the weekender

Our weekend started Friday when Darrell got home and we decided hey, cooking is for the birds, let's get tacos!  

After we persuaded our crazy child (who said she didn't want tacos, like, whose child is she even) to go to Fuzzy's Taco Shop - which is amazing - we only managed to get her out the door in a Sofia dress and shoes of her choice.  She made friends with nature like a true Disney Princess and also decided to take her Minnie Mouse guitar in case she needed to break out into song.  Lest you think we were even slightly embarrassed by her outfit decision, rest assured that she was NOT THE ONLY PRINCESS at Fuzzy's that night.  There was a little girl of similar age in full Sleeping Beauty regalia.  Sympathetic looks were exchanged all around.  Margaritas were consumed.  All in all, a successful Friday.  

We were awoken Saturday morning with the traditional toddler method of awakening, "clap your hands in mommy's face until she sits up and pays attention to you."  It's much cuter than it sounds.  

Since we were up anyways, we decided trips to the library and playground were in order before naptime.  So we packed up and headed to the local library where we *finally* got Claire a library card. She is currently sitting in a massive pile of books next to me.  Did you know they lifted borrowing limits on library books sometime this year?  It used to be around 7, as far as I knew, but now you're just responsible for as many as you want to be, up to like 100 or something crazy!  

That night was a friend's surprise birthday party, so we headed out to celebrate!  

Thankfully, the party started around 6 so it was super kid friendly and Claire had a total blast.  

I debuted some new blonde hair I'm pretty excited about (also pretty excited about these shoes, which are under $40!!) To Darrell's dismay, I'm thinking of going even blonder next time - thoughts?!  

Top // Necklace // Shorts - old but simliar here // Shoes

Can you get over the cuteness?!  Also, getting 3 toddlers to smile for a photo = impossible. This was our best effort.  

Elly was only willing to smile as a solo subject :)  

Shoes are here, but I found a dupe here for less than $75!  

Dress is from Stitch Fix - which you can sign up for here!  I found a really similar one here though.  

Last but not least, Claire & I went to church Sunday morning where she had a blast (as always) and I got some good motivation for my week!  We definitely bribed her with a gummy vitamin to take these pictures, and it definitely worked.  

Hope you're all having a great week so far!! 

summer nights at the botanical gardens

Straw Hat // Dress (on sale for $30!) // Booties ($50 off) // Purse ($150 off!!)  

Rabbit Rabbit!  Can you even believe that it's August already?? Probably ingrained in me from school days, August always feels like the end of the summer to me.  Of course in St. Louis it pretty much stays warm until the end of September, it's definitely winding down.  We've been embracing a slower lifestyle lately and I've been really enjoying it.  Still, we have to squeeze every drop of goodness out of 2016 so we have a few more things to check off our summer bucket list!

Every summer we make it a priority to get to the Botanical Gardens for their Wednesday evening concerts as often as we can.  They have an amazing children's garden there, and Claire has a total blast being in an area where she can run and get messy to her heart's content.  We, however, really love the "sit on a picnic blanket and drink wine" aspect of the event!

Claire picked out her own outfit this evening - yes even the completely temperature inappropriate knee high socks - and we just rolled with it.  It worked out in her favor, nearly everyone we passed told her how much they loved her boots, and they'd get a VERY enthusiastic "Thank you!" as a reward.  I hope so much that the joy she infuses into everyone around her is neverending.  Little girls are just a special kind of magic.

the weekender/splash pad season

You know how grateful you are, when it's Monday morning and you're ACTUALLY NOT UPSET because you had such a relaxing, rejuvating weekend that it leaves you feeling ready for the week?  Yeah, those are way too rare in my book too, but here I am on the other side of one and it makes me want to do nothing but stay at home every weekend for the rest of the summer.  Here are my favorite snaps from our weekend in St Louis!  

Since we moved to Webster Groves from the Tower Grove area we had really been missing it, and kind of shaming ourselves for not hitting up the farmer's market there once yet this summer!  So we made plans with friends to meet up there and of course, Claire had a total blast.  This park has (in my opinion) the best splash pad in the city and they even fill the fountain as a wading pool from 11-1 on weekends!  

Just for fun, here's a little throwback pic - this is Claire in the same fountain on the SAME WEEKEND last summer.  I always see her as a baby but comparing these two photos shows me how big she has gotten!  

Darrell & I also gardened our hearts out on Saturday (in 100 degree heat, YUCK) but our yard basically looked like a rainforest due to our excessive travel lately so it needed to get done!  Then we hung out outside the rest of the day until Claire declared it "too hot" and we retreated to the basement which was much more fun than usual because....

we redid Claire's playroom a little bit with a makeover!  It got a facelift from a ton of "Pillowfort" products from Target as well as some alternative lighting, and although there's still lots to do down there she is REALLY enjoying it so far.  

Last but not least, I hope you'll come back tomorrow if you want to see a new feature I'm adding to the blog!  I have a lot of fun sharing my outfits on Instagram but thus far haven't really enjoyed the process of making the posts "shoppable" for you guys in an easy way.  The service I use to link products, Shopstyle Collective, recently upgraded their platform and I'm working on getting it set up tonight :) 

So I can't wait to hear what you think and if you find it easy to use!  

life update + probably far too many baby photos!

Oh hai.  Honestly, it is such a struggle to start blogging again after such a long break, so I'll just jump right in with a little update.  

When I last left off, we had bought a house, yes!  So, that really explains a lot of where we've been.  However, we also have travelled a ton (California, Vermont, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Georgia, the Ozarks, end scene!) so my free time has been non-existent.  Last but not least, just when we were planning to get back into a groove and I was, yup, planning to start blogging again, our house basically fell apart.  Our fridge broke, which is a bigger deal than you'd think?  We have a mini fridge, but that required daily grocery trips.  Then, our AIR CONDITIONING WENT OUT the week of a heat advisory, and we still have no fridge.  

So we abandoned ship.  I'm so, so grateful that my parents also live in St Louis and have a condo that we're able to stay in while we're displaced.  (Claire literally could not handle the heat at the house, we took her back to get different clothes one day and she cried the entire time we were there just saying "I'm hoooooooooot."  I felt so bad!)  My parents are at the lake a lot in the summer so we're - hopefully - not tooooo much of an imposition.  We have a repair appointment today for our A/C and our *new* fridge that was installed incorrectly and was leaking water all over our kitchen floor.  

So yeah!  Kind of difficult to fit in outfit shoots & blog posts within all of that :/  

I have taken a lot of photos of life the past couple of months, so I thought I'd share them and then maybe tomorrow y'all can come back for a "Reading Lately" post?  Because I have been reading a TON on planes, and so so many new and amazing books have come out this summer.  Okay, on to the photos!

the weekender

Just a couple pictures from our trip to the zoo this weekend!  It was 75 degrees (in February!!!) if you can believe that and we had the best day really soaking up the sunshine.  Claire ooh and ahhhhhhed over the monkeys, said "oh my goodness!!" several times, it was hysterical.  If you don't already, follow me on Snapchat for funny little videos @maryhayes

christmas 2015

Merry Christmas to all!  As you can see, ours was a great success.