Every year our family looks forward to Halloween, mainly because it feels like the kick-start to the holiday season and if you're new around here, we LOVE celebrating all the holidays! Closer to Halloween we are planning on carving one big family pumpkin, but we couldn't help and grab some paper pumpkins to decorate in the meantime.
Mama was feeling a bit crazy and decided to throw some Fall themed sparkles into my Target pick-up order and honestly, the look on the little ladies faces was totally worth the spur of the moment glitter decision. Sometimes it's just fun to say YES!
Decorating our home for Fall always makes me so excited for the upcoming holiday season! I don't put out a TON of Fall decor, however the little touches of Fall always make me SO happy and the little ladies love them too. I recently redecorated our entryway credenza and I'm so happy with how it turned out. To be totally honest, it became a hodge podge mess of random home decor and it was time to clean it up a bit. The pink pumpkins are a new addition to our Fall decor this year and I think they look perfect in one of my favorite wooden bowls. I try my best to keep our decor pretty functional, so using items like trays and bowls, that I can also use for serving, etc. is a great way to keep things minimal and also means less holiday specific items to store when not in use.
When I decided to step away from teaching to become a full time stay at home Mom, I never imagined I would be returning to the classroom... in my basement, teaching my own children, but 2020 seems to have a lot of tricks up it's sleeve and class is officially in session.
Last Spring when Avery was home for distance learning we had school supplies ALL over the house and to be perfectly honest, it drove me a bit crazy. I anticipate the girls learning all over the house, but I knew I needed a designated spot for our school supplies AND a spot for Avery to learn where her sisters could also be engaged and playing.
It's hard to believe that Easter is on SUNDAY! Easter is a holiday we look forward to every year, we love the warm weather, time spent with family and the girls love the excitement of the Easter bunny. Our family typically hosts Easter and it's something that Scott and I always enjoy planning and cooking for. Even though this year Easter will look a little bit different, we are still determined to sit down with our girls to make memories together around the table.
We plan on dressing up in our Easter clothes and cooking a big lunch to celebrate! The girls always help me set the table and they are the best little helpers. This year, our tablescape includes layering our favorite pieces from MacKenzie-Childs. Growing up, I feel like there were always those pieces that my Mom included on our table that made the meal feel extra special. It's crazy how something like a flower coffee mug can bring back all the memories of our family sitting around the table together. I'm hopeful that our girls will feel the same way when they take a sip of water from our MacKenzie-Childs water glasses or pass along their favorite side in one of our Flower Market bowls.
When planning our simple, yet Spring time tablescape, I decided to layer in different textures and patterns to add a little delight to the eye, while still keeping the table functional for the important part, eating! Our place setting includes a woven charger, with a Sweetbriar dinner plate, Courtly Check salad plate and topped with the Sweetbriar bowl. I also mixed-in some of my favorite everyday Flower Market bowls and plan on serving our main course on the Sweetbriar platter.
One of my favorite parts about attending the MacKenzie-Childs event in February was seeing how their team put together such a beautiful tablescape! I was so inspired by the way they mixed and matched their different lines, like the Courtly Check, Sweetbriar and Flower Market, I knew I wanted to replicate that in our own home. I'm still pinching myself over what an incredible experience that entire day was. Being able to sit elbow, to elbow, with one of the MacKenzie-Child's artisans was a total dream. I got to see first hand how each of their artist paint their signature Courtly Check and even got to paint a pie dish of my own, which I can't wait to share with you when it arrives!
The MacKenzie-Childs team did such a wonderful job at showing me the heart of their company and their mission to bring a smile to their customers faces every morning, even if it's as simple as walking down the stairs in the morning to see their favorite tea kettle on the stove, or when reaching for their favorite mug for their morning cup of coffee, their aim to bring happiness into the home is something that I admire. Beyond that, including pieces that I know were hand painted at their Aurora Farm, makes them feel extra special and just adds to the overall sentiment of celebrating all moments big and small within our home.
My favorite piece on our table is our Sweetbriar hand painted water glasses and matching pitcher. They are the type of pieces that you hand down from generation to generation, each glass is hand painted and you can literally see each brush stroke on the glass. They would make the most perfect collectable gift and add the perfect touch of spring to our table.
As a busy Mom of three little ladies, you know that creating a beautiful, yet functional home is a huge priority to both Scott and I. When I heard that I could put the Sweetbriar plates and bowls right into the dishwasher, microwave and oven I was thrilled. I also included the everyday bowl collection into our tablescape, you'll notice them in both the Flower Market and Courtly Check print. What I love about the everyday bowls are that one, they all stack inside of each other, making for super easy storage and two, that you can use them to both prep and serve your food. They are extremely sturdy and are safe for your little kitchen helpers to use too. In fact, we even use our everyday bowls for family movie nights, the extra large size is perfect for popcorn!
When it comes to our menu, this year I'll be cooking from the Magnolia Table cookbook and my mouth is watering just thinking about our Easter meal! I'm trying my best to keep things simple, yet whip up some dishes that aren't our typical dinner. You know that I love to share our favorite recipes, so I'm including the BEST brussel sprout recipe EVER, it is a super simple recipe that always has us reaching for seconds!
Appetizers: (Abundant Bowl // Pinch Bowl // Cheese Knife Set) Our family LOVES a good cheese board, even the little ladies scoop up all the cheese and extras! I'll also bake up our favorite baked brie and serve with crackers, dried fruit, salami and nuts.
Drinks: (Sweetbriar Water Pitcher & Water Glasses) It's a family tradition to sip on mimosas on Easter, so Scott and I will pour some orange juice in our water pitcher and the girls can feel fancy sipping on OJ too!
Main Course: (Sweetbriar Platter & Dinner Plate) This year we are making the most of what we have on hand and will be marinating a pork tenderloin in soy sauce for our main course. It's a simple yet delicious recipe that cooks up perfectly on the grill, leaving oven space for our sides.
Sides: (Everyday Large Bowl & Sweetbriar Bowl) Homemade Mac & Cheese from the Magnolia Table cookbook will be the girl's main course and the most delicious brussel sprouts will serve as our vegetable.
Dessert: (Courtly Check Coffee Mug // Everyday Bowl Medium // Small Pedestal) Dessert, our very favorite, will be a homemade bunny cake that the girls and I will make together. Vanilla cake, with a raspberry filling, topped with LOTS of vanilla buttercream will go perfect with coffee and cream!
I always love hearing what your own family traditions are. Do you do your egg hunt first thing in the morning? Do you hide your kids baskets? What's always on your table to eat? Do you have a favorite serving platter or go-to appetizer recipe? Share all your traditions in the comments, I can't wait to read! I hope you find a way to make this Easter special for you and your family, I have a feeling this will be one we will never forget!
Don't forget to follow our daily adventures on Instagram and if you're new here, welcome, here are a few popular posts on the Snyder Family Co. Blog!
(Sponsored) Scott and I officially feel like grown-ups, we upgraded to a Naturepedic organic mattress and our sleep will never be the same. If you caught my Instagram stories, you might have seen that before our upgrade, we accepted hand me down mattresses and hadn't given our master bedroom much attention since moving into our home FIVE years ago!
Another thing you may know about our family is our desire to make our home as "clean" as possible and when we discovered Naturepedics organic mattresses, it was a match made in heaven. We were able to take a day date to their gallery in Lincoln Park and learned so much about the benefits of having an organic mattress.
First of all, we never really gave much thought to how much time we spend sleeping and what potentially happens to our bodies as we are breathing in all the chemicals that make up our mattress. Which also made us ask ourselves, what exactly is in our mattress? Now we can rest assured knowing that we are now getting healthy sleep and our mattress is free from so many harsh chemicals like VOCs and aldehydes. You can learn more about the benefits of healthy sleeping here!
Another huge bonus of our Naturepedic mattress is the ability to completely customize BOTH sides of your mattress! Meaning Scott and I could have chosen a completely different combination based on our sleep preferences. We got to choose between two different coil systems and three different toppers. Your mattress arrives right at your front door and is SUPER easy to put together! The cover lays down first, followed by the coil systems and finally the topper of your choice, zip the cover around and you're ready for sweet dreams.
While this is a sponsored post in partnership with Naturepedic, all opinions are my own.
We are so thankful for the opportunity to work with Naturepedic, one of the things we also loved about the company is how exactly they got started. The owners were expecting their first grandchild and when they went to purchase a crib mattress, discovered all the harmful chemicals found in typical crib mattresses. Their first product was actually their crib mattresses, which are still sold in their galleries and other stores nationwide too! You can learn more about all Naturepedic has to offer by visiting their website, they are also currently offering free shipping with the code SWEETDREAMS. If you want to know more about our mattress, please feel free to email me or leave a comment below!
Don't forget to follow our daily adventures on Instagram and if you're new here, welcome, here are a few popular posts on the Snyder Family Co. Blog!
Hi friends! I'll be back to expand on some of these ideas later, but for now here is a spot where I can list and share all the difference activity and eLearning resources for kids as we do our best to keep them occupied at home.
Education Companies Offering FREE subscriptions: Linked HERE
I will make sure to come back and highlight some of my favorite sites as this list is starting to get VERY long!
Favorite Art Sets & Games:
I will also do my best to post more activity ideas on Instagram and if you're new here, welcome, here are a few popular posts on the Snyder Family Co. Blog!
When we first moved into our house, the Master bedroom was low on our priority list of rooms to decorate. We had some hodge podge furniture that we moved from our condo and swapped our bedding to make it feel fresh, but other then that, it hasn't gotten much attention since!
I'm hoping back on the Five on Friday/Friday Favorites train and I'm SO excited about it- I feel like it's a great way to share some of our current favorites without overloading you with swipe-up's over on Instagram. You can check-in each Friday to see a random mix of decor inspiration, Amazon finds, favorite recipes and more then likely a few photos of our favorite little ladies!
Happy FRIDAY- have the BEST weekend with your family!
Favorite 1: Spring Decor Inspiration- I love finding pretty little seasonal items to fill our kitchen shelves with, it's quickly becoming one of my favorite spots to decorate in our home. I love being able to weave in functional decor to add in simple holiday or season touches. Anthropologie latte bowls are always a favorite kitchen shelf item and I am drooling over the new matte shades in both the regular and mini latte bowl sizes. Take a peek at some of the other items I have my eye on:
Favorite 2: Recent Amazon Purchases- Ok, I think this is going to be a fun one, I'm going to share the last 3-5 items I purchased on Amazon Prime each week, is it sad that I utilize Amazon Prime that often? Between Prime, Target Drive-Up and grocery pick-up I save SO much time, money AND sanity!
1: Nightgown //We ordered this for Avery to dress up as a little granny on the 100th Day of school and it turned out to be the cutest & coziest nightgown, Emmy has one now too
2: Letter Beads //By far the BEST value purchase of natural letter beads, a small pack at a craft store costs the same, if not more! I'll be sharing a super easy DIY with these soon
3: Sweatshirt //I ordered this for a Cricut project and honestly loved it so much, I decided to keep it plain!
4: Princess Shoes- //Confession... this was a Prime 911 moment for me this week, I just couldn't take the little ladies arguing over our ONE pair of Cinderella shoes...
March is JUST around the corner, which means the Snyder family is heading to the beach and we seriously can't wait! I always like to grab a few new summer basics for the girls before heading on Spring Break and just happened to be on a quick errand at Walmart when I spotted some of the cutest spring outfits for the girls. The two pack of cotton dresses is such an amazing deal and would be adorable paired with a denim jacket and sneakers until it gets a bit warmer in Chicago. And can we talk about how adorable that trio of swimsuits are! Seriously, Walmart takes the cake with adorable and affordable Spring fashion for our little ladies.
Being a stay at home Mom to three little ladies ages 6, 4 and almost 2, means the hours of 4:00- 7:00 are often a blur and dinner time can quickly become quite a circus! After having Isla, I decided I need to put together some simple systems that would allow us to make quick, healthy and most important, delicious recipes throughout the week.
Now, true confession, some weeks I feel like I absolutely hit meal planning OUT OF THE PARK, while other weeks it's breakfast for dinner and one of our favorite Trader Joe's freezer section meals (I'm looking at your orange chicken). But, I do feel like I have a few quick and easy tips that will take some of the stress of meal planning away and dare I say, even make you enjoy cooking for your family!
Tis' the season for all things organizing and as a lover of all things organizing, it's my favorite time of year! There is something about the first month of the year, it truly feels like a fresh start and the perfect opportunity to implement some new systems in our home. I also feel that as the little ladies continue to grow, we need to tweak how we do a few things around here! From the way we organize their toys, to how we organize their snacks, it's time to make a few changes and I can't wait to share along the way!
To begin- here are some of my favorite storage options, throughout the month I will be sharing different spaces in our home and what/how I organize them. If you're following along, you will see ALL of these items used throughout our home.
