courage for the week 5.25.14

25 May 2014

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caught my eye + DEALS 5.23.14

23 May 2014

*please click over to pin from the original sites – thank you!!

This girl’s room from the Lily Pad Cottage!

* I loved this article from Jen Hatmaker last year: Worst End of School Year Mom Ever and also

this one from Buzzfeed: Parents at the beginning of the year and end of the school year.

Greek Pasta Salad from Just a Taste:

Greek Pasta Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette #recipe

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welcome to our front porch!

22 May 2014

If you remember from our home plans, we have a front porch! I’ve never had a front porch before, so this was so much fun. While things are getting finished up on the inside, I decided to make the front porch a little more inviting:

First up was an old library cart I bought from the online classifieds for $15:

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new home: master bathroom

20 May 2014

Hello, friends! We just moved into our new home this past weekend. It feels so good to be in one spot and not to be driving back and forth between our rental and the house, the schools and everything over here. We are up to our ears in moving boxes and craziness, so I’m going to show you pictures of the only room that isn’t chaotic right now: the master bathroom. This room is long and skinny (you can see it on the floor plan here) so taking pictures was a trick, but please come in!

We went with the darker wood cabinets to give a little contrast to the sea of gray and white.

Did you know that wood stained cabinets are actually less expensive than paint grade cabinets?? Because they don’t have to be perfect and smooth like you expect white cabinets to be. Imperfections and knots are perfectly acceptable.

For the counters, we went with a carrara marble. We had it in our bathroom in Virginia and we loved it, so we chose it again. It is softer and scratches and etches easily so I would NOT recommend it for high traffic areas or kids’ bathrooms, but I figured my husband and I could handle it. The cabinet hardware is from the Jeffrey Alexander Belcastel collection.

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top 10 things we’ve noticed about Utah + $100 Curél® giveaway

19 May 2014

It’s almost been a year since we’ve been here and we are loving it. As with any move, you can’t help but notice the customs and little tendencies about your new state:

10. It is so family friendly and deal friendly – family passes and discounts everywhere. The pool, bumper boats, discount theaters, miniature golf, baseball and basketball games. There are always good deals to be found!