Friday, August 21, 2015

A Black & White Engagment Dinner!

I've been so terrible about updating since we've been in the process of moving into our new home. It's a bit of a disaster zone right now but we're slowly making progress.

In the meantime, I got to throw an engagement dinner in Dallas for a couple of our good friends. It was nice getting to take a break from all the remodeling projects and focus on something beautiful. Here are just a few photos that I managed to snap before the dinner rush madness set in!




           

            
         




We had such a wonderful time and we can't wait to attend Jason and Erica's wedding in October. I hope that the next time I check in, I'll have some house photos to share! 

- S.V.







Friday, June 12, 2015

Joyeux Anniversaire

Matthew and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago and it feels like time is just flying by! I baked a strawberry mini-cake in honor of our occasion, covered it in fondant and used food coloring to "watercolor" the outside.


It was my first experience working with homemade marshmallow fondant and it was tough. 
The watercoloring part was fun though. 


We also celebrated our anniversary in Dallas with an extremely casual date. We went to a burger joint and followed it up with a couple of truly delicious Sprinkles cupcakes.



We both got the best anniversary gift ever --- having our offer accepted on a home! We are so thrilled to finally become home-owners and (fingers crossed!) will hopefully be able to close at the end of next week. 


Aside from that, we are just trying to enjoy our last couple of weeks in the apartment (especially the giant pool) before all of the closing/packing/moving madness begins. We wrote out a long summer bucket list today and we plan on checking off a couple of activities every week.  All we've gotten accomplished so far is teaching Charlotte how to float on her back and letting her taste her first sno-cone! 



I can't wait to get all the paperwork squared away with our new house so that I can post some pictures. It's going to be a lot of work but I can't wait to get started.

- SV






Thursday, May 28, 2015

Memorial Day Weekend

We took a trip to Dallas to see my family this past weekend and we got to attend an old friend's wedding while we were in town. The wedding was on Saturday and we got to leave the kid at home with her grandparents and get some alone time.



I had been eyeing this navy BB Dakota dress from revolve.com for a couple of weeks and I'm so glad that I talked myself into it. The quality is surprisingly good given the price point and the color makes it very versatile. I kept the accessorizing to a minimum with a double strand of Chanel pearls, a brown Tory Burch purse and nude heels.


The rest of our weekend was spent relaxing with family and running errands. 



Memorial Day itself was really rainy so we were unable to swim or be outside very much. We smoked an enormous brisket and made s'mores under the covered patio.





Our little campfire s'mores set up was pretty hilarious. 








The peanut butter & Biscoff s'mores were the bomb. 
Charlotte had a blast stuffing as many marshmallows into her mouth as possible.

It was an immensely fun weekend and I enjoyed getting to see so many of my old friends and my family. Hopefully the next couple of weeks brings a little less rain and way more sunshine! - SV








Thursday, May 14, 2015

A Cinco De Mayo Party on Mother's Day Weekend

Matthew and I were never big Cinco De Mayo fans until we were gifted a margarita machine for our wedding. Since then, we've basically found any excuse we could to pull that sucker out and celebrate. This year, we decided to throw a small Cinco De Mayo party for his work colleagues at our apartment. We ended up holding it the weekend after the holiday so it was fondly dubbed our "Nuevo De Mayo" party.

We made green chile chicken enchiladas (recipe), queso (recipe), yellow rice (recipe), beans, and an absolutely delicious Citrus Tres Leches cake (recipe). We were so busy getting everything together that I only managed to get a few photos...


[Chalkboard inspired by garvinandco.com]


The Citrus Tres Leches cake recipe can be found [here]. The photo is badly lit and it makes the cake look slightly burnt when it actually wasn't. It was pretty easy to make. However, tres leches is not a cake that is meant to be served free standing (since it's soaked in liquid), so it was fairly messy to both frost and cut. 


The easiest (and best!) mango margarita recipe can be found [here].




Little Charlotte was so excited.



Charlotte normally refuses all hair accessories but she made an exception for this little clip from Joyfolie that she has named "my pretty." She spent most of the evening stealing strawberries from the margarita bar and shoving them into her mouth, stem and all.


We had a grand time! And lots of leftover enchiladas, which are the best kind of leftovers.

The next day was Mother's Day, and when Matthew asked me what I wanted earlier this month, I had told him that all I wanted was to relax and not have clean for an entire day (very romantic, I know). The absolute best day to ask for something like this is the day after you throw a party at your home. (: Luckily we used paper plates.

 He was very sweet and the day started off with breakfast in bed.


And then he told me to take a nap and watch Netflix while he cleaned up. He took Charlotte to the park for most of the day, and I just relaxed at home. And then he brought home burgers for dinner! 



It had been a long time since I got to chill out all day, hang out in a clean house, and eat a meal that I didn't prepare myself and I enjoyed it thoroughly! It was a completely untraditional Mother's Day weekend, but I don't think I could have had a better time.

- SV



Saturday, April 25, 2015

Charlotte's Two Year Photos


We visit my husband's family in the Texas Hill Country every Easter and the wildflowers down there are absolutely gorgeous! Last year we took some sweet photos of our daughter in Gruene, Texas and we loved them so much that we decided to take similar ones this year too.

Here are just a few --
















Charlotte's two favorite things are flowers and getting her photo taken, so that made this little photoshoot a breeze! Texas wildflower season is so stunning and I'm so glad that I got these shots!


- SV

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Charlotte's First Birthday Party - a year late!

Introductory posts are so awkward. I meant to start blogging ages ago and I never fully took the leap. I might as well just get started!
I am a 25 year old housewife and mother-of-one residing in Texas. I love family, flowers, parties and other beautiful things.
My daughter's name is Charlotte Eleanor and today was her second birthday! Her birthday party going to happen a little late this year since we will be moving soon, so here's a little throwback of her first birthday party.


We didn't really have a theme, we just went with a outdoor floral look! Her little dress was TUTU DU MONDE and I made the paper flowers myself. Here is a similar tutorial (http://www.stylemepretty.com/2014/02/12/diy-flower-wall-bridesmaids-party/) -- however I used a small paper plate to glue the petals onto. I found that it brought more stability to the flowers, made them easier to hang/glue up, and it also helped keep the hot glue off of my fingers!



Her little favors were pairs of gardening gloves and floral bulbs. People seemed to really love them!










We had such a wonderful time and I cannot wait to plan and craft for her 2nd birthday party later this year!
- SV