All in Randomness
Melody has been to see Disney on Ice three times now. She went once when she was about 4-5 months old, then she went again last year at about 16 months old. Our third visit was a few weeks ago here in Huntsville. It was part of her birthday present from Emily. Brad wasn't super interested in going since he has been twice before, so it ended up being just a girls' trip. Since it was local, this was really easy to do. My mom even tagged along to see the show too.
So our all time favorite brunch spot is Grille 29. I have been eating lunch and dinner here since I moved to Huntsville back in 2009. A few years later we found out that they had brunch on Sundays. Back them they served brunch only on Sunday starting at 10 am. More recently, they have expanded their brunch to Saturdays too. One perk is that they serve $0.29 mimosas from 10 until 11. So that is the prime time really. We tend to go whenever we have family in town over the weekend or for special occasions. Check out my review of our most recent experience below!
Back in February, Huntsville hosted their third annual Comic and Pop Culture Expo. Brad and I attended the very first one which was dramatically smaller and had far less to do. Unfortunately we missed the second one because of prior engagements. However, we heard the second one was much bigger from our friends that were able to attend. When we found out that the one this year was on a weekend we had no plans, we were sure to add it to our calendar as a must do!
So I tend to host/cohost a lot of parties. I absolutely love to party plan. And something that goes along with most parties are invitations. I address all invitations by hand. I have considered using my Silhouette Cameo pen to address some, but I feel like it would take quite awhile to do.
Until we had Melody, I never used Dreft anything. Well once having a baby, I realized I would need some great stain removers because that is literally what she lives for...making a mess, ha! It took me awhile to find a stain remover that truly worked on almost everything, but in the end, it had been staring me right in the face since we had her...Dreft. Dreft laundry stain remover is 1 of 2 stain removers I use regularly. The other is Carbona Stain Deviles Fat and Cooking Oil Stain Remover. I will show you that later though! I have some examples of some stains that Dreft has removed below.
Emily and I went to the beach with just our girls back in March. Both of our husbands were out of town the same week (super rare for them to both be gone at the exact same time). Well as a treat for our girls, I decided to make them each a small happy (I made a slightly larger one a while back). I didn't want to do anything super big for two reasons. One we only were going to have so much room in the car, ha! Two since we would only really be going to the beach one day, there wasn't much point to buy a whole lot of things to take. Check out all the fun things I added to this one!
Easter this year was much different that ones before. Melody was able to walk this Easter, and she was much more interested in hunting eggs. We spent Easter local instead of traveling like we usually do. While we missed our out of town family, it was nice to spend Easter with our local family and friends. And traveling on holidays can be really stressful too. Unfortunately our dishwasher sprung a leak the week before, so that did create some drama Easter weekend. However it was a blessing we were in town to handle it. Aside from the housing woes, we had a very fun and eventful Easter weekend. Check it all out below:
When we bought Melody's Easter basket last year, we did so with the intention of it being her basket forever. So we used it again this year to fill it up with some Easter goodies. Check out everything we filled it with this year below!
For Melody's first Christmas, her Nannie gave her an American Girl doll. It took her about 6 months to really become interested in her doll, but when she did, she became obsessed! She now sleeps with it in her crib at night, and it goes with us on almost every trip. Well prior to us moving it to her crib, each night we would take turns setting the doll up so that it appeared she got into certain shenanigans each night. We did this most nights for about 6 months or so. Some nights we didn't do anything too fancy. And a lot of nights it was a real stretch to come up with anything! Well below are some of my favorites!
Brad and I have been Costco members since we were engaged. We joined to buy some of the things we needed for our wedding. We continued to be members because we purchased most of our meats and bulkier items there. Well recently the yearly membership fee went up, and we started to question whether we should make the move to Sam's Club. I loved Costco so much, but it was becoming more expensive for us. Plus it was located on the far end of town, so we had to make a special effort to go there. Sam's Club is much more centrally located. The nail on the coffin for Costco was a coupon book we purchased from a neighbor's child. It contained a coupon for a Sam's Club membership. For joining, you received a $15 gift card. And membership was already cheaper than Costco. So the combo was too much of a deal to pass up. Our philosophy was that we could re-join Costco next year if we hate Sam's.
I turned 32 last Thursday! And in true Brittany-fashion, my birthday was celebrated over many days (and I still have a bit of celebrating to do with my annual birthday trip to Disney soon).
Merry Christmas!! [one day later of course!] Christmas this year has been quite fun...and quite interesting! Check out all of our festivities below!
Over the summer, I discovered a company called Alabama Bliss. It is a small company back in Muscle Shoals. It is a really unique place. It is a boutique offering clothing and accessories; they have a cafe serving both food specials daily and coffee; they offer grocery delivery; and [what this post is about] they have take home meals that you can cook at home later.
Just like last year, we decided to do family costumes for Halloween. One day we put Melody's hair in pigtails, and that is when it hit Brad...let's dress her up as Boo from Monsters Inc. Brad and I planned to dress as Mike and Sulley. I bought our shirts from Hobby Lobby. We decide who would be who based on the fact they did not have my size in the blue shirt, ha! I bought purple heat transfer vinyl, and I had blue, white and black HTV at home. I used the Silhouette Cameo to make our shirts.
I have always seen the Today Show's Steals and Deals, but I have never found anything I really wanted or could justify buying. Well Brad and I love to buy and make iced coffee. One day they had a steal for a cold brew coffee maker. It was $24 for the coffee maker as well as the travel bottle. The total of those items were $55, so that is quite a bit of savings!
A few weeks ago we visited Lyons Family Farms to see their Pumpkin Patch. We went last year, so I suppose we have started a yearly tradition. This year the girls were obviously older, so they were able to do a lot more. The other big difference was the temperature. Last year we were super cold, especially that morning. This year we were burning up. I had to go out the day before and get short sleeve dresses for the girls since their long sleeves wouldn't work!
Melody's first Disney on Ice experience was last year. We decided to take her again this year but with Emily, Justin, and Lydia. The show was in Birmingham which is only about 1.5 hours away, so we were able to day trip it. Read about our experience below!
Emily and I decided to take our girls to a splash pad for the first time recently. We waited until school was back in session so that the crowds would be fairly small. Our local outdoor mall has a fun splash pad that is free that we used.
Brad bought me a Silhouette Cameo 3 for Christmas last year. I wanted one for a while, and I was ecstatic when he finally bought me one. I started doing projects almost immediately. As you may have read, a lot of Melody's first birthday was done using my Cameo. Below are some of the projects I have done so far!
