Birthday Gifts for a 27 Year Old

Remember when I said there was a funny story about one of my presents that I got for my birthday? Well, I told my family they didn't have to get me anything, but if they wanted to, I only wanted three things: khaki pants, Vans sneakers, and a phone case. I got two out of three. And within that two out of three, I got two of the same thing. Are you still following?

My younger sister and PJ both got me the same pair of Vans sneakers (that I've wanted since I saw Seth Cohen wear them on The OC in 2004)! This has happened with PJ and my family before, about 6 years ago, coincidentally also with shoes. So, I got two pairs of the same sneakers, a pair of khakis, and no phone case. I wasn't really expecting anything so it was all a happy surprise nonetheless. 

When we had our friends over for the sleepover last weekend, they also brought me gifts, which you can see in our newest YouTube video. Completely caught me by surprise, too, because them just being there was enough of a gift to me. 

So, if you would like to see what all I got from my family and friends, and maybe get a couple ideas for the 27 year old in your life, check them all out below (and click the pictures to purchase them for yourself!) 

A similar pillow to what I received

-T

(above pics via here, here, here, and here)

Thomas’ Birthday Weekend

Hey y'all! We took a break from posting this past week because it seemed like we were celebrating Thomas' birthday all week, but we are back to our regularly scheduled programming and here to tell you all about it, from Thomas' point of view, if you'd like to hear...

We started celebrating on Thursday night with my family in downtown Chattanooga. We went to Tony's, my favorite Italian restaurant that overlooks the river and has the absolute best garlic bread and oil with cheese for dipping. I got my usual pesto cream sauce and spiced it up a bit by adding mushrooms. Go big or go home, right? Speaking of big, their portions are huge so there's always going to be leftovers to take home. See why it's my favorite place?

After Tony's, we went back to my brother's house and had cake and opened presents. I plan on sharing what I got tomorrow, but in the meantime, can we all appreciate this delicious (store bought) cake my younger sister got me? I'm a sucker for white cake with white frosting so this hit the nail right on the head. Is that how the saying goes? Regardless, it was glorious.

The next morning I woke up to find four cupcakes from Cupcake Divas waiting on me in the living room. PJ knows my weakness for cupcakes and knows how Cupcake Divas are my favorite cupcakes in the whole world, with their perfectly moist cakes and ginormous amount of icing on top. It just doesn't get any better than this.

Also included: a sweet card with my name on it (seeing McKay come after my first name is still something I'm not totally used to and gives me butterflies every time) and my present underneath it. Any guess to what it was? Haha. There's actually a funny story behind it and I'll share it tomorrow.

We then went out to PJ's dad's farm for a bit to see his sister and our nieces and nephews as they were just getting into town. It was the most beautiful day we've had it what seems like forever, so we soaked up the sunshine with the kids as much as we could. It's also hard not to enjoy the day when you see three little kids running around on a great big farm laughing and screaming. It gets us thinking.... :)

Our friend Kyle from Nashville came down Friday night and stayed with us through the weekend. TBH I didn't take very many pictures after that because I'm trying this new thing where I don't take so many pictures and really try to live in the moment as everything is happening. It's a little experiment I'm doing and so far it's going really well. Just trying to be more present was one of our New Year's Resolutions and it honestly feels good. Have you tried that this year? How's it going for you?

By Saturday night, everyone that was coming to stay for the weekend was here. So we had our friend Kyle from Nashville, our friends from Chattanooga (also named Kyle, both of them), and our sweet friend Golden (who takes most of our pictures) at the house ready to celebrate with us. We took them all out to the land to see it since none of them had before. When we got back home, we made a bunch of different homemade pizzas and ate charcuterie, a word we just learned last year.

Again, I didn't really take pictures that night, but I was able to get one of my guy making a pizza. He always puts so much work into everything he does and this weekend was no exception. He is a perfectionist, so he doesn't stop until the job is done and it's done right. It can be hard sometimes, but I wouldn't have him any other way.

The next morning my family stopped by unexpectedly after they got back from Mass and ate our leftovers from the night before, thankfully.

To top it all off, when I got home from work yesterday, I found a little box waiting for me on the front porch. It was a box of chocolate truffles from our new talent managers Alix & Denise all the way from California! How sweet are they? 

All in all, I am feeling so blessed and grateful for family and friends this weekend. In my 27th year of life, I am learning that it's definitely not perfect and almost never goes the way you plan. I am learning to let go of small things and understand that the people in my life are the most important things in it. It's no secret that family is everything to me, and I am realizing that more than ever this year. Thank you to everyone for all the sweet birthday wishes. I won't soon forget this one. xx

-T

You've Been Asking About Our New Hot Tub

Ever since we posted that we got an inflatable hot tub on Instagram, you have been asking what we think of it and whether we like it or not. Well, we've had it for almost a week and we have to say, we LOVE it!

It was super easy to install and set up and also really affordable. Our main thing with ordering an inflatable hot tub as opposed to a regular one is that we weren't sure we wanted to make that big of a commitment/investment just yet. It's our first one, so we wanted to make sure we loved it before purchasing a more expensive/permanent one.

Now that we have it, though, we don't think we'll be getting a real one any time soon. We like how portable this one is, how easy it is to set up, and how affordable it is for what it does. And to answer your question, it does just what you would expect a hot tub to do. The bubbles are strong and produce a good amount, too. The water gets up to the standard 104 degrees fahrenheit, so it's nice and toasty. 

It says you can fit between 4-6 people, though we're betting if you're an adult, the most you'll get in there comfortably is 4. Still, it's perfect for how convenient it is, especially if you're not ready to commit to a full blown hot tub yet.

In short, we have loved using it every night and highly recommend one. We think you'll love it, too! Click here to get one and let us know what you think about it! 

(This post is not sponsored, just our honest opinion of a product we love.) 

Wrecked

Well. It officially happened. 

This morning on the way to work, Thomas was involved in a four car accident that totaled his car. He's made it his whole life without being in an accident but his luck finally ran out. Thankfully, no one was hurt and everyone was super cooperative, but his car is pretty bad. We're counting our blessings today and thanking God that it wasn't a lot worse than it was. 

The bright side? Time to shop for a new car!

Oscars Party 2018

Every year we have a little Oscar party and this year we had it at our house, since it’s the first year we’re living here. If you’ve been following along with us for a bit, you’re probably noticing a trend that we’re having all of the major holidays and events at our house. That will probably wear off by the end of the year, but it’s fun to celebrate new memories in a place that’s filled with so many great old ones.

Thomas’ mom and his brother’s girlfriend Mariah got started in the kitchen, and PJ joined in after that. We made bacon wrapped asparagus and three different kinds of homemade pizza: pepperoni, pesto, and magerita. They were all great but the white garlic pesto sauce was probably the overall favorite.

We have been wanting to make homemade pizza for, no joke, at least 5 years. There's always been something holding us back though but we finally did it and it was seriously good. Like, really good. We got the dough at Publix for $2.79 a piece so it was pretty affordable too. We know what we're making this Friday for dinner :)

We had a few people over so we busted out these markers that you can write your names on wine glasses with and they just wash off under water. How cool are they? 

Did you watch the Oscars this year? We saw 3 out of the 9 best picture nominees so we felt like we were missing out. Apparently they were the least watched show in modern history, so maybe we weren’t the only ones feeling left out? We spent most of the night pigging out and laughing anyway, and the show was sort of on in the background. However, The Shape of Water is at the top of our list now after it won Best Picture. We'll let you know what we think!

Letters

We can't tell you how elated we are every time we receive a letter from y'all in our PO Box. We love learning about you; your life, your struggles, your triumphs, your past. That you feel comfortable enough to share all of that with us makes us so grateful for social media. The fact we can all connect to each other from all over the world (we received letters from Australia and Tanzania!) can make everyone not feel so alone, you know? We went to the post office today to find our PO Box so full! Some of these letters brought us to tears, but all of them put a smile on our faces.

We spent Saturday night responding to them and can we just say how wonderful it is to send and receive snail mail these days? It's like a special treat that you only get to have once in awhile and when you do get it, man it makes your day. It takes so much longer than sending an Instagram message, text message, or even an email, which makes it all the more special, knowing that someone spent their time writing to you, and trusting you enough to share bits of their life.

If you would like to say hey, our address is PO Box 939 Cleveland, TN 37364. And if you haven't written anybody in a while, you should give it a try! Go on, we guarantee it will make their day.

xx

Friday Night Lights

We finally had a beautiful day today, all day! It’s been so miserable here all week, though not as bad as they’re getting it up north, but still pretty rainy and dreary. It’s like a horrible fog was lifted today and we were left with the most beautiful winter light bouncing all around us. 

We had a quiet Friday night which was so refreshing because we had absolutely nothing to do. PJ cleaned up around the outside and cut some rosemary to put in a vase and Thomas folded some clothes. And we can’t tell you how thankful we were for a sunny, calm Friday night. 

After that, we headed out to dinner downtown to this new burger place called Stack that we've been meaning to try out. We actually have a real burger joint now and it was packed! It's so nice to see more and more people coming downtown. There's a coffee shop opening this spring right around the corner that we're excited to try out, too. Exciting times, y'all!

We stopped by Thomas' mom's house and chatted with her for a little bit and planned our little Oscar party for Sunday night. We're going to make homemade pizza for the first time! We've been talking about making pizza for years now as a fun thing to do on a weekend but for some reason we've never gotten around to it. We do a little Oscar party every year with the family and a few friends. Do you do anything for the Oscars? We have ballots and everything haha.

Doesn't it feel nice to not have any plans? To be able to do whatever you want on your own terms and not have to commit to anything? We're feeling grateful for nights like those and for spending Friday night at home with the winter light all around us. 

(Early) Spring Cleaning

Hey you,

It’s been a short while, hasn’t it? Things have been so crazy busy around here lately, especially with preparing for the home & garden show, that everything was sort of placed on hold. But now that it’s over, it’s back to life as we know it! 

It’s been unseasonably warm lately (though pretty rainy) so we thought now is as good a time as ever to pick up a little bit. We haven’t mopped our floors in we’drathernotsay so saying it was long overdue is an understatement. Tonight we swept, vacuumed, and mopped all the floors in the house and suddenly there’s a weight lifted, a lightness that you can feel throughout the entire house. Why did we wait so long to do this? 

In other news, we are going to be making some small, subtle changes to the look of the blog and its purpose. We will still be keeping Feature Friday’s, but we are leaning more towards a journal style blog, where we can write daily details about stuff we don’t share on social media. Some of it boring, probably, but nonetheless it will be things we can look back on and reminisce in years to come.

As always, thanks for being here with us. You mean more to us than you know.