Rodeo!

We're back from my husbands business trip. 

We had a great time at our very fist lineman rodeo.

We arrived on Friday mid-day and checked into the hotel. Then off to dinner we went with the other families at a delicious seafood restaurant right on the water.

He climbed and climbed and climbed some more.
All in all, it was very interesting to watch and see my main squeeze in action :)





We got home on Saturday afternoon, unpacked and relaxed. Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous. Sunny and 90 and the perfect day for the beach, so that's just what we did.

Today, all three of us are fighting allergies or a head cold, not quite sure what it is. Hopefully it passes soon because it's a busy week ahead!

Later on this week I'll be sharing my wish list for Mother's Day, stay tuned...

Happy Friday, well sort of!

Long weekends with family are quite simply, the best, especially when they're free, am I right?

My husbands company is having a special event in the upstate on Saturday and as of tomorrow morning we will be leaving out early to attend with a comp hotel and dinner. 

I cannot wait. 

I see lots of sight seeing, swimming and relaxing in our future.

xo

What's in a name?

Today I'm linking up with Momfessionals for Show & Tell Tuesday, and today's topic? Names!

As far as my name goes, Miranda, well mom has always loved the letter M. In fact, all of my siblings (my dad too!) has an M name, whether it be their first or their middle, we all have an M name. 

If I were a boy I was going to be Trenton Matthew, but turned out I was born a belle and thus Miranda was what I was given. I honestly adore the name Trenton, and in my opinion it could be a gender neutral name, but my nephew lucked out and that's the name he got :)

All in all we have a Martha, Michelle, Marie, and a whole lot of Macks!

My one sister had a thing for T's, so from that we stem Tesha, Trenton, Tristan and Talon.

Sister #2 loved D's, and Dean and Devin were born. 

As far as our precious little bundle of joy, we were dead set on Cayden. I knew even before I ever had a child that Cayden was going to be his or her name. Cayden Mack for a boy and Cayden Martha for a girl. Mack is a name on both Tarls and my side of the family and Martha was my grandmother's name and my name as well so I knew if God granted us a girl I wanted to carry on with Martha.

Three weeks prior to this sweet bundle of joy arriving, while laying in bed one night, I asked Tarl what he thought of adding "ence" to the end of Cayden, especially now that we knew we were having a girl. He loved it, so we dropped the Y and Cadence was born 3 weeks later. 

To be honest, we just simply loved the name Cadence. There was no rhyme or reason or significance behind it, we just adored the name and it fits Miss Priss to a tee :)

Cadence Martha

Remember to link up and join the fun!

Furious

This weekend was great, even with the rainy weather we had.

Cadence stayed the weekend with my in-laws, so that gave Tarl and I an entire date weekend, which was absolutely wonderful!

We had planned to go to Jacksonville to visit with my aunt, hit up the beaches, and see the sights, along with my mom, but my mom started feeling ill on Thursday afternoon and with her condition, we didn't want to chance going away for the weekend and her hospital and medical team being 2+ hours away, so we had a weekend together here at home.

On Friday evening we went to our favorite dining spot, The Melting Pot. The food was, as always, delicious.  I will say this, our first time ever going to The Melting Pot, we disliked everything but the dessert. Turns out we tried all the wrong things! We definitely have a go-to and you have to try different things to find out what pleases your palate.

The fiesta cheese fondue is our go-to cheese. 

We always go with the Mojo style seasoning for our meats. I'll suggest our favorite meat selection, the french quarter. I always get the house salad with their delicious raspberry vinaigrette and we adore the bananas foster for dessert!

They always have the best dippers for dessert, rice krispie treats, marshmallows, fresh fruits, pretzel sticks, raspberry filled donut holes, pound cake, brownies and more!

Duck faces! Love this man!

We got up on Saturday morning and finally went and saw Furious 7. The Fast and the Furious franchise first began back in our generation when were in high-school, so it for sure holds a special place in our hearts as far as movies go. We've seen every movie and I knew this one was going to be emotional due to Paul Walkers passing. 

I won't spoil it for you, but the ending is a HUGE tear jerker so have the tissues handy - not so much that something happens in the movie, but just knowing that it was Paul Walkers 'last ride' is just so terribly heart wrenching!

We ended up going out and buying movies 1 - 6 and watched most of them yesterday while waiting for Cadence to get home. It was stormy and snuggling and a day of car racing on the tv was just the ticket to the ending of a great weekend!

//

I honestly have to touch base on this very touchy southern subject - Lilly for Target.
I'm not a huge Lilly fan. The thought of paying $200+ for a dress with a multitude of colors is beyond me. Let's call it what it is, you're paying for the name, it's a fact, and we all know it.

Her shift dresses are quite lovely however, and at the affordable price of around $40 I was planning on purchasing one on Sunday afternoon once Cadence got home, only to find out via several news articles and FaceBook that the entire collection sold out both online and in stores within a matter of minutes. There goes my $40 Lilly shift dress because I be damned if I'm going to pay over $200+ for a dress. Just not my thing! What blows my mind is A) Why only make this a one time thing? It sold so well I don't understand why they don't sell this in stores throughout the summer. Clearly it is making both parties money. B) Why would they allow their clientele to purchase more than one of each item. From what I gather women were just grabbing everything and shoving it in their buggies. If you don't believe me, go to Instagram and search the hashtag #lillyforsale, or check ebay. I refuse to pay more than what they paid for it brand new, just so some greedy person can make a quick buck. Plus the quality isn't the same as the true Lilly Pulitzer items, so if you're going to pay that much, might as well go for the tried and true Lilly, but that's just my two cents.

xo

Whoops...

There is no reason for my lack of posting, other than I just simply haven't had much to talk about mixed with a pinch of writers block.

I've started about 100 posts since the last time I've posted (almost 2 weeks!) and it never failed I just deleted them because in my opinion they weren't blog worthy. I always ask myself this before I hit "publish", is this something I would want to read? If my answer is no, then I hit delete, it's that simple.

The fact is, the weather here has been wonderful. Warm and sunny and just 'delicious' - as delicious as weather can be anyways. :)

I've been soaking up every minute outside with my family, doing yard work, and just simply relaxing, that the blog has been the last thing on my mind. I hope to get back to regularly posting, but no promises. 

Trust me, I haven't given up on this little ole blog of mine, just taken a brief hiatus. 

For those of you that still read, thank you for understanding, but spring has arrived and I plan on soaking up the sun with my family.

See ya soon...

Easter

Another holiday has come and gone. 

Easter was wonderful! Time spent with family was great!

Let me preface this post by stating that I got up on Friday, as I do every morning that I have to work, at 6:30, got ready and headed in just to realize I was the only one here and we have off Good Friday. It was a pleasant surprise. So I headed back home and spent the day with my sweet girl.

We baked cookies and got the eggs boiled and ready to be dyed that way as soon as Tarl got home we could have some fun.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early and headed to downtown Savannah. We walked River Street and just enjoyed each others company. It was a bit cloudy but it was so warm and just enjoyable.

We ate at one of our favorite spots, Huey's on the River. They have the most delicious beignets, it's the whole reason we go there.

Rarely do we go into the 'touristy' spots but I couldn't resist Savannah's Candy Kitchen on Saturday, specifically for they're glorious chocolate covered strawberries.

Delicious!

The wait for Huey's was about an hour (then again everything was this weekend with it being Spring Break). I told Tarl to go and sit at the fountain with Cadence while I waited on our name to be called. This way she could toss penny's in and not get bored. About 5 minutes in I got this picture texted to me.

Love these two silly faces :)

Normally Cadence sleeps in until about 7:30ish, but with it being Easter she was up bright and early at 6:30. We got up and saw that the Easter Bunny surely did come.

She got everything she wanted, including bubbles and the Princess Anna dress.

Tarl and I had stayed up late on Friday night putting the baskets out and watching TV that waking up at 6:30 was just exhausting, so we told Cadence we needed some much needed rest. We all fell back asleep and then around 9, this little Princess walks in.

She was saying, look mom, twins...love this kid!

We got up and got dressed and ready for Easter.

We found this Nautica dress on sale at TJ Maxx for $15. It was adorable on her and I cannot believe how big she looks in it. She's growing up so fast.

We all had so much fun. My entire family played dodge ball, kick ball, whiffle ball, egg toss, spoon races. We are all sore today from the running and jumping and throwing but it was so worth it.

By far one of the best Easters we've had thus far.

All Things Easter

I am missing the city terribly as I sip on my coffee and nibble on my apple turnover.
Eating these sweets reminds me of all the bakeries in the city and of course the Starbucks that are on every corner. I truly loved New York and am already dreaming of my next trip, and of course have started a new "wish list" of places to visit while there.

Onto today's post...

Easter is one of my favorite holidays. 

I love the colors, the Spring weather and most importantly what it means to me as a Christian. 

The fact that Jesus died so that we may live an eternal life in Heaven is just the most amazing sacrifice ever. As always, if you would love to learn more about His love, feel free to email me!

Tarl and I instill these same Christian values in our daughter. I'm happy to say that she loves Jesus, even at her young age. She also loves the Easter Bunny. I mean a cute little bunny who brings little gifts and candy to eat for breakfast, what kid (or adult!) wouldn't love that?!

This year the bunny is giving her a monogrammed basket, along with a monogrammed egg with a monogrammed bunny inside and a monogrammed water bottle. (are you getting the monogrammed trend I have going on here?)

I'm a huge fan of Lush. Their products are amazing and I've yet to try one I don't like. Their bath bombs always leave my skin feeling moisturized for days. Cadence always likes to watch the bath bombs fizzle out in the tub when I use one and always says that she wants one too, well Tarl and I went into the Lush in NYC and got her two bath bombs for her Easter Basket. We purchased her the cute little Hoppity Poppity and the Fluffy Egg.

While there I did snag another Tender is the Night massage bar.
This is my third massage bar from Lush, and my second Tender is the Night. This is my most favorite. It smells divine and melts like butter. I honestly don't use these as a massage bar though. I use it as a lotion and I find it is so much more hydrating then any lotion that I buy in stores, plus it smells divine.

If you are looking for a massage bar though, I recommend Hottie.

It actually warms up gently as you use it, which is perfect for sore muscles, specifically after you work out, run or jog.

She's also getting some candy, a Minnie Mouse Easter plush and the Princess Anna dress that she's been wanting to add desperately to her dress up collection. I cannot wait to see her little face light up on Sunday morning.

On this weeks agenda we have some Easter egg dyeing and I plan on cooking a nice Easter breakfast for my family before all the festivities begin. I'm beyond ready to spend time with family, eating and playing games and just spending some quality time together.

Here are some of my favorite Easter ideas, courtesy of Pinterest:













I finished Tarl's basket yesterday. I got a lot of his favorite goodies and stuffed them in a basket.
You know, slim jims, his favorite potato chips and candy and such.

We always try to do a little something for each other, although last Easter there was a Kate Spade bag waiting on me. I don't think I'll be able to top that :) #sweetboy

xo