Okay, okay, this is a *little* late for June favorites. But better late than never, right? I hope you all had a wonderful weekend- we had quite a magical one. Simple summer things seem so much more fun through a child’s eyes. My sister and her best friend offered to babysit for free on Friday {Say WHAT?! Maybe they secretly raided my closet?!} so Paul and I got to enjoy an impromptu date night. We went to bartaco {new to FW} and enjoyed street-style tacos. We got their lobster taco, which is a delicious off-the-menu find. After, we went to grab dessert and split a chocolate soufflé over in Clearfork. My mom sent me a text showing me a Target ad with this 6-foot unicorn sprinkler and a Target trip later, we picked it up! Saturday, we spent all day playing with sidewalk chalk and our new BFF, the unicorn sprinkler. See here. ha! And then, Sunday I didn’t feel to well and spent the day organizing. I had to get caught up on taxes and doing random things around the house. This recent Amazon purchase organized all of our vitamins and medicines. I’m obsessed!

What did you do this weekend?! This upcoming weekend I’ve got a bachelorette party for my dearest friend, Taylor. I’ve been planning it the past few months, so I can’t to see how it all comes together. 🙂

On to my June favorites! I love doing these posts because they just remind you of all the good- however small and trivial some of these things may be.

MY FAVORITES

• Favorite Foods: Would it be a monthly favorites post without food? I think not. I’m still not craving meat after my mom and sister’s salmonella fiasco, so I’ve stuck to veggies and fish if we are out to eat. For cooking at home, I’ve tried Plated. I have really enjoyed it {made some fab gnocchi last weekend and felt TOO fancy!} and I’ve thoroughly appreciated not having to think of meal ideas. They offered COF readers $20 off their first three meals with code KATEY20 here. In terms of snacks, I was bad and got addicted to candied jalapeños and ate them like they were going out of style. I ordered some locally, but now I’m debating trying to make them myself. How Pioneer Woman of me. I made a 4th of July appetizer by putting cheese or cream cheese on crackers and topping with candied jalapeños. They were to die for!
• Favorite Product: I tried NatureLab Repair shampoo and conditioner this month and have been happier with my hair this past month than I have in years. I’m also taking Nutrafol vitamins, but this was just the first month, so I can’t say too much just yet. The shampoo and conditioner are a pretty reasonable price for a well-made, clean{er} [plant based, no sulfates, parabens, phthalates, animal testing, or animal cruelty]. The two biggest differences I’ve noticed? Hair feels so silky and it’s much easier to style. Grab them here. I’m also verrrrrry obsessed with the mask.
• Favorite Event: You’ll remember my Hale House event from this post, so I had to include it as this top made it a monthly favorite. This top is practically sold out, but the print is going strong here and here.
• Favorite Moment: Disneyland was our absolute favorite moment from the past month. I shared what we did in this blog post, but I want to go back! I’ve never really cried leaving a trip, but I cried leaving there. I’m not sure when we’ll go back, we have friends up in the Bay Area, so Southern California isn’t really on our trave list- but we shall see. I think next year we want to take Maxi to the beach for our family vacation. I’m ready for a road trip. Do you love or hate road trips? I LOVE them!
• Favorite New Find: When we were living with my parents while we finished building our home, we were obsessed with their coffee. Whenever you walk in their house it smells like the most divine coffee shop. Not too strong, not too sweet. It honestly smells like a fresh cup of coffee with coffee cake. My parents told us, that this is their favorite to brew so I’ve been ordering this like crazy on Amazon. It smells and tastes SO good!
• Favorite Buy For Friends: I shared this Jouer Lip Kit on my Insta Stories and it has been my favorite little birthday gift to keep on hand for girlfriends! It is $25, comes in the most precious packaging and gives her a full-size lip liner with travel-size liquid lipstick and lip topper {their version of a gloss}. I wear the Perle shade being so fair, but the Nude and Rose are what I grabbed for girlfriends.

YOUR MOST ASKED QUESTIONS

• How did you wean Maxi from paci?: 
  • I’ll be honest, I wasn’t in any rush to wean Maxi of her paci. I had tried around her birthday and we all got the flu so I just felt she needed it for comfort. At that point, I had tried to do the method where you cut the tip and she didn’t care at all. ha. She just kept it in her mouth. At her pediatrician appointments and pediatric dentist appointments, they told me there was no rush before she turned 2. I decided to just watch for her cues and then go for it. Once she turned 1, I only gave her the paci at naps, bedtime, or for travel. During Disney {15-months-old}, she kept pushing the paci away on the flight. At Disney, I’d give her her paci if she was going to fall asleep in the stroller and she’d spit it out. I felt she was ready as she started to really cling to stuffed animals and baby dolls for comfort, over the paci. When we got home, I rounded up all the pacis and told her to say, “Bye bye” to them. I told her she was a big girl since she got to see Minnie and big girls didn’t need pacis. {I mean who knows all she understood of that, but it doesn’t hurt to explain!} I threw them in the trash and was terrified. I mean texting all my girlfriends that had gone through this asking if we would ever sleep again. #RookieMomMove. Honestly, it was so much easier than expected. For two days she would ask for paci during her naps, but I’d just go in and rock her and pat her and say she was a big girl. She’d fall asleep in 5 minutes and stayed asleep. By day 3, she never asked for her paci. She actually found one we forgot to throw away and brought it to me and said, “Bye Bye.” It’s always crazy to me what they pick up on! I wish I could say I had a magic trick, but ultimately I just watched for her to reject paci, she did, and then we went cold turkey. I think whatever you do for your baby in the paci department is the right thing to do. Every child is so different and needs or doesn’t need it at certain points! 
• Your girls’ night out at Sephora looked so fun! What are your favorite GNO ideas?:
  • Y’all, I’m boring! ha. Give me a cheese board and girlfriends and I’m happy! haha. A few of my favorite things we do:
    • Happy Hour at a House: I really love to host girlfriends for happy hour that way we can all get back home to tuck our babies in bed at night. I’ll make a big cheese board and spread and they’ll come over after work. This is probably the easiest way we sneak in girls’ nights because it’s just an hour and a half and really easy to do. What we like to do is we bring beauty products that maybe don’t work for us! So say, an eyeshadow didn’t work on my friend’s skin tone, she’ll bring the new palette if she didn’t return it. We’ll swap beauty products and chat and it’s really fun! You could do this with anything from old clothing to home decor. It’s an easy way to recycle. 😉
    • Beauty Class at Sephora: This is free for VIB members and such a fun thing to do with girlfriends before dinner! We did this two weekends ago and I loved it!
    • New Workout Classes: I always get so intimidated to try new workout classes, so I think these are best done with friends! We’ll try a new class and then grab brunch after.
• Your last home had all white furniture and this home has a darker hue. Which have you preferred?:
  • So hard to have a favorite! Honestly, I’ve loved both. I really don’t think light furniture is *as* hard as it can be made out to be, but it’s more work for sure. However, my dining table shows way more marks than our white kitchen table ever did. I think the biggest difference I’ve noticed is the pops of accessories you can incorporate. In the last home, if I had leopard pillows it really popped and people would notice. I think with darker furniture, you can sometimes get away with mixing prints more or adding in multiple animal prints because it just blends a bit more with the brown hues. I’m not sure if that even makes sense! But I would say, people don’t comment as much about accessories in this home as they did in our last home. If you like to go louder with prints, maybe try dark hues. If you want to keep things more toned down, light furniture is great. I will say, having a toddler with sticky hands, I do really appreciate the dark! 😉 However, our house in general does feel darker as it has darker tones.

FAVORITE POSTS

• Retinol 101
• Disneyland with a Toddler
• Welcome to the New COF
• Copy My Closet

YOUR FAVORITES

• Printed Shorts: Styled Here
• Blue and White Dress: Styled Here
• Espadrilles: Styled Here
• Mules: Styled Here

PROJECTS

• Kitchen: Maddie sent us the designs for our kitchen and I just about cried I’m so excited. We are still working on finalizing a few more details, but I think the kitchen will be my favorite. I know I say that about every room, but this space is where I’m at most. This project is definitely going to be more costly and time-consuming as we have to fix something that was a mistake in the build, so it won’t be overnight. Isn’t it funny how something so small can be way more of a project than you anticipate? When we saw the mistake while building I thought this would take a day to fix- jokes on me! It’s like when you write out what is changing, it is seriously minimal, but then you see the details and it isn’t. I don’t even think we will start doing anything in July, however, I do think the plans will be finalized. But honestly, I enjoy spacing these projects out. We had to redo our formal living floors last week because we had a leak, so I can’t really imagine going back to construction on Monday. As my mom always says, “It’s nice to have something to look forward to!“
• Paul’s 30th: Paul turns 30 July 17th! He’s one of those people that won’t ever do anything for himself, so I just love his birthday as we all get to honor and celebrate him! I love that he enjoys experience gifts so much, so we have a few of those coming up and I am thrilled.

MONTHLY READ

This month I read, “The Woman in the Window.” It was slow the first half, but then the second half was just nuts! I wasn’t expecting that whatsoever. Now I’m reading “The French Girl.” What did you read this month?!