Loving Lately

Happy Friday!  Hope you had a great week.  It's been a fun week at our house.  We're back into our routine with school, still have lots of snow on the ground, have gotten to see friends and I loved hearing all of your kind words and encouragement about my 50lb weight loss announcement on Monday.  It really made my day every day to get messages of love from all of you.  So thank you!!

I have lots of favorites to share with you today.  I've been collecting things that we are loving and wanted to pass them on to you.

1. Backpack
Kevin picked out a new backpack for me for Christmas and I love it!  I haven't purchased anything from Vera Bradley in years.  I really haven't paid attention to their stuff in years.  But we were shopping at Dillards and their newer patterns caught my eye.  I LOVE this pattern and love all the compartments in the backpack.  It's fully set up for a student with a laptop pouch, but it could easily hold diapers if you needed it to.  It holds everything we need with plenty of room to spare.  My favorite parts are the double zippers, drink pouch on each side for the kids and a million pockets and pouches.

2. Wire Walmart Baskets
My favorite Walmart baskets are back!!  I mentioned these on the blog probably a year ago and I'm still a fan.  I bought gold baskets for my pantry and I went with brown ones for my desk area this time.  They are $3.98 for a two pack and they come in gold, silver, rose gold and dark brown.  They are sturdy and could easily pass for higher end baskets.  My Walmart had tons and tons of them.

3. Letter Boards
I'm loving updating my letter boards each month.  I hung one in our playroom, one in our kitchen and then I have another one that I move around.  It's been fun to have Olive help me find the letters and work on the messages together.  This board is from Joanns.  I just love the fun words mixed with the traditional letters.

4. Unicorn Sighting
Olive would want you to know that this cozy robe is her favorite.  She got it for Christmas and she wears it all day long.  It is adorable and really cozy.  I don't blame her.  Fletcher got a shark robe, but he doesn't love his yet.  I'm not usually much of a robe wearer.  However, it has been freezing so I've been bundling up in a short robe from VS.

5. Fierce Faith
I finished Fierce Faith by Alli Worthington this week and loved it.  I'm a big fan of hers after reading Breaking Busy last year.  She's a great writer and she is very relatable.  She's a busy mom of 5 boys.  I love her advice, her wisdom and her perspective.  She really has a compelling story for developing a fierce faith, bouncing back from failures (because they happen to everyone) and she talks a lot about self care.  The text reads like conversation with a friend.  You feel an instant connection and will find yourself nodding along as she addresses fear, worry and anxiety that many women deal with.  I think single women, married women and moms would all enjoy this book. 

The book touches on very relevant topics like parenting, social media, friendships, relationships, jobs and real problems that women face every day.  You'll find yourself flying through this book and taking notes in the action step sections at the end of the chapter.  This would be a great book to do in a book club or as a Bible study.  Worthington is regularly quoting scripture, Biblical character references and always tying her message back to the Gospel.  She makes the Bible characters come to life and seem very relevant today.  You find yourself wanting to turn to the Bible to refresh yourself on some of the stories she recounts.  I'd highly recommend this book.
*I was gifted this book in exchange for an honest review of it.

6. New Favorite Lipstick
I am probably most excited to tell you about this favorite.  I picked up this Wet and Wild lipstick on a whim and am loving it!!  It was $1.93 a tube at Walmart so my expectations were pretty low.  I figured it would be fun to try, but that was about it.  I was really surprised at all the pretty color options.  There were three rows of colors in the semi matte finish.  It was hard to pick just two to take home because they were all so pretty.  It wears really nicely and is matte just like it states.  I love to layer the colors and add a layer of Carmex chapstick to finish it off.  It seals in the color nicely and you just cannot beat that price.  It is also pretty long lasting.

*** Update *** I found the same lipstick at Meijer and many colors were clearanced out for $0.62!!  So now I own 4 different colors for under $6.  Definitely keep your eye out for this stuff!

7. Date Night at Home
Kevin and I have been busy with life and work so we've been trying to do something together in the evenings.  And by do something I mean that we interact and don't just scroll through our phones.  It's been lovely.  We made Cinnamon Roll Monkey Bread one night and have been watching Arrested Development on Netflix.  Did you ever watch that show??  It took me an episode or two to get into it, but we are both loving it now.  

8. Meijer Brand Bagels
I picked up plain and chocolate chip bagels when they were BOGO at Meijer recently and they are so good!!  We've been having breakfast sandwiches and adding some cream cheese to the chocolate chip ones.  They taste like they're from a bagel shop and an entire package is under $3.  My kids love them, too.

9. Succulents
I love them.  They're so much fun and I've managed to keep mine alive for over a year.  Kevin loves them, too.  So we've got a pretty succulent garden in our kitchen window and his office just got this addition for Christmas.  I love finding succulents at Meijer or Lowes.  I picked up one at Aldi last year and it didn't last long at all.  

10. SNOW
We probably got around 5 inches of snow this week!  The kids were thrilled and so was I.  It was fun to play in with them every day and I can't recommend Target snow overalls enough.  Olive has worn hers for three winters thanks to the adjustable straps and waist and I hope Fletcher gets a couple years out of his.  I felt so on the ball this year for having hats, gloves, coats, snow pants and snow toys for everyone when the snow arrived. #momwin

In case you missed it on Polka-Dotty Place:

Monday: Goodbye 50lbs!
Tuesday: Easy Vegetable Soup
Wednesday: Snow Ice Cream 

Linking up with

ThoughtsforThursday,

HighFiveforFriday, FiveonFriday, and Momfessionals