for breakfast. Following breakfast we headed to Belks to see what new stuff they had in the store. I found these amazing items that will now be on my bargain shopping watch list! A girl can never have too many shoes and dresses...right?

After our trip to Belk, we headed to Extreme Tan to get our tan on. By the time we left it was almost lunch time so I went home and got ready. At 2, I headed to McLeansville to meet Kristy for a day of shopping. We figured if we weren't going to go to the beach this weekend, we could at least get together and make some memories (: Before I arrived at her house, I got a text from her saying she needed to let me know something that was going on before her family told me. A million things were running through my mind when I text her back and said ok. When she replied to my text I about fell over! She informed me she was dating a guy who I told her she should look into dating. Little did I know they'd been talking for over a month and neither of them told me! Ahhh! Little sneaksters! But I was extremely happy. I definitely approve of this guy, as I've known him for probably fifteen years! I'm so happy to finally know she's dating a good guy! This guy (who shall remain anonymous until their dating becomes facebook official.. haha) ended up coming shopping with us at Tanger and shockingly, we had a great time even though a guy was present! haha 

While at Tanger, I only purchased two things...at a store I have at home nonetheless. But regardless, I was proud of my purchases. I bought these two shirts for a total of $15.99 at Rue 21. I can't wait to wear them when it gets a bit warmer!

I didn't get back to Reidsville until around 7 so I decided to head over to my parents house to see what they were doing for dinner. They had planned to go out so Dad asked where I wanted to go. I was craving some good home-cooked vegetables so I chose Sanitary Cafe (again, the name makes it sound pretty bad but it truly is delicious...and cheap), I ordered Kevin a to go plate and took it to his work when I left. I ended up hanging out at Ball for a whole hour since it was Kev's break time when I arrived. When I finally left his work, it was almost 10pm and I was exhausted! 

Sunday morning I got up and got ready for church. We had an amazing service. It's amazing how sometimes the message seems to be aimed directly at you. It was exactly what I needed to hear.  After church, I headed to the parents for our usual family lunch. Then I did the traditional grocery run on the way home. This time though I talked Brittni into coming shopping with me since she needed to do a grocery run too! It's so much more fun to grocery shop with a friend!

When I arrived home from the grocery store on Sunday, I had all the plans to get so much accomplished. I planned to organize my bathroom drawers and counters, sweep all the floors, catch up on laundry, and do a little mopping. You know what I ended up doing? Getting on pinterest for three hours and pinning over a 100 pins! haha It's seriously an addiction! Though you know what, that was the most relaxing three hours I've had all week! Now I've just got to spend the rest of the week completing those chores and making up for that lost time!!!

Hope you ladies had an amazing weekend filled with nothing but pure relaxation!

Valentine's Day Recap... 2 weeks late!

I know, I know! This post is coming extremely late as Valentine's Day was almost two whole weeks ago but I was waiting for some of the photos from the night to be emailed to me! Since I'm just now getting them in my email inbox, I'm just now getting to share! 

My morning began by being showered with all of these presents from my class of wonderful third graders! The bags were filled with delicious looking chocolates, candy, bath and body works stuff, drink mugs, and lots of other little goodies!

At the end of the school day, I gave the students an hour of free time. During that time, they decorated their bags, passed out their Valentine's Day cards, and got to open their bags to see what kinds of goodies they had received. Once everyone had had adequate time to read all of their cards, we had a little party complete with cupcakes, cookies, chips, and drinks! 

Here are the Valentines that I made my kiddos!

They said "You make my heart glow" and attached to them were glow sticks!

They LOVED them!

When I left school, I headed to the nail salon to treat myself to my own Valentine's Day present. I only got a french manicure; had I had time, I would have gotten a pedicure as well! By the time I got home it was time for me to get ready so I showered and got dressed for mine and my hubby's night out! 

At 7 o'clock, we left our house to head to the Belmont Estate. The Belmont Estate is a family owned southern plantation home that houses huge parties and weddings every weekend! I had only been on the grounds before, never inside the house so I was super excited that Kevin's work had rented the place out for their company Valentine's Day party! Here's what the house looks like on the outside!

When we arrived, the hostess took our name and sat us at our table. We sat at table number five (and yes they were numbered!). The table looked like it had been taken straight out of a romantic movie. It was a round, two person table complete with candles and a white table cloth. Kevin and I sat and talked and listened to the pianist play until our waiter came to take our drink orders.  A few short moments later, our waiter brought out our drinks with our appetizer. We had pre-ordered our food a few weeks ahead and had chosen a delicious bread and bruschetta. After we finished the appetizer, we sat and talked for a while until our salads had came out. They were amazing! I'm a sucker for homemade ranch dressing and that was some of the best I have ever ate. A short while after finishing that, the waiter brought out the main course. I had chosen sirloin tips with mushroom gravy, brazed mashed potatoes, and parmesan asparagus. The husband had chosen marinated grilled chicken, brazed mashed potatoes, and parmesan asparagus. It was so much food I could not eat it all! Just when I thought I was about to pop, the waiter asked if we were ready for dessert! There was NO way I was ready for that so Kevin and I spent another thirty minutes reminiscing about good times and talking about our future until we were ready for our dessert. And O.M.G! That dessert was better than the meal and that was hard to top. I had chosen red velvet cake and Kevin chose cherry cheesecake. We each ate half of ours and then switched plates with the other (we always order two different things so that we can get the best of both worlds!) By the time we'd done all that, it was time to go home. We'd been there for over two hours! It made me think about all my hopes to grow up and become a princess. After that two hour meal, I say scratch that! I'd be fat from all of those full course meals that they eat each day!


Here are some pictures from the night! These were the ones taken by the photographer on staff. I tried taking some pictures of our food and table, but since it was a candlelight dinner, the lighting was horrible and didn't allow for any decent ones!

Us on the famous staircase!

 At dinner!

 The famous staircase!

 The amazing waitstaff!

When we got home, I had to get Kevin to take a picture of me and my other Valentine! He was a little under the weather because he had had to have FIVE shots that day! But he still participated and willingly took a picture with me!

Overall, it was the most amazing day I have had in a while. I hope you ladies all had just as much of an amazing day as I did!

What I Wore Link-Up

Okay Ladies, here's another post of OOTD's! 

Monday

No outfit worthy of a picture today! I was dressed like a bum since we were traveling back home from Tennessee!

Tuesday

Cardigan: Gap

Tank Top: Rue 21

Pants: Gap

Shoes: Enzo Angiolini

Wednesday

 Dress: New Directions

Scarf: Jones New York

Shoes: Bandolino

Thursday

 Top: Ross

Capri's: Madison Studio

Shoes: Bandolino

Friday

It was Jump Rope For Heart today at school so I had to dress comfortably!

Polo: Ralph Lauren

Jeans:American Eagle

Shoes: Reebok

If I had a Beach House

For the last year, my husband and I have contemplated owning a place at the beach. My cousin currently owns a place that he'd like to sell and we've talked about purchasing it. It would be wonderful to have since I have the summers off and my husband works a 4-on-4-off schedule. We'd be able to use it quite a bit during the summer. However, after the summer is over, it would rarely get used because come Friday afternoon, I am exhausted from a week of teaching and can't imagine jumping in the car and traveling four hours to the beach and then a day and a half later turning back around for another four hour drive! I'd be worn flat out by then! On top of that, we plan on starting a family in the next year or so and I can't see myself traveling to the beach all the time with a newborn!


But despite the fact that I don't see a beach house in my near future, I still can't help pinning a bunch of images on pinterest :P. With today being the true essence of beach weather, i.e. the warm breeze and bright sunshine, I couldn't help but thinking of all of these images so I figured I'd share. If ever I own a beach house, these are some decorating ideas that I love!

I hope these images relax you as much as they do me!