Wedding: Our First Anniversary

(Thank you With Love & Embers for my favorite picture ever)

I cannot believe it has already been a year since I walked down the aisle to my perfect man.  So cheesy, I know, but I just can't believe how quickly time flies. And how each day gets better than the day before.

To my love, I love you more than I can express. I feel so lucky that I get to spend each and everyday of the rest of my life with you.  You truly are my everything.

Here's a little video of a reminder of our first year of marriage and of our first home together.

And in case you missed our highlight video, here it is. We will certainly be watching it again today. Thank you Atlantica Pictures for capturing our love.

Laura & Anthony Highlight Film from Atlantica Pictures on Vimeo.

Now I'm off to celebrate with my other half! Happy, Happy Sunday!

xo, Laura 

Fashion Confessions

You know that whole study that says when you shop online, you're still just as happy whether you go through with buying what's in your cart or not.  Yea, I'm not so sure I believe that. I've been doing a whole lot of online shopping without buying anything and guess what...I still wish I had bought everything.

Boo!

But besides that, I've never really had a LBD that I was actually comfortable in/was flattering on until I found this one.  And the fact that it has pockets is just the icing on the cake. MMM..cake sounds delicious right now.

Oh well.

xo, Laura

PS In my mind, balloons, umbrellas, rainboots, and dresses should be an everyday thing.  You know?

Home Tour: Laundry Room

This room isn't exactly finished, but it's all the lame stuff I have yet to do (like majorly touch up the white paint!).  This laundry room is

tiny

, which makes it very hard to make practical choices while keeping decor in mind. The good news is we have

plenty

of storage throughout the rest of the house, so I didn't need to focus on it in the laundry room.

And I mentioned awhile back about the

gallery wall

I was working on in the laundry room - here it is! A lot of the pieces are my own (for now), but all are bright, colorful, ocean inspired art. My favorite. To me, this is one of the rooms you can have a little fun with, hence the ridiculously bright color on the one wall (which the name won me over on - Mermaid Whisper or Song or something like that!).

Enjoy the day and stay tuned for a fashion confession later! Only one room left on the home tour (the basement) and then just some little odds and ends.

xo, Laura

Happy Tabletop

When my husband and I first started dating, I joked that he liked old people candy. You know? Like that candy that you feel like NOBODY gets at the movie theater - yea, he loves it all. Even though we both had a mutual love of lollipops and ice cream, the whole hot tamales idea did not appeal to me.

Until now. Man is he rubbing off on me because I officially love hot tamales. And that makes the whole eating right and losing weight thing not happy. At all. But I'm working on it. Here's to the last bit of sweet, sweet treats!

Things currently making me happy:

-Being home. We've done a lot of traveling recently and it feels SO GOOD to be home. SO GOOD. 

-Eating right despite what the above picture may suggest. Don't believe every picture you see. Duh.

-Early mornings and late nights (hello getting dark out later - you rock)

-My hubs.  Not that he doesn't make me happy every week, but I'm really looking forward to our upcoming anniversary (where did that year go?)

Have a great start to the week and enjoy the day off if you have one!

xo, Laura 

Phoodle 6 (2014)

I've been majorly lacking in terms of

phoodles

this year. But I do still love them. Very much. This new one has taken forever for me to post to tumblr, mostly because my computer is outdated (super sad face). But at last, here it is for you to see.  You can check out more phoodles

here

!

Now go enjoy the weekend!

xo, Laura

Home Tour: Living Room

Our living room is open with the kitchen, which is very nice, but does make it difficult to make sure everything is cohesive (at least in my mind). Our kitchen is neutrals and reds, but I just don't tend to dig reds for the living room.  It took us awhile to slowly incorporate color that wouldn't be to overbearing, and for the most part, we have just kept things pretty simple.  We went with a dark accent wall to show off the fireplace and to incorporate the dark counters in the kitchen, and the rest of the walls are the same light grey of the kitchen.

And yes, that's a whale on the fireplace because, well, why not?

And yes, that last picture is

really

supposed to show you how the living room looks into the kitchen, but instead it shows you a big old obstruction.  Oh Tessa, I love you and your puggle breath. 

xo, Laura 

Happy Tabletop

Things currently making me happy:

-Things that smell yummy (like the above basil mint candle and vanilla diffuser)

-My piggy's noises when I'm rubbing his belly.  THE CUTEST GRUNTING EVER!

-Springy fitted/loose pretty blouses (yes that makes sense). I've been wearing them everyday.

-Ice cold water on a hot, hot day!

xo, Laura

Home Tour: Guest Bedroom (2)

Next on the tour - our second guest bedroom.  We wanted to be very light and it started

ALL

white, but it was a little too hospital-ish.  So, in the end, this is what we ended up with. And we are much happier now that we've added some contrast.  You learn as you go, right?

I had in my mind a word search for awhile, so I thought a guest room was the perfect spot for it, with the words "be" "our" and "guest" already circled.  I think my brother was the last one to stay in this room and it looks like he found "Tessa" and "Moo Shu" (if you're new to this blog, then it might help to know that those are the names of my dog and my pig - yes..pig).

And yes, it seems to be a common thing that the puggle sneaks into at least one picture of every room.  I am certain she's smelling whatever faint scent is left from her cousin (my brother's dog) from when they visited. 

And that's that! Enjoy the rest of the day!

xo, Laura 

52 Week Project: Week 19

I had a somewhat different idea (actually it was the exact opposite of what's shown above) on how to execute this photograph, but as it turns out, I can't do handstands.  Not that I've really every tried one in my adult life before this photo, but I just assumed, sure, that's easy.  Man oh man, I was wrong. And man oh man, did I hurt my head trying!

Apparently, I'm much, much better at jumping.

xo, Laura

Happy Tabletop

Yes, the series name changed.  It just seemed more appropriate these days to be Happy Tabletop then Happy Things, but yes, it's still about the little happy things that get me through the week (and through life)!

Things currently making me happy:

-Citrus. Citrus. Citrus. And my new way of cutting citrus.

-Early morning work outs

-Home, sweeeeeeet, home (we've been doing a lot of traveling/driving recently and it is soo nice coming home to a house of our own)

-My grandfather passed away recently, and although it's a very sad time, it makes me happy to know he was able to come to our wedding. It also makes me very happy thinking about him and my grandmother being together again.  Because according to him, the only problem they ever had was "figuring out when the honeymoon would end.  And it never did." Oh Poppy, I'll miss you. Hopefully me and the hubs will follow in their never ending honeymoon footsteps.

Keep enjoying the little things (and the big things).

xo, Laura

Home Tour: Hubby's Office

Even though my husband's office has a huge window in it, it gets very little light. He picked the color, so I tried to work with the elements within the office to bring in some light -- mostly very light curtains and some metallics and mirrors to reflect light. 

And yes, there is a desk and computer in this office, but I mean come on - they're boring, aren't they?

The two huge photographs I took at a polo match we went to and printed them at Staples, like these

engineer prints

from the Guest Bedroom.  

It's the only room with a

real

color in the entire house, so it's a nice pop from the rest of the house without being too overwhelming.  

xo, Laura 

52 Week Project: Week 18

Another week inspired by all the lovely things spring brings.  Warm sun, small blossoming trees, and greens everywhere. Oh spring, I've fallen deeply for you.

xo, Laura

PS I really want a greenhouse. Who's with me?!

Happy Tabletop

This column is all about the little daily things in life that make me happy, and well, keeping herbs is one of them (yes, even when they do yellow on me unexpectedly).

Herbs I'm currently keeping that make me happy: parsely, mint, sage, and basil. Yum, yum, yum, and yum!

Happy Monday!

xo, Laura

Home Tour: Dining Room

It's hard to believe that we've been in this house almost a year already (and that our one year wedding anniversary is

JUST AROUND THE CORNER

).  We moved into this house in the middle of May, got married two weeks later, and have been living blissfully here ever since.  It has been an amazing year and lots and lots and lots of sweat went into this house and it not only feels like

our house

now, but it finally feels complete (for now).

To celebrate the year and finishing all the rooms in the house, it feels appropriate to continue with (and end) the home tour for the month of May.  Oh home, it feels

SO

good to own you.

So without further ado, I bring you the

Dining Room

.

Black and white stripes are my

FAVORITE

. EVER.  

This was another room that got a photoshop version done before I really painted it because the husband's face was pretty funny when I was describing my idea to him.  We went with lots of wood and accented metallics to play off of the clean black and white stripes.  And of course no room is complete without an adorable puggle face. 

Even though this ended up being one of our favorite rooms in the house, it hardly ever gets used.  That's okay though. We don't mind :)

Oh home, I love you.

xo, Laura 

Fashion Confessions

I've been doing pretty good with not buying things (well..just these past few weeks really). This top and this hat were both impulse, cheap ($7 and $4) buys.  But hey, I've been getting lots of use out of both of them.

Plus..I wanted new nude heels since these are uncomfortable, but instead I bought some comfy liners for them. So that's progress, right?

Mustard yellow and cobalt blue, I love you both, but I especially love you two together.  And dandelions, you may be a weed, but you're pretty amazing.  That's all folks!

xo, Laura