For my 35th birthday last year, I had only one request… alone time. I am an only child and I crave being alone. And as a mom of 3 young girls, I don’t get much of it. I told Matt about a month before my birthday that I wanted to go somewhere by myself. This was 2 weeks after having my third baby. He looked at me like I had 3 heads. “What do you mean by yourself? With me, right?” he said. Nope. By myself. “You’ll take the baby, right?” Nope. By myself. He still looked confused. Then, I was telling my best friend about it, she thought I…
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Preparing Yourself for Back to School
Well, ready or not it’s time for Back to School. This year, back to school may look very different for everyone, but it still signals the beginning of a “new year” in most households. There are thousands of articles and posts on the internet of things to do to prepare for back to school, traditions to start, cute lunch boxes to prepare, homework centers to create and healthy after school snacks to serve. But what I didn’t find was how to prepare yourself, you, the mom. How do you prepare for the ever violent shift from slow summer mornings to the panic of getting out the door first thing in…
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Chipotle Cheddar Corn & Shrimp Chowder
We had a crazy rainy weekend last weekend and my friend Tiffany from We Five Kings posted that she was planning to make this yummy soup and I thought it looked delicious! The recipe is originally from Half Baked Harvest and I adapted it slightly. If you are not following her on Instagram, do it now, I get so much inspiration from her posts. Making this soup really made me think about my cooking journey, I did not grow up cooking in the kitchen with my mom. I am an only child and it was just me and her for most of my childhood, so we just didn’t cook a…
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Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms
This week in my Instagram stories I shared what I was making for dinner. Most weeks I don’t really meal plan. I buy the same basic groceries every week and add any different veggies, fruits or meats that are on sale that week. I find the produce that’s on sale is normally the produce that is in season, so there is a surplus and it is delicious! This also helps mix up our meals. Then every night is like an episode of chopped, what can I make with all this stuff! So yesterday I had Portobello mushrooms that needed to be used and decided to stuff them. Matt looked at…
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How I Approach “Self-Care”
Finding joy everyday is something I think about a lot. I try to visualize the moments in my past where I have felt the most joy. Where am I? What does it look like? What am I wearing? Who am I with? Super specific. I’m am talking about the daily small moments of joy, not the “my kids” bring me joy big ticket things. The definition of joy is “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” Which also means, joy is subjective, we all find our happiness in different things. My closest girlfriends listen to crime podcasts. This brings them joy. They love it. This makes my stomach turn. …
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Why Magnolia & Honey?
About two years ago, I decided to start a blog. I had all these wonderful ideas of things I could talk about and beautiful images I could post on Instagram; sharing stories of our lives and travel. But I got completely overwhelmed with ideas and all the stuff and was almost paralyzed in this “brainstorming” phase. Then I started to panic, who do I think I am? Why would anyone care what I have to say? What if someone judges me? Or I’m not good enough? Or smart enough? Or pretty enough? Or my house isn’t just the right blend of whites and greys to look amazing on Insta? So,…
