I hope everyone had a very happy holiday this past week. I know I did. Here are some pictures of what made my holiday so special this year. Already looking forward to next year!

Our Christmas tree skirt 

Funfetti cookies I made for a cookie exchange 

Christmas party date night

Fun little Christmas craft with Ava 

Visiting the great grandmas on Christmas Eve 

These two faces on Christmas morning

One proud mommy 

Beautiful lake sunrise

This past Thanksgiving, as a thank you, I recently received a generous gift card from my mom (aren’t moms the best!?) to my favorite nail salon, Nail Lounge at Polaris. I am pretty sure pampering is one of the best gifts you can receive, by the way. Plus, there is nothing like a good manicure in the winter to make a girl feel pretty, especially since my hands are sometimes the only thing showing in the blistering cold.

I was able to find some fun nail color inspiration around the house. The gold is from a garland ornament on our stairs and the silver is from one of my favorite tree ornaments. This particular Eiffel Tower ornament reminds me how it lights up at night and sparkles like crazy. This nail color is as close as I am going to get to that this year (haha) but if you have not seen the Eiffel Tower at night, or Paris for that matter, I highly recommend you add it to your bucket list. It is a sight to see.

While red is a very powerful color, in general, and representative of many important causes such as the American Heart Association and recently, Red Thumb Day to encourage people to not text and drive, it is also a very fun and energetic color to have in your wardrobe. It is a must have for me, especially during this time of year when I can easily parlay it into an outfit for a Buckeye game, a holiday party, Christmas mass or even looking ahead to Valentine’s Day.

I bought this red blazer from H&M a few years back and it’s provided to be the perfect red staple for me. The sparkly top/blazer combo I wore recently to a surprise birthday party right after Thanksgiving and the t-shirt/blazer combo I wore to a cookie exchange party. You may recognize the sparkly top from one of my posts below from Forever 21 and the t-shirt is from Abercrombie & Fitch. Now don’t get me wrong, if these events were with the same group of people, I probably would not have worn this blazer both times but luckily they weren’t so it was a win-win all around!

I have to admit, part of the fun of having a girl is getting to dress her and accessorize her wardrobe. Even though I can’t get her to keep a clip or headband in her hair for more than 10 seconds these days, I still continue to build her hair accessories collection regardless. It also started me thinking that I could use some new hair accessories of my own to help spruce up my look.

On one of my many trips to Kroger, I let myself browse the hair accessories section, which I don’t normally do because, much like the chip aisle, I’m always likely to leave with something if I go down that road so I typically steer clear of that aisle. Sure enough, I stumbled across these cute Goody barrettes and just had to have them. I felt pretty good about the purchase too considering I got them for the bargain price of less than $5 so I figured what the hell, why not (Christmas come early).

Here is a picture of how they came in the store with one gold, one silver and one brown. Below are a few fun ways I’ve been wearing them so far. Yes, one of the pictures I do have the gold one next to the silver one and I know, for some, this is considered a fashion crime but I like it here since it’s not too drastic of a color difference. The brown barrette picture is how the girl on the packaging is wearing it and quick bravo for anyone on the Goody marketing team because if I see a picture of how something is to be worn, I automatically think I can replicate but alas, I never am able to. I’m such an easy advertising target. 🙂

I can’t remember why I stayed away from these for so long…maybe because the name alludes to being a little girl and doesn’t equate to being a grown up but needless to say, I am back on the barrette bandwagon for now. Even better, these are perfect for those days you can’t seem to squeeze in that shower, which happens more than I care to admit.

Glamour sidebar: After taking these pics, I managed to clean one of the bathrooms before heading to bed. What’s not glam about that?!

So while my latest adventures these days may not be filled with planning vacations or trips to tropical destinations or abroad, they have kept me more local with adventures in the kitchen. I haven’t always loved spending tons of time in the kitchen, especially when take out can be so much easier and twice as fast. Not to mention, something always seems to taste better when someone else makes it. However, now that I have a sweet, little mouth to feed I love the idea of feeding her as many things homemade as possible.

I hosted Thanksgiving this past week and since baby A loved her turkey dinner, I decided to try a couple other recipes for breakfast Saturday morning. The egg muffin recipe I found on Pinterest, aka my online recipe book. Ava loves her scrambled eggs but this way I can sneak in some veggies without her knowing. I put leftover turkey, broccoli and a couple of cheeses in this one. I kind of wish I would have put leftover stuffing in them too. Super easy and delicious.

Funny story about this next recipe. I follow, and I am not afraid to admit it, Vanessa Lachey on Instragram. She’s so darn cute. Yes, she is Nick Lachey’s wife, the same Nick Lachey who was married to Jessica Simpson. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago she posted a picture of her finished product of this Pumpkin Spice Pull Apart Bread with hashtag Pilsbury so I went to their site, plugged in the recipe and voila, it popped right up. This bread is definitely going to be making an annual appearance around the holidays in our house.

After all, I truly believe food is part of what makes up a memorable childhood, at least it did for me with things like my mom’s spaghetti, birthday genoa cake and Christmas Eve fondue to name a few, so I want to make sure Ava can look back on hers and feel the exact same way.