Back to School in Style!

Back to School in Style

It's back to school time! One of our favorite things to do around back to school is to freshen up our wardrobe! The girls each have their individual style, and they love to mix & match pieces on their own to come up with unique outfits that really display their personality!

Natalie tends to be more girly in her dressing, while Bella has streaks where she loves dresses - but then other times likes to be a little sporty as well!

This X-Temp raglan tee is perfect for Fall days as they start to get a little brisker but you still need to keep cool while being active, and just by coincidence happens to be Alabama colors!

Staying cool and comfy has definitely taken a higher priority here in the Alabama heat, and since they have recess every day, durability is important too! When we are freshening up our wardrobes for the new school year, I like to get a few "special" outfits, this year were our Eleanor Rose dresses, some great play wear, like tops and skorts from Cat and Jack at Target - and comfortable undergarments that will last throughout the school year, like our favorite Hanes socks and underwear.

Our family has used Hanes undergarments for years and we recently tried the Hanes X-Temp line,  our whole family has found something to love. The X-Temp socks work great for my hot natured feet, and Bella really likes the sporty hipsters. My husband has worn Hanes tagless tees under his work shirts for years, and Natalie's favorite socks are her heart covered ComfortBlend socks!

Check out the Giveaway

Comfortable undergarments, durable enough to last through PE, recess, and after school play are key! Our family love Hanes undergarments and X-temp products - and we are excited to partner with Hanes to bring you a giveaway to go back to school with style AND comfort!

Enter to win a Hanes Prize Pack that includes:
 - $50 Hanes Visa Gift Card
 - 3 Back-to-School styles from Hanes in your size

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Styles may include selections from Hanes X-Temp and FreshIQ technologies which help to keep you cool and fresh all day long!

Hope you have a great start to back to school and don't forget you can enter to win daily until September 8, 2017!

** This post is sponsored by Hanes. All items included in giveaway will be shipped directly from Hanes. All opinions are my own.

Celebrating our Anniversary with Family Fun!

August is our anniversary month and this year my husband and I will be celebrating 12 years of marriage together! We enjoy celebrating with the kids and doing fun family activities that will be memorable for them as well, to commemorate dates like anniversaries. This one is a special one, because we are planning on returning to the Opryland hotel in Nashville where we were married and showing it to the kids for the first time ever! Excited is a complete understatement!!

Opryland in Nashville, Tennessee, Photo courtesy: Opryland

Due to my husband's work travel schedule and the Great American Eclipse (which is happening the day after our *actual* wedding anniversary and happens to pass right over Nashville!) - we were originally planning on booking a stay at Opryland closer to our anniversary date but then realized that planning for a weekend that there wasn't a once in a lifetime solar event which caused hotel rooms to be twice the cost, probably was the more feasible way to go. So we now are planning our overnight stay for the beginning of September! That's alright though, because it gives me more time to plan!

We did take the kids up for a quick day trip to the American Girl store in Franklin, Tennessee for the first time since that is something we said we would do that in August, and they got a chance to check that out. We will also have some school activities over the next few weekends in addition to my husband's work schedule keeping him busy, so I anticipate the next few weeks will fly by!

Check out a video of our first trip to the Franklin, TN American Girl store here:

When we do go on our road trip to Nashville, we are hoping to not only check out Opryland - which if you've never been there is a super cool resort hotel with restaurants, entreatment, waterfalls, and even a river - inside the interior of the resort... but also take the girls to see some sites around the Nashville area. We haven't been to their zoo before and there are also a number of cool landmarks and buildings in downtown Nashville to see as well.

Since it's our anniversary, I would love to get pictures taken on the same Delta Landing that we had our wedding on, and be able to recreate that with the girls as close as possible. That has been a goal for the past few years to get that photo of our entire family in the same spot that we were married in and I would love to have that framed in our new home!

Also, to encourage some family bonding time, I'm bringing along a game on our anniversary trip that was sent to us to try out called "Personalogy", which is a family fun card game which is a great discovery game for the entire family! When it arrived, Bella was interested in it right away, immediately opened it and started asking questions! She loved hearing everyone's guesses as to what her answers would be, then she found the adult cards and they took turns guessing what my favorites as a child were!

We've already had a number of laughs playing Personalogy together and I'm looking forward to bringing it to Opryland with us to celebrate our anniversary as a family while discovering more about each other at the same time!

Personalogy is available on Amazon and is a great travel game the entire family can play!

You can check us out playing it in a day in the life here... I also figure out how to clean the pool for the first time ever on my own!

This may turn out to be one of my favorite anniversaries ever, since we are finally returning to where my husband and I were married and will be able to share it with the girls! I'm excited to share their reactions and will be sure to vlog the entire trip!

** I received compensation and complimentary products shown in this post in return for posting a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

Back to School... Fashion for Moms!

It's back to school time again, and moms everywhere are running around getting last minute school supplies, planning new school year schedules and freshening up the kids' wardrobes! It isn't just the kids that should add in some new style for back school though, I know I've always loved adding in some new pieces for Fall during back to school season and even now as a Mom have continued this tradition! I wanted to share some of my favorite pieces that I've been loving for the early Fall and back to school transition time period!

These pieces can take you from late summer and through Fall, I love pairing them with wedges or boots as the days get chillier. And they are versatile enough to work with leggings, skinny jeans, or capris!

1. Bobeau Split Neck Woven Blouse at NordstromRack.com, $24.97
 - Bobeau is one of my favorite brands to find at Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack. You can even find it at Marshall's or TJ Maxx sometimes as well. I have this tunic blouse is a different print and I love the long length and light weight material, it makes it perfect to transition from warmer months to cooler months. The tassels give it a bit of great detail as well!

2. Felicity Striped Dress at CharmingCharlie.com, $19
 - I have this dress in navy and have gotten tons of compliments on it, both in person and in videos! It is available on the Charming Charlie website in the red color. It is easy to pair with accessories and also would look great with a cardigan put over it in the cooler months!

3. Bobeau Embroidered Tank at NordstromRack.com, $24.97
  - I love the neck detail on this one and I've found over the summer that these long tanks with a bit of detail are so easy to wear! You just toss them on and instantly feel put together!

4. Tom's Stella Wedges at Zappos.com, $55.99
  - These are great basic wedges that I've been eyeing for quite some time - and they are now on sale at Zappos.com! The color would transition nicely into the fall and is a great natural tone that goes with everything!

5. Bryn Camera Bag, RebeccaMinkoff.com, $275
  - I'm very excited about my upcoming trip to a Beaches Resort in the Turks and Caicos islands, and as I mentioned on my YouTube channels - one of the main speakers at the conference will be Rebecca Minkoff! I've collected her items for years and love her classic styling with a bit of its own edge, because I feel like it has great personality but is very wearable for years to come. I've been looking at her recent releases for possibilities for my upcoming trips, and I really love this Bryn camera bag! Lots of room to store all of my... well, camera supplies! And stylish enough to transition between different types of events I will have to go to at blogger events. 

6. Cole Haan Elsie Cross Wedge at Zappos.com, $79.95
  - This are an easy to pair wedge in the Acorn color, that would go with a variety of outfits and occasions!

7. Long necklaces at Dillards.com, various prices
  - I shared in a recent blog that I've been loving a number of long necklaces that I found at Dillard's! They have had some great sales recently, and I found some beautiful long necklaces to wear with dresses and tunics. If you don't have a Dillard's near you, they also have a great selection online!

8. Rebecca Minkoff Adventure Awaits Passport Holder at Nordstrom.com, $45
  - Love this shimmery passport holder by Rebecca Minkoff and I think it would be great for my upcoming Caribbean trip! The phrase "Adventure Awaits" holds so much extra meaning for me, with all of our recent life changes! I'm ready to get out there and see what is waiting for me!


I hope this has given you some great ideas of pieces to add in your own Back to School wardrobe! These are some of the things I've been loving recently and shared in recent vlogs!

** This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.

Summer Learning Ideas for Kids

It's the end of summer and we've enjoyed getting in some last minute learning opportunities before school started (very early!) in our new location! I focused a lot of attention on seeing things in our new area and trying out some new activities, so the girls could get a sense of what was available for them in Huntsville. We just ran out of time with only a few weeks available to us after we arrived here, because there was still more on my list of places to see - the Early Works Children's museum, the zoo in either Nashville or Birmingham, Southern Adventure water park, and more! These all had to be moved to the "in the future" list, as school started up for us this week!

Most places across the country will be going back to school over the next few weeks, but here are a few learning activities you can squeeze in to get some last minute summer learning before they head back to school, and start to get those wheels turning before they are back in class!

Exploring Nature

This one may sound like what they were doing most of the summer anyhow! I wanted to take the girls to a new place that we hadn't been before to explore nature and a different outdoor surrounding! This one was easy for us, since we had just moved and EVERYTHING was new to us - but finding a new park, new hiking trail, new garden area, or national site could be something fun in your area!

After we moved to Huntsville, we quickly got a Huntsville Botanical Garden membership because I had heard so many great things about it - and boy were they right! We love the children's play area and butterfly house, and have spent trips just exploring those areas. The rest of the garden is lovely too, and this will be someplace our family will enjoy year round.

We also took a day trip up to Chattanooga, Tennessee before school started to visit a place that my husband and I went to on our honeymoon, Lookout Mountain. This is a gorgeous area of Tennessee with expansive views of that section of the Appalachian Mountains. We took the kids to Ruby Falls for their first time every, and seeing the 165 foot natural underground waterfall in a cave was a really cool adventure for them!

Check out a Museum

This was another easy one for us, being new to the area - we had to of course check out the U.S. Space and Rocket Center shortly after arriving in Huntsville! I am a Space Camp Alumni, I proudly went to Space Camp, Academy, and Advanced Academy a number of times as a youth. This was one thing about the area I couldn't wait to share with my own kids. With lots to do and see, this was a hit for them and another place we purchased a membership to be able to visit all year long!

Brush up on their Math & Memory Skills

Something that can go by the wayside and be the first part of summer learning loss to occur, are math and memory skills. I know that when I'm working on summer learning activities, sometimes math activities can be one of the hardest activities for me to come up with, since math was not my strongest subject for myself. Learning Resources sent me this great game, Lil' Lemonade Stand-off, which puts a unique twist on the traditional game of memory, where the kids can take lemonade orders and earn coins for a correct order.

My girls have loved this one and it's been used a ton even with imaginative play around our house!

Check out the game in action in this video:

Create some Art

In previous summers, you'll remember that we did summer learning units where I would typically pick a theme for the week and then combine different learning activities, stories, hands on activities, and art - that went along with the theme. This isn't something we delved into this year with moving taking up most of our summer, but luckily all of our old videos are still on YouTube for inspiration!

Check out some summer learning ideas here on this playlist:

I especially loved this "Under the Sea" unit that we did, to coincide with the release of the movie Finding Dory. The water beads are some of my girls favorite warm weather activities to do as well!

All in all, it's been a great summer for us - and even though I didn't get to everything on our "summer to do list", I still have lots of great ideas of things I'd like for us to see in our new area in the future and we made lots of great memories with the things we did go do as well!

What's your summer countdown? When does school start for your little ones?

**Some items some in this post were received complimentary. All opinions are my own.