Cozy Fall Essentials (and a giveaway!)

If you're following me on Instagram, you've probably already noticed that I love fall.  Scarves, soups, hoodies, and pumpkin-everything is totally my jam. So when Parachute asked me to write about my cozy fall essentials, I was all in.

 

To have a chance to enjoy your own cozy fall day with one of my essentials, be sure to read to the end of the post to enter the giveaway!

 

 

For me, the fall season is the epitome of coziness-- a time to enjoy both the beauty of nature and the comfort of home. So my fall essentials allow me to savor and enjoy all that the season has to offer.

 

As you've probably already figured out if you've been around here for awhile, there's not much I love more than a steaming, hot cup of coffee.  And with pumpkin spice and other fall-flavored coffees dominating this time of year, it's not hard to find a great seasonal cup of coffee.  But as the weather cools, I also love to warm up with hot apple cider, hot chocolate, or a cup of tea. 

 

With cooler weather and decreasing amounts of sunlight daily, cuddling up with a warm blanket is key for enjoying the fall season.  I shared my love of adding blankets and throws to my décor in order to bring texture and warmth to our home in this post, and am always looking for cozy new throws to spice up our décor.  I think these striped cashmere throws from Parachute look divine!  Can you imagine how amazing it would feel to curl up under cashmere?!  It sounds heavenly.

 

 

Another essential for enjoying a cozy fall is having fall-scented candles and soaps around the house.  This season, I'm really loving my Pumpkin Spiced Cheesecake scented candle.  I swear it makes my house smell like I'm baking something amazing!  Which in turn makes me want to eat cookies or something, but that's another story....

 

With the craziness of adding twins to our family, I spent several months without having any time to read. But now that fall has arrived (and the babies are starting to sleep for longer stretches of time), I'm finding that I can incorporate a bit of my favorite pastime back into my life.  I've spent a few quiet moments recently reading in my favorite Kindle app and catching up on issues of magazines I didn't have the chance to read over the summer.  Curling up with a book or magazine is such a great way to spend a chilly fall evening!

 

So to offer you your own piece of my version of a cozy fall day, I'm giving away a one-year subscription to one of my favorite magazines, Better Homes and Gardens!  Enter using the Rafflecopter below.  The giveaway will run through midnight on 10/26 and the winner will be contacted via email.  Good luck!

 

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 So, that about wraps up all I need for a cozy fall!  Sipping a hot drink and reading under a snuggly blanket with fall candles burning in the background...sounds like heaven.

 Now if I can just get these sweet babies to sleep so that I can experience it ;)

What are your cozy fall essentials? Leave them in the comments below!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Friday Favs 53

Happy Friday!  Here are some things I'm loving right now!

Fav #1

This sweet corn soup is amazing. It tastes like fresh corn on the cob.  In a bowl.  Which means I ate it almost every day until it was gone :)

 

 

 

Fav #2

I'm loving these wood watches by Jord right now!  My favorite is the Cora series Zebra wood and Turquoise.  I love the different tones in the wood, and think it would look great with a lot of different outfits!

  

Fav #3

I can't do another fav post without sharing my diaper bag with you.  I love it!  The JuJuBe BFF was such a splurge, but it's so pretty and functional! At this point in life, I use a diaper bag rather than a purse, so I needed one that looked great.  I parted with a ton of Ebates dollars that I've been hoarding for a long time in order to make the price more palatable.

The best price I can find for this print is here, and it looks as if they are always offering 10% off.

 

Choosing a print was SOO hard because I loved so many of them!  I gave Mr. M. some input, since he might need to carry the bag at some point, and he preferred the Queen of the Nile, which is a black and white herringbone pattern.  I love the fabric paired with the gold hardware.  Although let's face it-- had the leopard print been released when I bought my bag, he probably wouldn't have gotten a say!

 

Fav #4
 

And speaking of Ebates...if you aren't using it yet, you are missing out! It's awesome, and I use it to get cash back on almost everything I buy.

They work with almost all of my favorite stores, and it is just too easy not to use.  All you have to do is go to the Ebates website and open the website of the store you are shopping at from there.  That's it! 

You definitely should check it out! If you do, please use my referral link!

Have a great weekend!

 



DIY Mobile

One of my favorite parts of waiting for the babies to come was designing the nursery.  I had dreamed about it for years (I shared some of those dreams here), and one thing I knew for sure what that I wanted to DIY a mobile. 

 

As it turned out,  I needed to DIY two mobiles. :)

 

 

There are so many great DIY mobile inspirations out there, but my favs are the paint chip mobiles and I knew that was the direction I wanted to go in!

 

I can't take any credit for figuring out how to DIY these mobiles, though.  I totally adapted Merely Mothers DIY Better-Than-Pain-Chip Mobile to meet my needs, so I'll let you click on over there to read their tutorial. It's so simple! The only changes that I made were to use different colors, and to string my circles on fishing line instead of thread. 

 

 

I would recommend securing the strands of circles to the embroidery hoop with a dot of hot glue (in addition to merely tying them on), something I've had to go back and do after having two strands fall off. 

 

The supplies for two mobiles cost me about $15, which I thought was pretty good considering that I've seen similar mobiles listed anywhere from $30-70 on Etsy. The circle punch was the most expensive item on my list, but I got that for less than 10 bucks with a coupon.

 

Supplies Needed (for each mobile)

 12 inch embroidery hoop

7 inch embroidery hoop

4 sheets of cardstock for each color on mobile (16 sheets total)

2 inch circle punch

fishing line (I already had some)

white thread (I used some we had on hand)

keyring (I stole one out of our junk drawer)

 

Visit Merely Mothers for the instructions and to see their gorgeous mobile!

 

 

The babies just love to gaze at them!

 

I'm working on a full-on nursery post, but I hope you liked this sneak peek in the meantime!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday Favs 52

Happy Friday!  Even though I'm on maternity leave, Fridays still get me pumped because the weekends mean that Mr. M. is home with us!  Love that...and the extra sleep that comes from his help with middle of the night feedings!

Fav #1

 I can't talk about favorites without acknowledging that October has arrived!  I LOVE this month...the weather, the foliage, the fall fashion that I can finally wear.  Welcome October! Oh, how I have missed you!

 

 

Fav #2

I recently discovered the Etsy shop Layered and Long, and I am in love.  They shop features tons of gorgeous layering jewelry that is also special enough to stand alone. I especially like that you can customize your necklace's length and material (most pieces are available in silver, gold, and rose gold).  I have my eye on the gold bar necklace, which I'd love to have engraved with my kids' names.

 

 

 

...but I wouldn't be mad at anyone who bought me the Herkimer diamond necklace.  Just sayin.

 

 



Fav #3

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon the cutest personalized books!  Lost My Name books tell the story of a little boy or girl who has somehow lost his/her name, and embarks on an adventure to find it.  Each story uses the letters in the child's name to guide his/her journey to recover their name.  Have a kid with a short name?  They'll add in some extra part of the journey to ensure their story is at least 24 pages.

 

Ours arrived last week, and they are adorable!  I'm planning on giving them to my kids for their first Christmas, so I loved that I was able to include a personal message to each in the front of their books. 

Thinking this would be the perfect Christmas gift for the little one in your life?  Use my link for 15% off!


Have a great weekend!  We are watching and waiting to see what Hurricane Joaquin means for us.  Hoping your weekend is safe and dry!

MIA: An Absence Explained

In yesterday's post, I promised to explain the reason behind my year-long blogging break...

 

...or should I say reasons.


Twins :)  You're totally forgiving my absence now, right?

As you may (or more than likely may not) remember, when I left you I was just a few weeks out from our first successful/unsuccessful round of IVF.  Remember, I went silent on you then too?  Apparently, despite my best intentions to share the details of our fertility journey for those you who are going through it too, I can't seem to get motivated to write about that stuff as it's actually happening.  As it turns out, IVF is kind of all-consuming and leaves little energy for much else. At least it was for me.  Maybe I'll share some details from a 'looking back' perspective for those of you who are interested.

Anyway, we started preparing for our 2nd round of IVF last October.  We ended up with just two viable embryos...
 

..who grew into these guys....

  
who grew into these guys...

...who are the best thing that's ever happened to us.

So that's what's been keeping me so busy....IVF, twin pregnancy, figuring out how to be a mom of two.  Just life as usual around here :)

But through it all, I did keep you guys in mind!  Posts about the nursery and other stuff that has changed in the house, some great Friday Fav ideas, and random post topics have been running around in my head and are all on the way!  I have a year's worth of ideas listed in my iPhone, and can't wait to put them out into the blogosphere...in between diaper changes, feedings, and frantically seeking the lost pacifiers of my little binky addicts.

Seriously, the posts may flow more as a trickle than a gush.  But at least the drought is over for now!

 

365

Before I begin, let's start with the obvious...

 



You guys-- (if there are any of you left out there)....I haven't posted anything in a YEAR.  365 days on the nose. 

365 opportunities. Failed on every one of them. Awesome.

I never meant to let a year go by without posting.  And I certainly didn't plan on my last post being one about some random app that really has nothing to do with what this blog is all about.  Life just got kind of crazy, and somehow 12 months went by without having much more than a passing thought about writing, followed by absolutely no action to ever make it happen. 

 

Basically, this was me for a whole year.

 

 

But lately...I've been feeling compelled to finish what I started.  I'm not sure what that means yet.  It might be a return to semi-regular posts about house progress, Friday favs, the occasional project, and life in general....or it may mean finding a way to wrap up this story of our home and give this blog some closure. 

 

So we'll see what this little comeback brings. But for now...I bet you're wondering what went down that resulted in a freakin' year going by without a single word.  And I'll tell you...

 

....in tomorrow's post. 

 I promise there will be one.

 

 

No really, I swear.

 

 And if you can't wait, you can always stalk me on Instagram ;)





 
 
 
 

App Crack: OverDrive

True story: When I was a kid, I was such a bookworm that I routinely tried to get away with sitting at the dinner table holding whatever book I was reading at the time with my left hand, while eating with my right hand.  Until my parents would tell me to stop being anti-social and made me put the book down to take part in whatever the dinner conversation happened to be that day. Which was never as interesting as what The Baby Sitter's Club or Sweet Valley Twins were up to (sorry, guys), but was an important part of keeping me connected to my family.  Eventually books got banned at the table completely, but up until that time I remember many dinners spent fighting for my right to party (ie. read at the dinner table). 

I was a total wild child, can't you tell?

And not much has changed over the years.  I still love getting lost in books, and would certainly rather be reading than doing half of the other mundane things I have to do around the house.  Which is why I'm so totally, crazy in love with my latest app addiction: OverDrive.

I'm pretty sure that OverDrive has been around for awhile, but I just found out about it within the last few months.  It lets me borrow library books on my iPhone and Kindle for free.  And not only book books, but also audio-books!  

I first became interested in audio-books decades ago, when my Nana and Pop Pop would listen to them on their loooong drive to Florida....

Now I'm really making myself sound cool, using the habits of my grandparents to explain my current day interests :) 

...but they are expensive, and the selection at my local library leaves something to be desired.  Plus, they're on CD's...which aren't exactly portable.  But now that I can get audio-books that I actually want to listen to  on my devices so easily, I love using them to keep my mind occupied while I'm doing all sorts of things around that house that would normally be boring.

 Especially yard work. And those million of hours that I spent sanding down the closets.

  I've long been a fan of music during these tasks, but getting lost in a book is an even better escape!  I just pop in my headphones and am content for hours.  

It's the best.

Whatevs.

So how does it work?  Well, once you download the free app, you'll need to link it to a participating library in order to browse and borrow from their collection.  If you live in PA, I recommend using the Free Library of Philadelphia (PA residents can apply for free here), which has a fab collection of current books.  

How fab?  Here's a sampling of what I've read (or listened to) through OverDrive lately:

Side Note:  If you read Andy Cohen's book, which you totally should if you're a fan of Andy, the Housewives, Watch What Happens Live!, or basically any element of pop culture, I highly recommend that you listen to the audio-book.  It's read by Andy himself, and his tone and inflection totally makes the experience.

Cracked. Me. Up. 

Pretty great, right?! I'm on hold for a bunch of other titles that I've been wanting to read, but didn't want to pay for on the Kindle store, and find that waiting times are usually a few weeks for new books, and non-existent for books that have been out for a while.  

Have you made the conversion to e-books?  I was so against it, but obviously my opinions have changed!