I BELIEVE IN NASHVILLE

Yesterday morning images started coming out of the famous mural here in Nashville that had been vandalized over night. Not just vandalized but completely ruined, from different news articles that I have read it appears to be covered with a "tar-like sealant that will need to be scraped off".  I don't want to share any images of the mural as it is now, because that's probably what the person who did this wants, but if you want to read the story you can find it, here.

This month marked the 5 year anniversary of the iconic mural and they were planning on having a celebration for it on the 25th of this month, according to their blog, the mural will be repainted and ready for the celebration, but it just saddens me to know that someone would do this to such beautiful artwork. Someone took their own personal time and talent to paint that mural and it was destroyed in a matter of seconds by someone who has no appreciation, respect, or love for this town and that is just an absolute shame.

That mural is what we used to share the news on social media that Matthew accepted a job here in Nashville and that this city would become our new home. 

Tons of famous people, tourist, and Nashvillians have had their picture taken in front of this mural and I'm excited to see that they will repaint it very soon! 

Have you ever been to Nashville and had your picture taken in front of this mural? If you are planning a visit to Nashville soon check out this article and this article, they list all of the murals to see around downtown.

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I BELIEVE IN NASHVILLE

#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

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#THECOATSHOME : GUEST BEDROOM IDEAS

PRINTING BY PROXY | ETSY REVIEW

When we received these Tennessee coasters in the mail I about had a fit! They are do darn cute and my Tennessee loving self was overjoyed. The sweet ladies over at PxP Nashville even sent me an extra set. So you can bet I was over the moon. We plan to keep a couple in our guest bedroom upstairs since it is a "tri-star" themed room, and the others will find their home in our living room for all our our guests to see. We absolutely LOVE them!

You can buy this set HERE.

They are made out of tumbled marble and each one has cork material on the back to avoid scratching up your furniture.

You can buy this set HERE. Also, they offer Chattanooga and Knoxville coasters, too!

It's never too early to start thinking about Christmas (166 days!!) or someone's birthday and these would make the perfect present! Seriously, these are going on our list of gifts to get some of our friends because I know how much they will love having a set of their own!

Here is another design that I absolutely LOVE.

You can buy them HERE.

And if you are a UT fan then these are for you!

You can buy them HERE.

Go check all their other cute items below!

Etsy shop // Facebook // Instagram

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PRINTING BY PROXY | ETSY REVIEW

BEARS & PUPPIES

Yesterday I recapped about the first half of our long weekend trip to Gatlinburg and today I am going to share the second half....which includes bears and puppies!

Saturday after we left Ober Gatlingburg we decided to go back to the cabin and just take it easy, Matthew was still pretty tired from work that morning. We were getting out of the car fixing to go into our cabin when we heard someone yell and say "better lock your doors the bears will get in your car if you don't!" We never saw him clearly because of all the trees but it was our neighbor in the cabin close to us. He was standing on his balcony and said the bears are out. I immediately got excited and asked where they were and he told us to look under his balcony...

You can't see them all because some were behind trees or in them but there were 10 bears! I about died. I started snapping pictures and Matthew talked with our neighbor. The neighbor told us they have lived there for 8 years and this is the most active they have ever been. There were two mama bears and eight cubs. The cubs were playing around while the mama bears just laid around. At one point two cubs started growling at each other and "fighting" it was really fun to hear and watch. We stood there for a good 10 minutes watching them when all of a sudden I saw something out of the corner of my eye...

There was another cub sitting up on the hill behind a tree about 20 feet from us watching us. I couldn't get a good picture because it was hiding out behind the tree waiting for us to leave, and I wasn't getting any closer to it to get a picture. After we saw him we decided to go on in since he was so close lol. We both ran up to the balcony to watch them and that's when the cub that was so close decided to go to our car and try to get in. Matthew and I didn't realize how smart they are. He seriously went to every single door and pulled on the handle to try and get the door open and then went to the trunk and tried to raise it. We we so amused by watching him lol.  After he realized he wasn't getting in our car he just laid down in the yard lol

We watched them off and on for a good hour or so and more tried to get in the car and then a mama and two cubs crossed over our front porch to go up in the mountains. It was so interesting and fun to watch them, but we were a little hesitant to go outside to leave that night for dinner lol.

Sunday we decided to go to Flapjacks for breakfast and it was really good! We stopped in Cookeville on our way home to hangout with everyone again and to go to church. On our way to Cookeville we decided to stop in Knoxville and drive around the University of Tennessee's campus since I have never seen it. It is a very big campus compared to Tech's campus! We also decided to stop at a place I have heard about through multiple friends call Puppy Zone. You can go in there and play with the puppies, and of course buy one if you want to. 

Matthew fell IN LOVE with this little guy, a shih poo. He just want to lay on and be held by Matthew, and every time he put him down he would jump back up on the side of the bed and wait for Matthew to hold him. It was THE cutest thing in the world, and my heart melted every time I looked at them. Unfortunately little man was about $1300 so we had to pass, but Matthew said if he would have been cheaper he wouldn't have been able to leave him...

We both thought this little one was cute, but definitely agreed that if we had to choose one it would have been Matthew's little buddy.

My favorite picture of the two lol

Every since we left Puppy Zone Matthew has been researching all about shih poo's and looking up different breeders in and around Nashville while I am trying my VERY best to convince Matthew that it would be better to wait until we are in a house to get one. 

It's really hard to do that when he keeps sending these kind of messages to me throughout the day...

and then he started adding little messages "from the puppy" to them

STRAIGHT UP KILLIN' ME Y'ALL.

#staystrongshelby 

And yes, my husband's name in my phone has a smiley face beside it. It has been that way since we started talking back in spring of 2010 and I don't think I'll ever be able to change it. :)

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BEARS & PUPPIES

THE MOUNTAINS ARE CALLING AND I MUST GO

And to the mountains we went. Matthew had to work at a client in Knoxville for a few hours on Saturday morning and so we decided to make a long weekend trip to the mountains out of it. We both took off Friday and headed out pretty early. I haven't downloaded all my pictures/videos yet to share with y'all, but if you are following me on Snapchat (shelbycoats) or Instagram (mrsshelbycoats) then you have already been able to see a little bit of what our weekend consisted of!

Happy Monday!

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THE MOUNTAINS ARE CALLING AND I MUST GO

The Sweetest Day: First Looks

Matthew and I decided not to do a first look and I am so glad. I was on the fence about it most of our engagement but we both decided that we wanted to see each other for the first time when those beautiful double doors opened up and walked down the aisle to him. We both love our decision and are so thankful for it.

I decided to do a first look with my girls and my dad. My sister and best friend, Sarah, are the only bridesmaids that saw me in my dress before our wedding day, but my hair wasn't fixed or anything. After my girls got their dresses on we sent them all out in the hallway while I slipped into mine and my mom started the long process of buttoning up my dress. There were so many buttons, but I loved them.

And then we told the girls to come in, and that's when it hit me. I was in MY wedding dress on OUR wedding day with all my favorite girls. And all the tears started rolling, and rolling, and rolling....

And then we all started laughing because we were crying and touched up our makeup, ha!

and then it came time to do the first look with my dad. I didn't let him see my dress or any pictures of it the whole time we were engaged and that was almost as hard as keeping it from Matthew!! Daddy had no idea what it even looked like. It was so, so sweet.

 and cue the tears, again!

Daddy loved my dress and said he couldn't imagine me in any other dress. BLESS HIS HEART. I can't even look at these pictures without crying. I am a daddy's girl through and through, so this was such a special moment and I will forever be thankful we had a first look. 

Bride's, even if you are doing a first look with your soon-to-be husband, do one with your dad. You will NOT regret it! 

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The Sweetest Day: First Looks

The Sweetest Day: Getting Ready

Happy Monday! I am so excited to share our wedding day with you all, now that we have our wedding pictures back. Whenever I think of our wedding day I just think of how sweet it was. How sweet all my girls were. How sweet all of our guys were. How sweet all our family and friends were. How sweet my handsome groom was (and still is!).

And now I can finally give you a peek into our sweet day. 

 I could not have imagined spending the night with anyone else on my last "single girl" night than with my two best friends and sister. They have been there since the third grade. I still tear up thinking about how sweet it was. We talked, laughed, cried, danced and had the best last "sleepover"

Surprisingly I slept so well the night before our big day. I was so happy, excited, exhausted, and anxious I think it just all caught up with me. I'm not complaining though, I woke up refreshed and ready to get our day started! I also woke up to my best friend jumping on me singing "IT'S YOUR WEDDING DAY, WAKE UP, YOU'RE GETTING MARRIED TODAY!!" My other best friend joined in and we all started laughing and dancing around like we were in high school again. 

My sister and I headed off to the church to meet with my other bridesmaids and to start getting ready. My two best friends headed to sonic to get everyone drinks! I don't remember our conversation on the way to the church, I remember my sister just talking away, but I got really nervous/anxious for the day so I just started praying. Praying for our day, praying that my nerves would calm down, praying for all of our family and friends that were traveling to share our day with us, praying that we would put God first the whole day and that he would be glorified in everything we did that day and every day after that. By the time we pulled into the church parking lot and I saw a few of my other bridesmaids I was at ease and ready to get our day started! Other than that short 10 min car ride my nerves were calm the rest of the day. I truly felt at ease and enjoyed every second of our sweet day, and I will forever be SO thankful for that!

My hair dresser was right on time and we got started on my hair. She went above and beyond with what I was wanting and was such a joy to be around. I got so many compliments on my hair and honestly didn't want to take it down at the end of our day. If you are in the Cookeville area and you are needing someone to do your hair, email me! Seriously, she is the sweetest lady and is so talented.

She watched me the whole time I did my makeup, and of course needed her's done too!

I had someone booked to do my makeup but cancelled a few weeks before the wedding. I'm extremely picky when it comes to my makeup and want it a certain way so I decided I would just do it myself. I didn't want a ton on but enough to notice in pictures. Really the only thing different from my normal everyday makeup was that I wore fake eyelashes and lipstick!

I was on the fence about the monogrammed button downs or the floral robes for me and my girls. The prices on those things are OUTRAGEOUS and I have yet to see a girl walking around town in a monogrammed button down. I checked tons and tons of different places/websites to get prices but could never justify paying those amounts. I knew I wanted us to all match in some way and finally thought of these V-necks from Old Navy. I probably have one in every color and it's my go to comfy shirt. I knew the necks were deep enough so we could take them off without messing our hair up and would still look cute for pictures. So I gave all my girls one in their bags I got them. I LOVE how the pictures turned out with them and know they will wear them again. And these were around $4 a piece ;)

 This picture cracks me up every time I look at it! I loved getting to see these pictures and listening to Matthew tell me all the funny things that happened in their dressing room.

And then it was time for my girls to get their dresses on!

I did a first look with my girls and with my dad, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow for those pictures. It was a HUGE ball of emotions mixed with love and laughter. One of the many sweet moments from our day. Also, I still can't believe I just blogged about OUR wedding :)

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The Sweetest Day: Getting Ready