Category: Style & Beauty

A Spring House – Home Tour 2024

Posted on by Lauren Lane

I always think it’s nice to refresh the house for Spring. There’s something that just brings me so much joy to pull out some faux flowers, add in more color, and await the flowers outside.

Here’s a look at some spring touches in our home this year.

Sawyer is wondering why her nap is being interrupted. 🙂

I love all of these spring colors. After mostly greens and whites for the winter months, the color is a welcome sight.

On a rare trip to the thrift store, I found this little bunny planter that I thought was perfect for Easter and spring.

And last but not least, a few faux flowers for the bedroom.

What’s your favorite spring decoration?

Let’s Look At…Little Things We Do Every Day

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Hello! And welcome to another edition of “Let’s Look!” A little peek into some very small part of our lives for your enjoyment. 🙂

Last month, we shared a peek into how we clean our closets.

The little things that I never miss a day of…

-1- Drink coffee. Usually I’m a two to three cups of black coffee a day kind of girl. But I’ll switch it up sometimes for a latte with honey.

-2- Feed the dog. Nathan wanted the dog, but somehow I got the responsibility of feeding her every day. It’s probably why I’m her favorite human of the family.

-3- Feed the baby. Gosh, is this going to be a whole list of how I feed everyone? Every day? For forever? Maybe.

-4- Check my email. Scroll Instagram. Every single day. The amount of time I spend on my device…

-5- Tell my kids how much I love them and how handsome they are, and say something like “How did I get so lucky to be your mama?”

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-6- Ask my children to put on their shoes/coat/get their backpack/pick up their junk laying out all over the house…multiple times. At least. Ad nauseum.

-7- Drink water.

-8- It’s not every single day…but almost every day, I talk to my mom. She asks me how the kids are doing that day and whether they woke up dinking on each other or in good moods. That sort of thing. 🙂

-9- Eat some type of peanut butter protein bar – the breakfast of mothers and fathers of little children who have no time to feed themselves while serving tiny little humans meals and snacks all day. Current favorite is the Perfect Bars.

-10- Wash my face, brush my teeth…basic self care things. Did we mean to get this detailed with the little things we do each day?

-11- Think about flowers, landscapes, or gardening. It’s what occupies my mind a lot of the time.

Thirty Nine

Posted on by Lauren Lane

You know what I don’t love?…my birthday. It’s a very weird feeling of wanting the people closest to me to wish me a happy birthday and wanting literally nobody else to acknowledge it because I HATE being the center of attention.

I almost didn’t even post anything about my birthday today. But that also seems disingenuous somehow. A birthday is worthy of acknowledging. I mean, if anything, I think we should celebrate our moms on our birthdays. These are the types of things I think about when this day rolls around.

BUT, I did think it would be fun to look at NINE not very well known things about me.

-1- I grew up as a theater kid. I think my very first theatrical performance was when I was in third grade. I was supposed to perform in Miracle on 34th Street, and I was so excited but I came down with the chicken pox and couldn’t do ANY of the shows. So that made my next gig my technical first performance on stage as a tap dancing kangaroo in Peter Pan.

-2- I went to graduate school at NC State. The one year of my grad program, Russell Wilson was the quarterback of the football team. He eventually went on to move schools to Wisconsin. And you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this…but after he became a Super Bowl winning quarterback with the Seattle Seahawks, he became the quarterback of the Denver Broncos, which is my husband’s favorite NFL team.

-3- I could happily talk Bravo with you any day of the week. Summer House, Winter House, Vanderpump Rules, nearly any Real Housewives franchise…Bravo is my ESCAPE.

-4- I hate crafting. I hate crafting with my children as much if not more. To me, the amount of joy it brings doesn’t balance out the absolute disaster it is to prep for it or clean up after it. The pros do not outweigh the cons.

-5- I don’t bake much. For one, I don’t think I’m very good at it. But secondly, because if baked goods are around the house, I have zero self-control. I will eat all of them. Quickly.

-6- I was born on Super Bowl Sunday back when the Super Bowl occurred in January.

-7- I love gardening. Love love love gardening. Outside flowers are my jam. You’d think this would translate into being a great indoor plant mom, but it doesn’t. It’s not my thing. I have a few houseplants, and I have no desire to have more. I forget to water them a lot. So maybe it’s a good thing that I have all of my gardens on a drip system that does the watering for me. 🙂

-8- I’ve never learned how to use a lawn mower. Never pushed a lawn mower. Never used one. I don’t want to learn. Nathan has asked me many times what happens to him if he dies, and I’ve told him we’ll be hiring a lawn crew. Or Jonathan I’m pretty sure would be willing to be our mower boy.

-9- I’ve never seen the Star Wars movies.

Last year of my thirties. Let’s do this.

Let’s Look…At How We Clean Our Closets

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Once a month, two of my favorite blogs host a link up where we look into some little aspect of our lives. January’s prompt is to look at how we clean our closets. Which, the prospect of writing this post may force me to go clean my closet. 🙂

Needless to say, there’s a breaking point where I let things get a little messy in my closet. It builds, and builds, and builds. And then out of nowhere one day, I’ll decide it’s time to purge, organize, and re-set. (That honestly seems to be the case with almost every area of my house.)

When the breaking point is reached, though, watch out. The trash bags are coming out, lists are being made, and we are going through it.

It starts by going through all of the hanging clothes and making a giveaway pile of anything I don’t love or hasn’t been worn in a couple of years.

I have a bit of the mindset of Marie Kondo: “does this garment bring me joy?” If it doesn’t or I don’t love it, it goes to the giveaway pile.

Theeennn things get interesting, the drawers get organized and de-cluttered. That includes the medicine drawer….which is usually rife with outdated medicine given how often I clean it out.

And since we’re on the topic, and this prompt is forcing me….I have loads of pregnancy and early post-partum things that need to be cleared out. Some giveaway, mostly trash. A lot of “Buy Nothing” items to post on our local “Buy Nothing” neighborhood Facebook group. If you’re not a part of one of these groups, I highly recommend! Such an easy way to give away things you don’t need anymore to a neighbor who does need it! I recently just picked up a trash can for our basement from a neighbor that wasn’t in perfect shape but will definitely suffice until cabinets are built out down there!

Eventually it looks mostly back to normal, and I can let it go for another year…or two. 🙂

Our Kitchen Renovation Renderings

Posted on by Lauren Lane

We’ve been all heads down on the basement renovation lately. It’s been moving along really well so far…where’s the wood I need knock on now? My mind has been so consumed with basement things that I forgot to share our kitchen renderings.

We engaged a designer (Jordan with Willaby Way) to help us with drawing plans and renderings based on our needs and wants. When it comes time to do our kitchen renovation, we’ll take our drawings to a contractor to bid the work.

I just walked over to our current kitchen and took this picture as perspective for how things look right now…

And this is how that same view will look after…

The kitchen table area will be gone, and we’ll use our current formal dining room as our everyday table.

The current sliding glass door also gets moved in this renovation, so that people’s path from the garage door or front door to the backdoor doesn’t involve trapsing through the kitchen.

We add in a boatload of storage. Maybe even be able to move all of my pots and pans out of the basement and into the kitchen…

Massive windows looking out onto the backyard and my gardens. 🙂

And still get bar seating at the kitchen for quick snacks, as well as have a formal drop zone for alllll of the shoes, backpacks, coats, and junk.

That’s where we’re heading! Now if I could just wiggle my nose Bewitched style and have it all magically done without having to live through the mess.

Fall Overalls Try On!

Posted on by Lauren Lane

When I was in high school, I loved overalls. They weren’t stylish…at the time. But I wore them. Every single Wednesday. Overall Wednesday. Yes, I was a nerd. Yes, my high school friends still to this day remember Overall Wednesdays and tease me about it. I guess it was just my thing.

Fast forward to today, and lo and behold, the overalls are allegedly in style. (As our parents always say, style comes back around. I really should have hung onto those Birkenstock clogs and overalls.)

So I gathered up three different styles for a little fall try on! See which ones I decided to keep…

Pair 1:

These fit fairly fitted through the top and then had a wide leg.

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Our Backyard Shed from Tuff Shed

Posted on by Lauren Lane

We recently finished up our backyard shed project. Over a year ago, we had a downpour of rain for several days straight. The back corner of our yard, which is a low lying spot in the yard, flooded. It looked like a small lake around our shed.

The shed hadn’t been in great shape for awhile. The foundation under the floor needed to be replaced, and the flooding of the backyard kind of sealed the deal.

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A Nautical Baby Boy Nursery

Posted on by Lauren Lane

I have a new favorite room of the house. I LOVE Aidan’s nursery. It’s elegant and classic, yet calming, but with the perfect little nods to little boy life and nautical sea adventure. I could spend hours rocking him in his nursery.

The last time I designed a nursery was for Harrison, our oldest baby. When Jonathan was born, we just used the same nursery with no changes at all for Jonathan. So I was really excited at the prospect of getting to design a nursery for the second time for our third boy.

Our Big Boys share connecting rooms through a Jack & Jill bathroom. When we were trying to decide our set-up for baby #3, I chose to keep all of the boys separate in their own rooms. I think there’s lots to be gained from room sharing, but also, I really wanted each of my kids to have a space that was just for them in our house.

Harrison and Jonathan decided together that they wanted to stay in their current rooms, which meant Aidan would get the last room upstairs as his room. It was the room that we used for years as our playroom, and it’s by far the biggest.

As I set out to design his nursery, I happened upon this little sailboat at Target…

And decided to base the entire room on it.

Room details and links at the bottom!

Paint colors: Sherwin Williams Alabaster & Sherwin Williams Cityscape

Curtains: Linen white curtains from Amazon!

Curtain rod: Also from Amazon!

Blackout Blinds: Cordless Blackout Cellular Blinds in Classic White. When they arrived, they had a crease in them, and they replaced them immediately for free

Glider: Has been with us for all three boys, and it’s beyond comfortable

Crib: Our exact style isn’t sold anymore – but the crib is from Pottery Barn Kids

Art: Love her work. This is the fourth piece I’ve bought from her!

Dresser: Price can’t be beat for the quality

Wooden Name Blocks: So cute and we used them for his name announcement as well

Stacking wooden wave toy: Love buying from small shops on Etsy

Rug: From Amazon in color Sky/Stone

Long Live Boyhood flag: Bought a flag from them for Harrison’s room and loved it so much. I’ve had my eye on this one for while!

Whale toy walker: I bought it from Amazon, but it doesn’t look like it’s there anymore!

Side table: Target – old

Blue side table lamp: Target again!

Black Floor lamp: From Target

Blue & white basket: Target – old

Crib sheet: Etsy for the win

Changing table sheet: Also from Amazon!

Whale stuffed animal: Also an impulse buy from Target 🙂

New Make-Up Favorites for Spring & Summer

Posted on by Lauren Lane

I’m not one for much change. My make-up favorites have been my favorites for years. After, in some cases, eight years of the same product, three pregnancies, hormone changes, and just aging skin, I started to wonder if there would be other products that I liked even more than my standby favorites. A good refresh is needed every now and again…

Here are some of the products I’ve found and am loving lately…

I bought two new foundations to try, and I equally loved both for different reasons.

The IT Cosmetics CC Cream is…as you’d guess…creamy. I can see myself using it a lot in the summer when I want some coverage, but don’t want it to be very heavy. With a side of dewy to go with our Kansas humidity. It was easy to blend with a sponge or brush. I got it in the color “Medium,” and if you’re wanting to try it, it’s going to be half off this Saturday as part of Ulta’s 21 Days of Beauty. Or if you’re more of a Sephora girl, like myself, they will actually price match it.

It’s regularly $44, but is going to be on sale for $22. That’s a steal, IMO.

It was love at first application with Tom Ford’s Traceless Foundation stick.

It’s more of a Matte finish, but I’ve never had a foundation blend so well and be so buildable. I’m wearing the color Cool Beige.

I have a feeling this is going to be the foundation I reach for for many, many, many years to come.

I also tried, and loved, the Tarte Fake Awake eyeliner. I used it across my lower lash line in both of those pictures above, and it’s the perfect nude color that gives your eyes that filter-enviable brightness. I love that it’s not white, so it isn’t quite as stark. And for a mom who’s about to be getting a lot less sleep, seems more than necessary to fake a less tired look.

The Isle of Paradise self-tanning face drops are also a huge winner. I drop about 4-5 drops in with my nighttime moisture two times a week, and it’s the perfect amount of glow without the fake tan smell or streaks. It’s so good and so easy.

This lip stain from Fenty is also going to be on repeat this summer. It looks super bright in this picture, but fades to a super pretty stain like you’ve just finished eating a big bowl of berries. Perfect for summer, without the full blown stickiness of so many lipglosses or dryness of lipstick. I can see myself swiping it on in the morning to go to one of Harrison’s soccer games or an impromptu afternoon happy hour. I got the color Mai Type.

Those are the products that I got and am already in love with so far! Ok, now tell me, have you gotten any new make-up products lately that you’re obsessed with and I need to try? I’m on a “it’s time to get some new make-up” kick!

Let’s Look…At Our Best Amazon Purchases

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Hey! It’s “Let’s Look” day! If you’re new here, once a month, two of my favorite blogs host a link-up to share about some small routine aspect of our lives. I always love a good look into someone else’s life, don’t you? Even the mundane, I find fascinating how other people live.

So far this year, I’ve shared:

And today, we’re sharing our best, most favorite Amazon purchases of all time. With such a looooong and robust relationship with Amazon Prime, the task of finding the BEST purchases of all time is BIG.

Ask a former auditor to rank things based on ALL TIME greatness, and you’ll find yourself a very overwhelmed former auditor who will likely make a spreadsheet with tabs by category to evaluate said items. It’s who I am. If anyone needs to check my paper trail behind this list, you can be assured that I will have it.

Favorites for the Kids:

The Hatch alarm clock has been a game changer for both of my kids. I have one child that I used to dread waking up because it was like waking a troll that had been hibernating for the last 50 years and was not ready to get up yet. And one child who thinks that 5:30-6:00 am is the time the day starts. The Hatch now wakes my troll child every morning, and informs my early riser that ‘it ain’t time to start the day’ yet until the light goes off. I love that I can control the Hatch through my phone, and it wakes them with a beautiful simulated sunrise and flute or chimes. You know, whichever you prefer. It also replaced their white noise machines, so pulling double duty!

These cute little boy dress shoes made for a wide foot were perfect for our littlest this winter.

For the Home:

This pillow is worth every last penny. I can’t believe I spent 35 years of my life sleeping on the cheapest Target pillow I could find. That is all.

This cookbook is maybe my most favorite cookbook ever. SO many good recipes! I loved it so much, I gifted a copy of it as my “favorite thing” of the year at our Christmas book club!

For You:

Upgrading my hair dryer was a big moment. Love this new one. Love how quickly it dries my hair, and all of the attachments that it comes with. And it was a fraction of the price of a Dyson hair dryer.

It’s not often that I sing the praises of Amazon fashion. I feel like more often than not, the clothes can feel cheap and poorly made. But I wore this dress on repeat all of last summer. It was super good, durable quality, AND it was so comfortable and cute. Looked put together while being soooo simple. It comes in like….50 different colors too.

This travel toiletry bag is the best one I’ve ever purchased. The quality is so good. That is, the zippers aren’t jankity and hard to close. The space is just the right amount for me, and I love that it hangs up on the back of a hotel bathroom door. I’ve had it three years now, and it’s still very much a favorite.

Those are, I think, my all time favorite Amazon purchases. It was a tough list to come up with, but it seems like a good round-up to me. 🙂