Friday Favorites

Happy Friday everyone! I’m switching things up this week and instead of a Friday Five, I’m doing my Friday Favorites. With all the craziness coming up in the next month or so, coming up with 5 things each week can be a bit much sometimes so I figured I’d switch to Friday Favorites for awhile to keep the blogging going. We have a busy weekend of wedding planning to do as it’s pretty much our last free weekend before the weekend before the wedding. I’m hoping to cross a lot off our list and start to feel a bit more relaxed! I hope you all have a good weekend planned :)

Travel Size Toiletries

Fun fact: I love miniature sized items! Growing up, I was loved miniature dolls, especially the old school Polly Pockets, always took the tiny soaps and shampoos from hotels because I thought they were too cute, and collected miniatures. While in CVS the other day, I figured I’d peruse the travel sizes toiletries to see if they had anything I’d need for my beach trip this weekend and/or the honeymoon. I was ecstatic when I came across the travel sized version of the face wash I’ve used for years. I picked it up to have for trips since usually I just pack the whole big bottle. It had been awhile since I’d shopped for travel sized items and I completely forgot how cute I always find them. 

Vaseline Lip Balm with Cocoa Butter

I’ve been having trouble with dry, peeling lips the past few months and hardly anything was helping. My mother-in-law suggested this Vaseline lip balm that comes in a small metal tin as a way of keeping my lips moisturized throughout the day. She made a good point that maybe the lip balm I was using was what was causing the dryness. I finally found it while in CVS earlier in the week and am happy to say it has made a HUGE difference! The mix of Vaseline and cocoa butter leaves my lips feeling soft all day and so far no peeling!

Arizona Shorts

Finding a pair of shorts that aren’t too short or too long while also being comfortable is nearly impossible. While at the mall with my friend last weekend, we decided to try on some shorts. I grabbed a couple pairs that looked cute, including these Arizona midi shorts, and ended up falling in love with them! They have a 4.5 inch inseam which makes them long enough to prevent chafing, but not too long where they look like Bermuda shorts. I’m tempted to go back and buy a few more pairs to replace all my way too short pairs I have!

Personal Training

I never thought I’d say this, but I actually enjoy my personal training sessions! John has been doing personal training for awhile now and convinced me to join the weight loss challenge at our gym which includes some personal training sessions. I’ve had 2 so far and I actually think I work better having somebody telling me what to do and helping me through the workout. I feel much more accountable now!

Question of the Day: What is something you're loving this week?

Wedding Resources I Love

I was originally going to post a recap of the race I did last week, but decided to put that off to do a wedding related post instead! Yesterday, July 9th, marked one month until our wedding! I am super excited and in full wedding mode so today's post is about the websites that have proved to be the best resources for us during this whole planning process. Some are a little more obvious than others but I hope you find them useful whether you're currently engaged, almost engaged, or know someone who would benefit from these websites!

The Knot
This is probably the most obvious one! My suggestion after first getting engaged {after celebrating, of course!} is to make an account through The Knot. You may not know your date yet, but that's okay! The Knot provides so many useful articles with every tip and trick you didn't know you needed to know. Once you have your date, The Knot will create a checklist for you with deadlines for each task that you need to complete in order to plan your wedding. You also will have access to a free wedding website {it's soo easy to use!}, a budgeter, a timeline planner, and more!

Source

RSVPify
This was a resource that was recommended to us by my sister and her husband. RSVPify allows you to simplify RSVPing by putting everything online for a small fee! The set up is easy, although John did most of it so I can't say too much about it. You import your guest list into the website, separating each couple or family into their own grouping, and then assign each person/couple/family a unique code that they will enter on the site when they go on to respond. You can personalize the form with meal choices and questions such as song suggestions. Once people start responding, you can begin placing them in table groups which another awesome feature on RSVPify. It has honestly simplified this part of the process for me immensely and saved us a good amount of money since all we needed to make was a small insert card for each invitation with the information on it.

Etsy
Etsy was an absolute life saver when it came to many wedding purchases. Guest book? Etsy. Gifts for our parents? Etsy. Cake server? You guessed it, Etsy! We were able to find so many unique items on Etsy and always had tons of options, especially when I had no clue what exactly I wanted like the cake serving set. Anything you may need for your wedding, I guarantee you can probably find it on Etsy!

Groomsshop
John came across this online store while searching for gifts for the groomsmen and its great! We were at a loss as to what to get his guys as a present and after looking at the options on here, we then had trouble narrowing down our choices. There are a lot of unique ideas, most of which you can personalize. The item we chose came in a set of 5 for a great deal, which worked out perfectly!

Question of the Day: If you’ve planned a wedding or are planning a wedding, do you have a favorite wedding resource? If not, have you heard of one that sounds cool?

My Week in Pictures XXVIII

Happy Monday! I had a fun, relaxing weekend so I feel energized and ready to start my 3rd week of camp which means we have 3 full weeks left {not that I'm counting...}. This past week was fun, yet busy thanks to the holiday falling on a Thursday. We did lots of fun stuff, so follow along to check out what I was up :)

On Tuesday my kids made bracelets in arts and crafts so I joined in and made a bracelet with my soon-to-be new initials on it.

That afternoon I attempted to do some wedding work and Dexter decided he needed to help me out...

We went on our first field trip on Wednesday to the Franklin Institute! The kids had a blast and were excited to see the Marvel exhibit.

My brother and I spontaneously signed up for a 4 mile race on the 4th of July so I went to pick up our bibs and t-shirts Wednesday after work.

From there I headed to the gym to hop on the elliptical for a bit.

Since my brother was staying the night for the race, we planned on making steaks for dinner. I failed to defrost them so we ended up getting all you can eat sushi instead!

The Pitman Freedom 4 miler was a blast! I'll post more about it in a recap this week :)

We ended up getting donuts after because why not! They were from an amazing bakery in Pitman and worth every bite!

Later that day we spent some time relaxing at the pool at John's parent's house.

We finished off the night at my sister's 4th of July party! My nephew and I played hard most of the night.

I managed to sneak in some Joey snuggles while Tommy was busy.

Although he found out soon enough and was NOT happy about sharing his Auntie Em..

John made a delicious peach cobbler in the Instant Pot that tasted a lot better than it looked!

We then sat back and watched some little fire works my brother-in-law set off for us.

Back at work on Friday we made toilet paper roll fire works.

Right after work, we drove down to Wildwood Crest to begin out fun weekend with our friends who rented a hotel room down there.

Since it was too late for the beach at this point, we headed onto the boardwalk where John and his friends threw some hatchets.

We also got the most delicious pizza for dinner at Sam's!

I started off Saturday morning with a quick 3 mile run along the bike path next to the beach.

After some breakfast, we all headed to the beach. I worked on my wedding tan, played in the water, and had sand sticking to me all over.

That night, Kristina curled my hair before we went out. I got pretty tan if you couldn't tell.

First stop was Willow Creek Winery for some sangria and apps!

This pretzel was SOO good!

The Asiago bruschetta was perfect for a summer evening!

We had to leave Sunday but John and I took a walk on the boardwalk one last time before we left. We also took a group picture before we split off.

We were exhausted by time we got home, so we took a nap. Once we woke up, we felt better and decided to join my sister, brother-in-law, and nephews for fireworks!

Question of the Day: How did you celebrate the 4th of July?

Currently

Happy Hump Day! I’m pretty excited it’s already Wednesday because I have off tomorrow and then Friday after work I’ll be leaving for the shore! I haven’t had much time to really sit down and put together big blog posts lately. It’s been a good kind of busy so no complaints here. I figured I’d check in today with a “currently” post to give you a little peek into my life lately. 

I am Currently

Eating... blueberries! I went to a blueberry festival on Sunday and stocked up on a couple pints. They’ve been my go-to fruit since then. I’ve been adding them to my overnight oats, yogurt, and also just eating them plain. 

Wearing... gym clothes, all day, every day. My work attire is a green t-shirt {or polo on trip days} and whatever pants I want. I’ve been going for gym shorts most days because they’re most comfortable and I have plenty. I also tend to wear gym clothes during the weekend because I’m either running, at the gym, or lounging around so it’s all about comfort over here!

Appreciating... my parents! I’ve had a boatload of car issues lately and my parents have been here to help me all along the way. They’ve helped me change a flat, figure out why my car started making a loud noise while driving, safely get my car to a mechanic, let me borrow their car while mine was being fixed, AND picked up my car from the mechanic for me all in a matter of a week and a half! I honestly don’t know what I’d do without them!

Feeling... excited and stressed all at the same time! We are 38 days out from the wedding and although things are falling into place nicely, I still don’t have a set timeline for the day of and it’s a little stressful. I’m hoping to get that worked out by next week so the last month before the wedding can be spent getting any last minute things together!

Enjoying... working an “easy” job. Being an arts & crafts director is soo much less stressful than my normal job as a teacher. It requires some prep, but not outside of working hours. I’ve been loving getting to work in the morning at a decent time {not too early} and then leaving at the end of the day without any work to bring home. I better enjoy this time now before I start teaching first grade in September :)

Question of the Day: What is something you are currently eating or feeling?

My Week in Pictures XXVII

Happy Monday and first day of July! June truly flew by and I am imagining that is the theme for this year. We are half way through 2019 and I feel like just yesterday we were celebrating the new year. Crazy how time flies! We had a pretty uneventful/eventful week last week without too many pictures to prove it but here goes today's week in pictures!


Monday was my first day back at work and I literally came home and fell asleep by 8 pm so nothing to show there... Tuesday we ended up going to our local diner for dinner because we were both too wiped out to cook. I ordered a turkey chipotle panini with cheddar cheese, bacon, and chipotle sauce with a side of sweet potato fries.

My kids made the cutest sun catchers in arts and crafts on Wednesday! One turned out super adorable!

Thursday night I had my final dress fitting and then went to dinner at Panera with my mom, Ashley, and Joey afterwards. I got my usual caesar salad but switched it up and got the modern caprese sandwich.

I got some much needed baby snuggles!

I officially picked my dress up on Saturday while I was there with Melissa. I didn't have my car with me Thursday night and I wasn't squeezing it into my mom's car.

That night John and I tried out a chicken burrito bowl recipe in our Instant Pot. It was delicious and simple to make. We just added chicken breast, rice, corn, black beans, salsa, and chicken broth and within 30-40 minutes had dinner!

Somehow we ended up at Ashley's that night for a campfire and s'mores!

I started out my Sunday with my first run in a week. It was hot and slow but  ran the whole time and felt pretty strong.

 In the afternoon, we met up with friends of ours at a Red, White, and Blueberry Festival. I got a delicious blueberry cannoli!

Since we were in the area, we stopped for wings at the Pic-A-Lilli Bar! Such a great place!

We ended our week with getting ice cream with my family. Joey and I are trying to start our collection of selfies early.

Question of the Day: Did you do anything fun this past weekend?