Hello, friends!It's November! Hard to believe since its been feeling like mid-summer outside. We down her in the South had the most amazing cool front this past weekend. FINALLY. It was glorious!This month is one of my favorites of the whole year. Not only do we get to celebrate Thanksgiving, but we also get to be a little more obnoxious about celebrating Christmas. Let's be real: I've been celebrating Christmas for weeks now. But at least now I won't get made fun of for it.My first goal for this month is to finish my Christmas decorations. I'm actually almost done but putting the finishing touches has been a challenge to say the least. Both my babies stay home with me and so anything that must be done, must be done with mommies little helpers. This project is taking about a million times longer than I would have hoped but that's part of the reason I started so early. I can't wait to share the home tour in the next few weeks! Reese has a special feature in the tour where she used an entire roll of scotch tape to attach a 12 inch ribbon to our fireplace screen. LOL! It's so trendy.Once I get the house all done, I can start to really focus on Christmas shopping. I love getting thoughtful gifts for my fam so it takes a good bit of planning ahead and searching to try to find just the right thing. I'm working on a blog post that'll include some of my favorite thoughtful gifts that I'm working on now and have given in the past. I hope to get everyone's shopping done before Thanksgiving. I know, it's nuts. But a girl can dream, right?As the Holidays approach, it gets really easy to get lax in areas I'm normally disciplined in. So this month I've already planned out all my blog posts thru the end of the year. I'm normally kind of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of blogger but I'm working on becoming a little more on purpose in this area.I shared on my blog a few weeks ago about our upcoming girl's trip to New York. We leave the first week of December so we still need to finalize all our plans and, most importantly, my outfits. Priorities, people. I'm still on the hunt for a few different things to complete my packing list. I've already bought one of these jackets and now I'm trying to figure out if I need the other one, too! Thoughts?[showshopthepostwidget id="2082368"]Since NYC is (hopefully!) going to be cold, it's time to invest in some real outerwear. I'm mildly obsessed with these gloves!! The beanie and scarf are new favorites, too.[showshopthepostwidget id="2082388"]
Keeping Your Kitchen Clean
Hi, friends!
Hope you're settling beautifully into this short week. I'm so excited to share this yummy strawberry shortcake recipe that I tried this weekend for our Memorial Day family supper.
1/2 cup coconut flour
2 TBS Arrowroot flour
2/3 cup melted coconut oil
2 TBS raw honey
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
4 TBS water
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine dry ingredients, then add honey, coconut oil, and vanilla. Combine. Add in water and stir until batter thickens. Grease a mini muffin tin with coconut oil and place small ball-shaped dough chunks into the muffin tins. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool completely. I put mine in the fridge for an hour before serving.
Coconut whipped cream:
1 can refrigerated coconut cream (Got mine from trader joes)
1 TBS maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
Combine and whip on high til peaks form. Keep in fridge til ready to serve.
Slice up some fresh strawberries and enjoy a guilt-free treat that even those not impressed by healthy eating will love.
Original recipe here.
Now since we're already in the kitchen... let's talk about keeping it clean!
These "tips" are just things I do every day cuz if momma's kitchen aint clean, it's not gonna be good.
1. Before I go to bed every night, I make sure the kitchen is completely clean. I know this is tough because coming down stairs after getting the babes in bed or finishing up work, it sounds a lot better to netflix and chill than it does to load the dishwasher. But waking up in the morning to a clean kitchen is worth it. Every. Single. Time.
2. Clean off your counters completely after every meal. Part of the problem in the kitchen is that because it's such a lived in space, the mess compounds. The bigger the mess, the more overwhelming it is to clean. The more overwhelming it is to clean, the less likely you are to want to do it, making the mess even bigger. See the cycle? Jump off that craziness and just decide to clean the mess while it's still small. Commit to have completely cleaned off counter tops before leaving the kitchen after a meal.
3. Junk the junk drawer. Here's the problem with junk drawers: They don't just stay contained. When you start accumulating piles of stuff that you don't feel like organizing, it develops a habit that will spill over into the rest of your house. We have a drawer in our house called organization station (feel free to make fun) and it's where we keep things we need on a daily basis like scissors, tape, batteries, bandaids, and chip clips. As soon as it starts feeling neglected, I clean it out. Not only does it make life a lot easier to know where to find things, but it also keeps the clutter from creeping out of it's drawer and taking over the rest of our house!
4. Train your family to help you. If you don't have kids, you can skip this part. Set the expectation for your husband and kiddos that unless you're in the middle of meal prep, the kitchen needs to be clean. This means if you're done with something, you need to clean it up. As moms, it's sooooo much easier to just clean up after everybody cuz we fast but teaching your kids (and husband) to clean up after themselves will really help you in the long run. It needs to be a team effort.
5. Add in pretty touches to make you want to clean your kitchen. I've found when I have lit candles, fresh flowers, and pretty music playing, I'm about a hundred times more likely to want to clean my kitchen. Then when it's clean, it's actually a place a want to linger and enjoy. I don't know about you, but I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. So having a few of my favorite things in there is just a must.
Hope you have a great Wednesday today, yall! Later today, I'm sharing a sweet little white off the shoulder dress!
Laura