Friday, July 29, 2016

FRIDAY NO. 26

Happy Friday, friends! I am so happy that it is almost the weekend. This week has actually flown by for me and I'm not complaining one bit. I am also in a bit of shock that this is the last Friday of July. Summer is flying by, and although I LOVE summer weather and just about everything summer has to offer, I am getting the fall/Christmas decorating itch. If you follow me on Pinterest then you already know that lol.

This afternoon my two youngest sisters are coming over and staying the night for the first time at our new house, and I'm very excited! I have been getting the cutest texts from them all week with a countdown to today and about how excited they are. Samantha is going into the 7th grade and Macy is starting middle school this year!! I honestly can't believe how old they are getting, and whenever Facebook or TimeHop shares a memory from when they were little it makes me want to cry for hours lol. I mean just look at these doll babies....
and now they are all grown up (insert crying emoji...)
And that's my other younger sister, Mady, she blogs here! She came over this past Wednesday and went to church with us. We made a Sonic run after that and then we watched Friends until it was time for bed lol. I just love my sisters!!


It has been a very stormy week here in Nashville. It has stormed/rained at least once each day this week, and it has brought the temperatures down a bit! I am hoping the rain and storms hold off this weekend though so we can make it to the pool tomorrow and so that I can pull some weeds!!

I have finally found an iced coffee recipe that I like and it is actually not that bad for you! I'll share more on that next week, but just know, I've been enjoying one every morning this week!
Monday night I was just exhausted and wanted to relax so I decided to take a hot bath....and then I remembered how much I love them. I am going to start taking full advantage of our big soaker tub, it's the best way to relax right before bed!

We have downloaded a new app that we listen to each night as we are falling asleep, and we are loving it! It is called Relax Melodies, and you can listen to just about any sound that you can imagine. What we love about it is that you can listen to different sounds at the same time. So we listen to a thunderstorm and hard rain pretty much every night. Matthew's dad got us a small bluetooth speaker a few weeks ago and we listen to it on that every night, it's the best, and the app is free!

Speaking of sleeping well, I have been looking into some oils to diffuse while we are sleeping to help us sleep better, and there are SO many! I am also looking for some oils that help with headaches. I have zero knowledge on any oils so if you know of some that are good for those two things and don't break the bank, please let me know! 

Blog Posts From This Week:

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

#THECOATSHOME : GUEST BEDROOM IDEAS

I started this little series for our home a few months ago, and I am excited to add updates and ideas to it over time. 
As soon as we bought our house my mind was racing with decorating ideas and I was using Pinterest more than ever before. We are very lucky and have three guest bedrooms. We love the extra space and absolutely love being able to open up our home and host people. With those three guest bedrooms we have decided to give each room a theme. I love decorating and finding new creative ideas, so this was right up my alley.

We decided on three different themes and now we are slowly working on them! This isn't a project we want finished next week, we would love that, but it's just not necessary. This will be something we do over the years and when we find good deals on things. I want to find the perfect (& cutest) pieces, so this doesn't need to be rushed. So what are the themes?

- Guest bedroom # 1: My office.
This room will be more of a "girly" room as Matthew likes to call it lol. I guess that's fitting because my Pinterest board for this room is called "Girl Cave" ;) 
In this room we already have my desk, computer and new computer chair, as well as a twin bed. You can see a little glimpse of the room as it is right now, here.
All pictures can be found here.

- Guest bedroom #2: Coastal Theme.
I have somehow talked Matthew into decorating our second guest bedroom with all things coastal. At first he was 100% against it, but I kept talking about it and showed him some ideas that I have found and now he is on board. Woo hoo! It's been fun looking at different ideas together and finding a few projects we both could do for this room. This guest bedroom is connected to our guest bathroom, so we'll add a few coastal touches in there as well. Also, over the years we'll pick up shells and sand from our trips to bring back for this room. I already have some sand from our honeymoon in Mexico that will go in there. I'm so excited!
All pictures can be found here

- Guest bedroom #3: Tri-Star Theme.
We had this room planned out before we even moved into our house. Born and raised in Tennessee, I have a lot of pride for our state, and I may or may not be in love with everything tri-star. Matthew is a big fan of it, too, and was actually the one to come up with this theme. There are so many cute ideas and pieces on Etsy, Pinterest, and of course, local shops in and around Nashville. We plan on adding a wood pallet wall in there one day and it will match perfectly with our new furniture we bought for that room. We also plan on adding small pieces from Murfreesboro, Cookeville, Johnson City, and Chattanooga...since we lived in Murfreesboro and Cookeville, and Matthew's brothers are in Johnson City and Chattanooga.

I am really excited to watch these rooms evolve over the years, and all the different pieces we'll find for each room. If you have any ideas for these rooms, send them my way! To see any posts about our home on social media search the hashtag, #TheCoatsHome

More posts from this series:
#TheCoatsHome: Living Room Ideas
#TheCoatsHome : New Furniture

Monday, July 25, 2016

WEEKENDING

Happy Monday, friends! These weekend recap posts are some of my favorite. I love documenting the big things that happen in our life, but I also love documenting the smaller things. It's fun looking back and seeing what all we did, where we went, and who we spent time with. So let's get to it!


Friday night as soon as I got off I headed to Murfreesboro. Matthew was going to a business networking event in Nashville with his dad, but we decided to stay in Murfreesboro Friday night to see our family and so that we could have our anniversary pictures made Saturday morning. I made a stop by Target to pick up a new pair of sandals, because my favorite pair that I have worn for the past year and a half were about to bite the dust. Well it was perfect timing, because they were clearancing all their summer shoes to make room for the new fall line. They had been picked over a lot, but I was able to score some incredible deals. I even used the cartwheel app and got an extra 20% off of the clearance price. I got a pair of sandals for as low as $6. I love a good sale!! After that I met my family at Pizza Hut for dinner, and then my sister and I made a stop by Essex. Matthew and I found the cutest end tables at the Essex in our town but they were both damaged pretty badly. We had our best friends check the Essex in Cookeville and they picked one up for us, and then Friday night I found one!! So now we have end tables for one of our guest bedrooms! Woo hoo!
Here is the picture of the two that were damaged, it shows their color really well here. They are a light blue.
And here is the one I got Friday night! It looks really dark but it was just the lighting.

Saturday morning Matthew's dad made some delicious french toast and then we headed off to have our 1 year anniversary pictures taken. We were hoping to have them taken early in an effort to beat the heat, but it was still pretty hot. Thankfully the place we were having them taken at was very shaded. Here is a sneak peak! I can't wait to see the rest of them!!!!

After our pictures we went back to Matthew's parents house for a little bit and then headed to my parents house. While we were there my sister gave us a few gifts from her Disney World trip a few weeks ago. She got me a really cute initial necklace, and then got us a Disney magnet and these adorable Mickey and Minnie Mouse mugs for our coffee bar. I forgot to take a picture of them, but they are adorable!! We got to see my parent's puppy, Ellie and play with her for a little bit. She is getting bigger and probably weighs around 3lbs now...so cute!! I also got to see my dad's flowers while we were there!! They are looking so good and I am so jealous of his green thumb.

After visiting with them for awhile we headed back home and picked up around the house and got our guest bedrooms ready, because Nathan, Ethan and Rachel were coming over to stay with us! We decided to all meet at Bellacino's for dinner, because Matthew has been craving it since we went on our anniversary weekend lol and to go to a movie after. We saw Central Intelligence and it was absolutely HILARIOUS. It's all about an accountant saving the day so you know Matthew was excited to see it lol, and any movie with Kevin Hart in it is bound to be a funny one. I'm pretty sure we'll watch it again once it's out on video, because it's that funny. After the movie we all came back to the house and they guys played Xbox and Rachel and I hung out and watched them goof off until it was time for bed. 

Sunday we went to church and then to Demo's for lunch. After lunch we all came back to the house and Rachel and I took a nap while they guys played more Xbox and then we all started watching a documentary on Rich Froning. He is "The Fittest Man In History" and is actually from Cookeville and still currently lives there. When he won the CrossFit games Cookeville had a huge welcome home parade for him. We used to see him and his friends running on Tech's track sometimes when we lived in Cookeville.

Here is a picture of him and his wife.
He also lives in Rachel's neighborhood right now, which is really cool lol, but he and his wife are building a house so will be moving soon. The last time we were in Cookeville I may or may not have had Matthew drive by their house so I could see it lol. I have been following his wife on Instagram for a few years, and she recently opened up a clothing store in Cookeville. So fun! Anyways, we stopped the movie and went to church Sunday night and then tried a new Mexican restaurant in our town before heading back to the house to watch the rest of the Rich Froning movie lol. It was a good movie and it was interesting to see all about the behind the scenes stuff.

Also this weekend I snapped a few pictures of our flowers and wanted to share/give an update on them! In this post I shared about the black planters we got at Target, and in this post I shared about the flowers we got to put in them- red petunias and hosta plants. Well, they are doing really well (so far) and I love seeing the red petunias overflowing each time I pull up in our driveway!
Here is another picture of them from a little bit further away, see what I mean about them overflowing?? I love it!

Another thing, a couple of weeks ago Matthew and my dad pulled up the two bushes that were in front of the house next to our sidewalk when we moved in. I trimmed them a couple of months ago, but was still just not a big fan of them. I love how it looks now! 
 Here is the before and after. 100% better!!

Friday, July 22, 2016

FRIDAY NO. 25 | ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Today's "Friday No" is going to recap how we celebrated our anniversary. I promise this will be my last post on our anniversary, I know y'all are probably over it, but I couldn't move on without sharing how we celebrated!

We had thrown the idea of going somewhere for the weekend since we took Monday (our actual anniversary) and Tuesday off. At first we talked about Chattanooga and then just decided to stay home, but then we thought about Cookeville, where we got married, and just couldn't think of anywhere else we wanted to celebrate our anniversary. We have been on the go so much and really just wanted a long weekend to relax and enjoy each other's company. We didn't want to sight see and go on any tours. We literally just wanted to relax and do whatever we felt like doing. And that is exactly what we did!

Saturday morning I picked up Matthew's anniversary present and then gave it to him, because we are both really impatient and I was too excited to wait until Monday lol. We spent the rest of the day watching T.V, napping, doing some stuff around the house and more T.V. and napping. It was great and I honestly can't remember having a day like that since 2015.  We did venture out to Golden Corral for dinner and decided over dinner that we should go to Cookeville that night instead of Sunday afternoon.That way we could go to church there at our old church and see all of our friends, that we miss so much. So we ran back home and packed our bags and headed to Cookeville. We are so glad we did! It was great seeing everyone and getting to catch up. Sunday morning we even sang my absolute favorite hymn, The Greatest Command. During our wedding ceremony we had everyone sing it and I still can't make it all the way through singing it now without getting choked up. So when the song leader, Marc, who lead it at our wedding ceremony, started it Sunday morning I about lost it. I told Matthew that was one of the best anniversary gifts.

We stayed with our best friends older brother and wife, Brandon and Sara, since that's where our other best friend, Rachel, lives too. We are so thankful they let us stay with them and enjoyed our time visiting with them.

After church Sunday we went to one of our Cookeville favorites, El Tap. 

Then we all went back to their house and lounged around all afternoon until time for church that night. Rachel and I did get out for a bit to make a run to the store while Matthew and Ethan played Xbox. At one point we all dozed off while watching Netflix.  Matthew was obsessed with Brandon and Sara's dog, Mila. She laid with us some Sunday morning before we got up and ready, and she and Matthew took a nap together Sunday afternoon lol.

Sunday night after church we ate at Bellacino's and completely forgot how good their pizza is! Thankfully we have one that is about 15 minutes from our house. Later Sunday night we decided to go to Sno Shack. It's a fairly new place in Cookeville and I have heard so many good things about it, so I was excited to try it out. Well, it exceeded my expectations and I am already wanting to go back.
I got the peaches and cream with extra cream and Matthew got the cookie dough cream with extra cream. We thought cookie dough shaved ice sounded weird, but Matthew was eager to try it, thankfully he liked it lol but we tried it and didn't care for it. I think they just use butterscotch flavoring and call it cookie dough, because that's exactly what it tasted like! 
 There were a TON of flavors to choose from.
I think they are open year round so I am excited to try some other flavors next time we are up there. We drove around while eating our shaved ice and saw some of our favorites and then ended up at the SOC house. They are making a lot of changes to it and it's looking really good. It's a little bittersweet going there now that it has changes so much. We basically spent every night there after work and classes until it was time to go to our apartments and sleep. The SOC house will always be one of my favorite places, and I can't wait to take our kids there one day on their college tour and show them where their mom and dad used to hangout while they lived in Cookeville...oh wait, our kids might not want to go to Tech one day? Just kidding, of course they will ;) 

We headed back to Brandon and Sara's house and Brandon had started a fire for us to sit around. We all sat around and talked for the longest time. Before I knew it, it was after midnight! We all headed to bed soon after that.

Monday we woke up and went to Chick-fil-A for breakfast. After breakfast we went to Essex. If you have never heard of Essex before, it is a bargin hunt store and we love it. So much we used to go every Thursday while we lived in Cookeville, it eventually became our Thrifty Thursday routine each week and truthfully, we miss it! After Essex we went to our wedding venue to make some pictures!

The white brick and those black double doors will always make me extremely happy. It was such a blessing being back at our wedding venue on our actual anniversary, so special and I loved it!
Funny story about that frame...I put our wedding picture in it and then put the frame in our trunk when we were packing to go to Cookeville. I left it in the trunk when we got there Saturday night since we weren't making the pictures until Monday. Well Monday when I got the frame out of the trunk the back fell off. I tried putting the picture, glass and backing back in the frame and then I realized that the frame had gotten so hot in my trunk that it was melted and wouldn't stay together lol so we are holding the frame together in these pictures!! 


Monday afternoon Matthew and I had a couples massage scheduled, so we headed to that. We found a place in Algood that was reasonably priced so we decided to give it a shot. The reviews were good and it looked like a clean place, but we were still a little skeptical lol. I am happy to report that it turned out just fine and we both really enjoyed our massages. 
After our massage they had chocolate covered strawberries and waters ready for us to go. 

After our massages we were starving and ready for lunch. So we headed to Sakura, another Cookeville favorite, to pick up lunch. We got Ethan and Rachel's lunch too and headed to the SOC house to eat lunch with them. We hung out there for a bit before we headed home. Leaving Cookeville this time was a bit harder on the both of us. I choked back tears and Matthew talked about how fun it would be to still live there. I don't know if I have ever said this on here (kidding, I've said it a million times) before but Cookeville is our absolute favorite place. I am 100% positive that if our commutes to work wouldn't be so bad we would pack our bags and move tomorrow. The pace of life there is just so much slower and we LOVE everything about the town. 

We decided to rent some Redbox movies Monday night and stay in. We chose to go to our favorite places in Cookeville over one fancy meal in Nashville and I am so happy with that decision!

Tuesday we woke up bright and early and both had dermatologist and dentist appointments, but not before we made another stop at Chick-fil-A for breakfast! After our appointments we ran some errands and then decided to go to lunch. We wanted to try something new so we looked up places around us that we haven't tried, and found a place out on the lake about 20 minutes from our house. So we went, and it was really good! Even though it felt like a 100 degrees we sat out on the deck because it had a ton of fans so we weren't terribly hot and could still eat. 
We really enjoyed it there and plan on going back.

After lunch we came back home and watched a movie and then I went to the eye doctor and Matthew went to the chiropractor. That night we just lounged around and went to bed fairly early since we had to go back to the real world the next morning!

I got Matthew a painting of our house for our anniversary! When we bought our house I really wanted to surprise him on closing day with a painting of it but the girl I had contacted about doing it was really expensive so I decided to just wait. Well our 1st anniversary was the perfect time, and I had another friend who paints and asked her and she was half the price! He absolutely loves it and I am so excited to get it framed soon. It will sit on our built-ins once we have them. 
She is absolutely incredible and the detailing of her work just blows my mind. She actually has an Etsy shop. Seriously, go look at her work right now. Girl is TALENTED.

We decided to do traditional gifts and the first year is paper. Isn't canvas close to paper? lol. We'll just act like it is. ;) My gift from Matthew is a photo book. He just showed me pictures of it because he knew I would want to help make it. I have been looking for a nice, heirloom worthy photo book and we found Artifact Uprising's photo books and I immediately knew that was the one. We have already started working on it and I can't wait to see the finished product!

We had the best long weekend together celebrating! So thankful for that husband of mine.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

A GLIMPSE AT OUR 1ST YEAR OF MARRIAGE




We honeymooned in Mexico for 7 days, where we relaxed and enjoyed some excursions!




 We took a weekend trip and went to Chattanooga to visit my BIL and to see his new house!

On Labor Day weekend we decided to give our dining room table a makeover.

We hosted our first event as a married couple at our apartment. We had a taco/game night with some of our good friends.


I gave an apartment/fall decor tour of our apartment.

Our best friend, Kathleen got married, and we celebrated all weekend long. This was also the first time we were in a wedding, and we were matron of honor and best man. We even got to walk down the aisle together (again ;) )



Two weeks later my BIL got married at Fall Creek Falls state park and it was beautiful! Matthew was in the wedding and I helped make pictures.

Matthew officially became a CPA. I surprised him with a small breakfast one morning before work and then we celebrated with dinner at one of his favorite places, Amerigos.


At the end of October we took a long weekend and went to Gatlinburg. Matthew had to work at a client in Knoxville that Saturday morning for a few hours so we decided to make a weekend trip out of it. This was our first "vacation" besides our honeymoon and we enjoyed every second of it!
Our cabin was adorable and perfect for the two of us. It was in the perfect location and had incredible views. We even saw a lot of bears!


We enjoyed a few morning car dates on the way to work when Matthew worked at a client near my office.

We made our first big purchase as a married couple...a new washer and dryer! 

We hosted Friendsgiving at our apartment and had a blast with everyone.

A couple of weeks later we celebrated our first married Thanksgiving!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we spent the whole day decorating for Christmas and watching Christmas movies.

We sent out our first Christmas cards as a married couple, and I was giddy every time we received a Christmas card in the mail!

I somehow convinced Matthew to have Christmas pictures taken.

Time was flying and a couple of weeks later we were celebrating our first married Christmas and enjoying every second of it.

And just as quickly as it arrived Christmas was gone and we said goodbye to our wedding year. We celebrated the new year by staying in and falling asleep before the ball dropped lol.

In early January we took a road trip to Johnson City to visit my BIL & SIL before they started classes.

During the end of the year and the first few days of the beginning of the year we were BUSY with the house buying process! We had a house under contract, were having inspections done and Matthew did a ton of research on everything. Here is our first picture in our house. It was the night of our inspection.

The night before we closed on our house we had our final walk through and then left to meet some friends for dinner. We left the walk through and I ended up getting into a wreck. A young girl hit me and totaled my car. Thankfully we neither of us were hurt!

The very next day we signed a million papers and we were finally homeowners!

We announced it on here and our social media accounts that same day. Friday, January 15th will always be a special day!

The Saturday after we closed on our house we spent the whole day DEEP cleaning our house. My family came over to help.

The following Monday Matthew left on a business trip for the week. I had spent the afternoons and nights after work packing away. We had a huge (huge for Tennesseans lol) snow storm that Friday and it brought Matthew home from his work trip early. We spent the whole weekend snowed in binge watching Netflix and packing up our apartment. We ended up getting 8 inches total!



Before we knew it, it was moving weekend. We spent the whole day Saturday moving things and watching our movers move stuff. Thankfully, unlike the previous weekend, it was a bit warmer and very sunny. 
Our second night in our house I got food poisoning and was up all night.

We went to plenty of Pred's games this past season and watched our fair share of the rest of them on TV. 

Two weeks later we moved the last box out of our apartment and turned in the key to 2413. There were tears shed on my end, but we were excited to get settled in our new homes. I wrote and ode to our apartment and still can't read it without tearing up.

We celebrated our first married Valentine's Day with dinner at a delicious steak house in Nashville, where I had the best steak I've ever had.
and Matthew made me breakfast in bed on Valentine's Day morning before church :)

We planned our 1 year anniversary trip...a cruise!

Celebrated Matthew's 24th birthday with family and friends!

Celebrated our first married Easter!

Hosted our first event in our new house! We grilled out and then all bundled up and went to The Sounds game for opening weekend.

We sat down one night and made our a list of places and restaurants we want to go to and try!

In early May we celebrated Cinco de Mayo with our group of friends!

Memorial Day Weekend we took a road trip to Johnson City to see my BIL & SIL again. We got a tour of campus and did our first Escape Room game.

That same weekend we bought the tools and wood to use for our farmhouse table that Matthew is building us! This was also the trip that we used the last of our wedding gift cards!

We bought new furniture to fill up the rest of our house, and LOVE it!


We hosted our 1st annual Summer Soiree at our house with all of our friends and had a lot of fun! We had a hot dog bar.

I went on a girls trip to Hilton Head and then when I got back we puppy sat my parents new puppy, Ellie, for a week!


We celebrated our first married 4th of July (bringing us to our last "first married holiday") in Murfreesboro with our families. We cooked out at my parents house and had Matthew's parents hosted a murder mystery dinner party!


We hosted a 4th of July themed cookout the weekend after July 4th at our house. Red, White & Blue BBQ!

I recapped each month of our marriage in posts that I called, "The Marriage Diaries." You can read all of them HERE.

Then before we knew it we were celebrating a whole year of marriage where we said our "I do's"

And just like that we have been married for a whole year! I still can't believe it, but I have loved every second of it with my handsome husband. I'm excited to see what all we'll do and where all we'll go in our second year of marriage. Marriage is the sweetest gift and I will forever be thankful to The Lord for it and for Matthew.