Recycled Decor

I'm loving having some of the leftover shower decorations sitting around the house. They make the house seem so much more fresh and summer-like. I wish they could stay around forever.

How to Make a Baby

I thought this fun stop-motion video was so clever and cute. Enjoy:

You can read more about how it was made here.

Shower Time

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. We've been super busy preparing for and hosting the big PAR-TAY. We hosted a His & Hers shower at our house on Saturday night for our dear friends, Chrissy and Mike. Getting  ready for the shower was a lot of work - mostly because I make things more complicated than they need to be and am super picky over everything - but I am a planner at heart and enjoyed pulling everything together.

I think the shower turned out so well - the weather couldn't have been better, we had a great turnout, Chrissy & Mike got some great gifts, and I think everyone had a good time.

First things first, the invitations:

Here's a shot of my dining room beforehand. This isn't nearly all of the supplies but I love how colorful this pic is:

I picked a color scheme of yellow, blue and lime green. We used lemons and limes as decor and I grew trays of wheatgrass from seed using these instructions from Design Mom (one of my new favorite blogs). I LOVE how the wheatgrass turned out. It grew this thick and tall from seed in just 10 days. What a cheap and easy centerpiece. I was also happy to put the glass cylinders and square votive holders from our wedding to good use again. 

We served beef and chicken kabobs. Although they were somewhat labor-intensive (marinating the meat, cutting up the veggies, and assembling the kabobs) they were beautifully colorful and yummy.

I'm sad I didn't get any shots of the drink table, food table or dessert table (my first attempt at Grandmama Harrison's pound cake was a success!), but at least I got the pics that I did in the midst of the madness. Here's a shot of people mingling:

Now, present time. Lee is jealous of Mike's drill:

Of course, Sugar wanted to help:

Overall, a great night!

A lot of the work we've been doing on our house (installing the patio, yardwork, porch, etc.) we were trying to get done in time for the shower. It was great motivation and we're so happy and relieved that those projects are done now and ready just in time for us to enjoy all summer long.

Lee and I spend a lot of time talking about what we don't have, what furniture we're missing, what we want, what we still have left to do on our house - but sharing our home this weekend really put things into perspective for me and made me thankful for what we have and what we've accomplished so far. Of course it will always be a bit of a work-in-progress and there will always be new projects to complete, but this weekend I couldn't have been more proud of our home, our yard and even our dog (and my husband too!)

This weekend was great and now we can't wait for the wedding! Love you Chrissy and Mike!

Shopaholic

I took a quick trip to Crate & Barrel last night:

Now I know what you're thinking -- Megan, your shopping is out of control lately. Well, you wouldn't be thinking that if you knew I paid $1.02 for this Crate & Barrel loot. AND, I paid in quarters, so even that doesn't count.

We got a gift card to my beloved C&B as a wedding gift from McKinney (the agency where I work), and I haven't been able to decide how to spend it. But we needed a few things for the shower we're hosting this weekend and their summer entertaining stuff is SO cute, so I picked out what I wanted online and picked everything up from the store. My two favorites: this and this. Even the cashier was impressed with how close to the gift card I'd gotten the total. I LOVE spending other people's money.

Charlotte Trip Part 2

After our IKEA trip, we decided to take a pic of the girls with our IKEA bags. This somehow turned into a mini photo shoot.

On Lori's balcony, with our bags:

Then we decided a pic in the backyard would be pretty (and Bear decided he would join us):

Classic 'hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil' shot:

And one more balcony shot:

Thanks again to my wonderful aunt Lori for being the ultimate hostess -- making us feel so welcome and at home. As usual, the trip was a blast and I can't wait until next year!

IKEA, You KEA, We All KEA for IKEA!

So Friday was the day ... after months of longing I finally made it to IKEA. Since I first heard that IKEA was coming to Charlotte, I've been counting down the days until I could make it there. 

We normally do our girls' shopping trip to Charlotte in November, but with the wedding in October and other craziness, we decided to postpone until Spring. That turned out to be a great decision -- the weather was great, IKEA was finally open, and I got to focus ONLY ON ME without the pressure of having to find Christmas gifts.

I was so overwhelmed by the awesomeness of the IKEA showroom that I totally failed at taking pictures. Suffice it to say, it was a feast for the senses. Here's one pic I got down in the marketplace of a piece of bathroom furniture I want to buy:

And here's one of my sister thinking "Can we get out of here now? Why is she so fascinated with this place?"

Here's a pic of Britt while we were packing the car:

A quick rundown of what I snagged: 

1. This vase was my favorite purchase. I got the gray one. It was just what we needed on our mantle.

2. I'm loving the lanterns this year. I already have two from Pier 1 (they were a much better deal than the Pottery Barn one I was originally coveting) but the price was so good I had to snag this one too.

3. This throw and this pillow in dark blue.

4. I love a good basket!

5. A pretty plant pot with saucer and watering can.

6. Various kitchen gadgets, including but not limited to: cutting board, food chopper, decorative napkins, citrus zester, whisk, grocery bag holder, etc.

While I walked away with lots of goodies from IKEA, this trip only scratched the surface for me. I found several pieces of furniture and some artwork that I loved, but didn't buy because 1.) we were working with limited car space and 2.) I didn't want to buy anything major without getting Lee's opinion first. So IKEA, you haven't seen the last of me, not by a long shot. I will be back, with husband and truck in tow.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a bonus feature: the cousin photoshoot!

Easter Weekend

We spent the first half of our Easter weekend down at the beach. Sugar got her first taste of the ocean and she loved it. Here are some pics (don't mind Lee in his white boots, aka Carteret County tennis shoes):

I don't know why but I love this picture. It's Brett scrubbing chairs in the yard. Sugar was trying to help (by licking the water in each chair after he'd scrubbed):

Last but not least, here's a pic of the coolest Easter egg ever. The kids were dying eggs down at the beach but of course I had to decorate one too. The hot pink with zebra stripes was Leah's idea, I just executed:

Happy Easter!