Blog - The Lilypad Cottage

February 26, 2021 By Kelly 10 Comments

Spring Clothes & Makeup – Friday Feels

Welcome to another Friday Feels where I share what I’m feeling this week. This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a small commission for purchases made through these links at no extra cost to you. Just click on the BOLD links.

It’s been a while since a good old-fashioned Friday Feels! The pool house project has been taking up all my time lately, but I do have a few fun finds to share!

The temps are in the 40’s this week (break out the shorts and flip flops Michigan!) and this “heatwave” has me thinking of spring fashion. The return to wearing real clothes is feeling closer, and I have a few pieces I’ve added to my closet in the last few weeks.

First up these cute sandals. They perfectly pair with jeans for early spring, but look adorable with shorts and casual dresses too. Plus they are under $35, and the nude color is so versatile.

I added this tank to my cart to qualify for free shipping (that gets me every time), and I love it! It’s great with leggings and sneakers, but stylish enough to throw on with jeans and a necklace too. I bought the olive color, but it comes in a few different colors. Here is the olive on me below with the cute sandals too.

Tank – Jeans – Sandals

Ok, so tank top weather is wishful thinking for us up north yet, but I found this cute springy cardigan to help me transition to spring. Cozy enough to wear now, but lightweight enough that it will work with denim shorts too. It comes in black and green and it’s under $20!

We have all seen the memes going around that the adorable Gen-Z kids are telling us we are old dorks if we side part our hair and don skinny jeans. I personally will not be letting go of my skinny jeans anytime soon, but I did just buy this cute pair of straight-leg jeans. They are a great color, comfortable, and manage to not look like frumpy mom jeans. I feel like they are the perfect pair of “dip your toe in the water” non-skinny jeans. I threw them on with the cozy sweater above so you could see the fit.

Sweater – Jeans – Shoes

I also snagged this pretty dress. It feels like pajamas, can be dressed up or down, and comes in a ton of different colors. Other bonuses for me, you can wear a real bra with it. The wrap across the front is suuuper flattering if you have had a kid or two, a chilidog or two…or both!

I’m almost out of my normal blush and bronzer palette. I’ve been wanting to try something new. This Benefit Cheek Party sampler pack is perfect to try out new colors, plus there is actually a ton of product in them! How much blush does one person actually use? These will last a long time, and I love all of the colors.

While I was at Ulta, I grabbed a refill on my favorite Buxom lipgloss, and I noticed they had this new Buxom Power-full Plump lip balm. With mask-wearing, I’ve been reaching for chapstick and lip balm more than lipgloss lately. I love that this one has a touch of color to it. I bought the pink color – Big O (ahem) and immediately ordered the Dolly Fever color too. It has that cool minty slightly plumping effect that Buxom is known for but in a subtle color chapstick form.

I haven’t had a manicure in over a year, and to be honest, it’s not my favorite thing to go sit and do. There already aren’t enough hours in the day, so I don’t want to drive somewhere to sit and get my nails done. I mentioned earlier this year that I love the new Olive and June nail polish kit which makes it so easy to paint your nails. Well, I recently tried out Red Aspen nail dashes and it’s even easier! I never thought I would be a press-on nail kind of girl, but these come in really pretty neutral colors. They have wild ones too if that’s more your style. I love that they come in a shorter length. They were super easy to put on, and 5 days later they are still going strong. You can use my link here to check them out for yourself! I think that’s all I have for you this week, happy weekend!

You can check out past Friday Feels here, for skin care and nail polish finds!

February 24, 2021 By Kelly 40 Comments

Coastal Pool House Bathroom

This may be the longest I’ve made you all wait for a before and after in the history of the blog! I’m so excited to FINALLY share our coastal pool house bathroom. I think we first started framing this project last March? I wouldn’t totally call it a complete “after” as I plan on adding more art, window treatments, plants, etc.. over the next few months. However, I couldn’t wait any longer to share.

First, let’s take a look back at where we started…

BEFORE-

Ahh yes, the picket fence bathroom stall complete with a pink toilet! The Mr. just found this photo we took the day we closed on the house.

We’ve made just a few changes…

COASTAL POOL HOUSE BATHROOM

AFTER-

It’s so exciting to have a real bathroom with walls and a door now! It will be even more exciting this summer when I have a pool full of kids, and no one has to run through the house to use the bathroom….or you know do the other alternative ;)

I started my bathroom design with this fun tile flooring from Mirth Studios. It’s meant to be used indoors or out, and has a nonslip coating on it – perfect for wet feet. Their tile comes in a zillion different colors and patterns. I’m so happy we used it in this space.

I really wanted to keep it light and bright in here so I stuck with my favorite white paint – Extra White by Sherwin Williams.

I added a few pops of color with these cute striped blue towels. The mix of pattern is fun with small-scale stripes vs. larger square tile flooring.

Also, I’ve had lots of questions on Instagram about these wall units. It’s called a mini-split unit, and it will heat and cool this space. There is a unit down here in the bathroom and upstairs in the bunk room as well.

They hook up to a unit on the outside kind of like an air conditioning unit. They are great for this space where we didn’t have the room for ductwork. I will say it’s not the most attractive thing but it works. Bonus – hanging the towels underneath allows them to dry lickety-split!

The white walls really allow this fun Etsy print to pop as well. Annnnnnnd now I can’t stop laughing looking at this because I totally hung it upside down hahaha! Let’s just pretend she is swimming upstream instead of diving? Oh my gosh, I’m losing my mind – I’ll have to swap that around. I may add some more art to this wall and make a little gallery down the road. I like to live with a space for a bit before finishing it completely.

If you remember back to this fall and the planning stage, I changed my mind about this vanity a million times. I finally settled on this wood-toned one so I could have a bit of fun with color out in the mudroom area. Sneak peek below…

I always think it’s fun to compare design boards with the finished product and this one is pretty close to what I envisioned!

I’m so happy I went with this wood vanity. It feels nice and light and airy in here. I still need to decide if I’m going to put a basket underneath it. As usual, I tried to stick with classic timeless choices as this is hopefully our forever home.

I liked the mix of the warm-aged brass fixtures with the cooler-toned counters and wood. I typically like to mix and match finishes. This is such a small space, and we already have the black door hardware in here, so I kept it all brass.

You all know how much I love my houseplants, but we are keeping this space at 60 degrees when not in use, to save energy. So I had to resort to this little faux plant for now.

The Mr. actually can control everything on his phone over here so he is able to bump the heat up if we know we are going to use the space on the weekend etc…

This summer I’m sure I will add a few real plants over here, that extra deep window sill is begging for a plant buddy or two.

There are still a lot of little touch-ups and things to fix over here, not to mention furniture and bedding needs to arrive, but it’s fun to look back and see how far we have come! Thanks for hanging in there with me on this project. It’s definitely not been the typical HGTV overnight makeover, but so worth the wait!

SOURCES:

Flooring

Vanity

Sconces

Wall Color – Extra White by Sherwin Williams

February 19, 2021 By Kelly 10 Comments

Honey Bacon Peppadew Pepper Pizza

Ok hear me out, I know Honey-Bacon-Peppadew-Pepper-Pizza sounds like an odd combo, but I promise it’s delicious! If you like a bit of sweetness with your heat this one is for you.

We have been trying our best to support our local restaurants whenever we can the last few months and this recipe is based on a pizza I love from a local restaurant (Seasonal Grille for you locals). I think they call it the Bee Sting Pizza? They had me sold at Peppadew peppers. If you haven’t had them they are cute red peppers that are slightly sweet but have a bit of kick to them. My father-in-law makes a really great appetizer where he stuffs them with goat cheese and they are sooo good! Come to think of it I should post that recipe too! But this is basically that appetizer on a pizza. Almost everything tastes better in pizza form, and this is no exception. Breakfast pizza? Yes! Taco pizza? Absolutely! BLT Pizza? 100 percent! Speaking of BLT pizza, I actually have a great BLT pizza recipe that is oooold on the blog, but totally delicious.

But this might be my new favorite combo. The creamy goat cheese, spicy peppers, salty bacon, and sweet honey are so good together.

The Mr. loves this Mikes’ Hot Honey on his (if you haven’t had this, it’s insanely good on fried chicken too), but I get enough of a kick from the peppers and prefer regular old honey.

I don’t include a pizza dough recipe here since I find the Trader Joe dough balls to be good as any fresh dough I make. You could use any dough recipe you like though. I like to pair this with a big salad for an easy weeknight meal.

Honey Bacon Peppadew Pepper Pizza with Goat Cheese

Save Print

Honey Bacon Peppadew Pizza

Recipe type: pizza

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Serves: 1

Honey Bacon Goat Cheese Peppadew Pepper pizza

Ingredients

1 pizza dough ball
4 oz mozzarella
4 oz garlic and herb goat cheese
4 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
⅓ C peppadew peppers chopped
¼ diced onion
dried oregano to taste
honey or hot honey to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425.
Stretch the dough out onto the pizza pan.
Top with mozzarella, goat cheese, bacon, peppers, and onion.
Sprinkle dried oregano over the top.
Bake at 15-20 minutes (depending on how "done" you like your pizza).
Drizzle with honey, slice, and enjoy!

Do you have any favorite unusual pizza toppings you like? The Mr. has by far the grossest pizza combo I’ve ever heard of, his fave – ham, pineapple, spicy pickles, and bbq sauce…it almost sounds like a pregnancy craving, but he swears by it… :)

February 15, 2021 By Kelly 32 Comments

Coastal Lake House Bedroom

I don’t mean to leave you all hanging at the pool house. I’m at the mercy of my UPS guy waiting for a few deliveries to arrive, but hopefully, I will share more soon! In the meantime, I’m thinking spring or trying to anyway, it’s currently snowing and 5 degrees as I type here in Michigan. I’ve been working on a little spring refresh in our bedroom.

Coastal Lake House Bedroom Decor

As most “little refreshes” start in our house, I swapped one thing and it all snowballed from there (give a mouse a cookie style). Our bedroom rug had some weird yellowing/fading on it, and just in general had seen better days. It had a good run at least, we’ve had it a few years. We tried flipping it around but, the fading was still obvious so it was time to move on.

I found this super soft and cozy knit rug from Serena and Lily. I know I said this was a spring refresh, but wow this has made our room so much cozier these last few freezing weeks of winter.

I’ve never been one to care about how soft a rug is because I like the look of jute. However, I have to say, getting out of bed in the morning is just a little bit easier with this underfoot.

The rug is where the snowball effect started. While I was adding the rug to the room I decided I wanted a little more texture in our bedding as well. I grabbed a new coverlet and shams to add to our bed. I’m not quite ready to give up on our flannel duvet cover (hello 5 degrees) but this waffle pattern blanket is the perfect lightweight addition to the foot of the bed. It will be great for warm summer nights as well.

I really wanted to keep the color palette sort of tone on tone, and soothing in here. I liked the idea of cozy texture vs bright color and I’m so happy with how relaxing it feels.

For a little pop of color, I added this long lumbar pillow from The Danielle Oakey Shop. Her pillows are gorgeous, and I’ve had my eye on this pretty blue color for a while.

The pillow prompted a little art swap in my house as well. The sailboat painting that was here was a little too teal with this subtle spring palette. Don’t worry, the painting is still a fave and found a new home in our entryway. Knowing me it will eventually work its way around the house and back to this spot again. I added this gorgeous print from Juniper Printshop for a change of pace.

Oh and I forgot we added the stools at the end of the bed too! I actually bought them at Christmas with a gift card I had, but I’m finally getting around to sharing them.

We used to have a large bench at the end of the bed here that felt a bit too large. After living without it for a while, it felt a little too empty. These compact stools were the perfect compromise. Not to mention they are great to pull over to the armchair to kick your feet up.

I think that’s it for our spring coastal lake house bedroom refresh. I can’t wait to see how pretty it looks with actual springtime sunshine, and colors outside instead of the every day blizzard we are currently experiencing. So ready to see blue water out those doors again!

SOURCES: Disclaimer – This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a small commission for purchases made through these links at no extra cost to you. Just click on the BOLD links.

Wall Color – Extra White by Sherwin Williams

Wall Color – Silver Strand by Sherwin Williams

Wood floor

Rug

Flannel Duvet Cover

Dresser – my great grandmothers

Chair – hand me down from my mom

February 9, 2021 By Kelly 14 Comments

Best Places to Buy Art Online

I shared a few of my art choices for the pool house recently, which prompted a few of you to ask about my fave places to find art online. I thought it would be fun to do a little round-up of all the art in our home and share a few of the best places to buy art online. With our white walls, fun art is my favorite way to add pops of color to our space. I also love to swap them around. Especially in winter, I tend to do a little art swap around the walls. It’s a great free way to change up your space while we anxiously await spring. I find art from a variety of places online. From following artists on Instagram to inexpensive print shops to Etsy – there are so many great places to buy art online.

Probably one of the least expensive and quick places I find art is in online print shops. My go-to shops are BFF Print Shop and Juniper Prints. This one is a fave in our wet bar in the basement.

I love this one from our fall living room too!

And, of course, this one kicked off the entire design for my daughter’s bedroom.

PRINT SHOP ART

SOURCES: Disclaimer – This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a small commission for purchases made through these links at no extra cost to you. Just click on the BOLD links.

Etsy and Society 6 are always a great place to find art online as well. Especially if you are looking for something specific. I searched “vintage swimming” to find the fun art for the pool house bathroom and mudroom. My son wanted a nautical vibe in his bathroom, so I was able to narrow my search down there too.

I have the vintage diving prints all framed and ready to hang up. I’m just waiting on a few little construction odds and ends to finish up before I break out the hammer and nails.

ETSY & SOCIETY 6

I love to support artists I follow on Instagram as well (I follow a lot!). It’s become such a great way for artists to display and sell their work.

I love Katherine Cordon’s work – @KatherineCorden.art on Instagram. She is a Michigan artist who really captures lake life perfectly here. I think I have 3 of her prints now? I’m sure I will be adding more!

This oversized canvas print from Deann Hebert (her Instagram is @DeAnnArt) was a birthday gift two years ago from the Mr. and I still love it so much (him too!). We even paired up together to give one away to my email subscribers last year which was so fun! It looks great above my flea market find table.

And this sailboat above our bed from Melissa Lyons is a long-time fave. She doesn’t have this exact one anymore, but she does sell a few similar pieces still.

FAVE ARTISTS

I recently bought these blue and white prints (#6 above) from Blakely Little (her Instagram is @BlakelyMade). They are actually part of a fun Valentine pack she has that comes with a pack of playing cards printed with her designs. I’m planning on hanging the prints up in the bunkhouse, and I think it will be so fun to keep the playing cards up there with our games too!

I’m sure I’m missing quite a few other pieces in our house, but these were just a few faves I rounded up today!

February 2, 2021 By Kelly 66 Comments

Pool House Flooring Update

Hey! I accidentally took a few weeks off here on the blog. The Mr. and I have been working our fingers to the bone on the pool house and we finished all the flooring! Apparently, I’m older than I used to be. Back in the day, I could DIY in the AM and blog the results at night. Now as we are getting closer to 40, I basically passed out as soon as my kids go to bed, hence the radio silence over here. The Mr. and I also sound like a bowl of Rice Krispies with all the snap crackling and popping our joints are doing – yikes! Thankfully our rusty DIY skills were still alive and well, despite not tackling a big project in a while.

Excuse the dust and dirt in all these quick iPhone photos. Everyone has been in and out with dirty boots and sawdust, so I need to wash everything yet. Also, we used satin paint on everything but in the iPhone photos, the glare makes it look glossy.

Pool House Flooring

It took us a long weekend and a few weeknights to get all the luxury vinyl plank flooring installed. It was a pretty easy job – just tedious. I had a lot of questions on Instagram about where we learned to do this. There are a bunch of great YouTube videos out there. Basically, if you can use a saw (which anyone can, I promise), you can do this. It is a floating floor, so it all just pops together with a little finagling and a rubber mallet and block. Side note: just be careful where you are swinging the rubber mallet while your partner holds the floor locked in. The Mr. came very close to giving me an accidental nose job a time or two. He spared my nose, but managed to hit his own fingers and has the blood blisters to prove it!

Don’t mind the painter’s tape on the floor – I’m trying to decide on couch size. I bought an 8×10 rug in here and I think I’m shooting for an 80-inch couch, which is what is taped out there.

I’m really happy with the flooring. I wanted something a little darker than the floors in our home to hide dirt, but still something light and coastal feeling. I had a lot of questions on how luxury vinyl plank compares to our engineered wood flooring. I think it looks great, even though I can tell it isn’t real wood. It looks beautiful and judging from the number of times we dropped tools on it while installing, it’s definitely indestructible. Plus it’s completely waterproof, which will be great with wet feet/towels from the pool.

We installed the flooring the short way vs. the long way like the boards used to go. It’s crazy how much wider this made the room look as it had a bit of a bowling alley vibe before.

Next up was tackling all the tiling. I started small with the backsplash while The Mr. finished off the LVP flooring. Again tiling is a totally doable DIY and YouTube videos are your friend. When we have tiled in the past, we have always rented a wet saw, but wow the rental price has jumped. It was actually only $15 more to just buy our own saw. Although after finishing 4 solid days of tiling we both vowed never to tile again. I’m sure once we can feel our knees again we will change our minds about that.

I’m still waiting on one more barstool to arrive for the snack bar.

The trickiest part about tiling is figuring out the math to pick a starting point. Luckily the Mr. was in charge there as we wanted everything to line up right with the countertop (we still need to caulk between the tile and countertop yet). Oh, and our countertops are in! Man, I really have been holding out on you. It feels like all of a sudden a thousand things happened in the course of 10 days. This little pseudo kitchen area is really coming together. The cabinet doors are being installed later this week as well!

Pool House Tile

Again these floors are filthy, I cannot wait to give everything a good scrubbing.

Once we had familiarized ourselves with tiling the backsplash, we tackled the mudroom and bathroom floors. I’ve never done a patterned tile like this and I’m glad we are both still alive to tell the tale. I can’t tell you how many times we would measure and mark the tiles to cut, only to realize we had flipped the tile around in the process and cut the wrong side off. Thankfully we always realized it before we got too far in the process and were able to take the tile up before our ineptitude was permanently memorialized for all to see. This floor was our Everest! We were so happy when we were done and the pattern was intact – phew! The shoe molding still needs to be installed if you notice the little gaps by the baseboards.

I have to say I’m in love with how it turned out! It’s just the right amount of fun and whimsy for a pool house space but with a classic feel that will age well. Don’t mind the photo frames below I was testing out which size will hide the pesky electrical box there.

Wow and I almost signed off there, but we haven’t even talked about the lights! The electrician installed all of the lighting fixtures this week and they are so fun. We used all smart switches so you can control the lights from anywhere and now the Mr. sits in bed flipping lights on and off from his phone like a maniac. What can I say? We are easily amused these days.

Charlie approves of any room that has a good napping spot, so this room is a dream for him. I was trying to determine if I wanted Euro shams or standard shams on the bed and he was my helper. We agreed Euro was the way to go.

Ok, NOW I think that’s everything! Wow, we are so close to being done over here. The plumber is coming next week, the trim guys need to add the shoe molding a few little touch-up things here and there and I can move stuff in after a good scrubbing! Well more stuff, you may notice I stuck the tv console in here, (so we could see what height to hang the tv) and the little storage cabinet in the mudroom too. Ok and the kitchen stools…I know it makes zero sense to be decorating a construction zone, but I can’t help myself. I’m pretty proud that I have refrained from hanging on art on the walls!

You can check out more of this project below –

Bunk Room Mood Board

Pool House Bathroom Plans

SOURCES: Disclaimer – This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a small commission for purchases made through these links at no extra cost to you. Just click on the BOLD links.

Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring

Wall color – Extra White by Sherwin Williams

Cabinet color – Blue Note by Benjamin Moore

Countertop – Quartz by Vicostone the color is Olympus White

Grey flush mount lights

Brass Sconces

Mattress

Counter Stools

January 12, 2021 By Kelly 10 Comments

Pool House Paint Update

When we last left off, the pool house was zooming right along. I’m happy to report we are still making progress over there!

All of the trim and paneling is finished. The painter has been here the last few weeks filling approximately eleventy billion nail holes.

The Mr. and I originally had planned on spraying the walls ourselves. However, once we realized the amount of caulking and prep work involved we quickly decided to gift each other a painter for Christmas. Best. Decision. Ever.

I don’t think we could have done all the beautiful trim work justice with our amateur painting skills. Here are a few peeks of how the painting is coming along!

Ahh, it’s so nice and bright up here. It’s starting to look like the space I envisioned!

It’s hard to see the cabinets behind the plastic, but here is a little peek of the blue.

This space on the lower level is only just primed, but it’s still looking so good.

The painter is hoping to finish up by the end of the week, and the countertops should be installed by then too! Then the Mr. and I are going to dust off our DIY skills (and our power tools) and get started on the flooring. I’m crossing my fingers that tiling is like riding a bike! :)

OH and I changed my mind (yet again) on the furniture in the mudroom area. I ended up ordering this green piece from Target for that staircase wall. The blue one I was considering would have made it too tight to get into the bathroom door there. This one should be perfect. I think it will look so cute with navy towels inside and baskets with sunscreen.

It feels like we are finally entering the home stretch! You can check out more of this project below –

Bunk Room Mood Board

Pool House Bathroom Plans

SOURCES: Disclaimer – This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a small commission for purchases made through these links at no extra cost to you. Just click on the BOLD links.

Wall Color – Extra White by Sherwin Williams

Cabinet Colors – Blue Note by Benjamin Moore

Basket

Green Cabinet – out of stock in this color right now but it comes in 2 other colors

Mirror – Target but sold out

Prints

Flooring

January 5, 2021 By Kelly 22 Comments

My fave 10 projects of 2020

Hey friends, and Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays. It was great to take a little time off here to hang out with my kiddos and the Mr. I’m sloooowly trying to get back into the swing of things, and I thought it would be fun to look back at my fave 10 projects from 2020. The past year was kind of one big blur, to be honest. When I went back through my blog I realized I actually did accomplish more than just lounging around in my sweatpants and baking :) So in no particular order, here are my fave 10 projects of 2020!

You can click on the bold words to check out each post if you want more photos (including before and after pics) or source info.

My son’s bathroom has been on my to-do list since we moved in a few years ago and I finally tackled it in early 2020. I hadn’t flexed my DIY skills in a while at that point, so planking and painting the walls was a fun project.

2. Since I had already dusted off my painting skills, I decided to move over to the wet bar cabinets. The blue was never the right shade for this space, and I love the fresh feeling of these putty colored cabinets.

3. Now that the cabinets were looking fresh, I was able to finally pull the rest of the basement family room together with new throw pillows and pops of color.

4. This summer my daughter and I decided it was time to switch up her almost Teen Bedroom (again), and it feels perfect for my almost 13 year old now.

5. Ahh summer… I’m already ready for you again! We are a long way off in Michigan, so let’s look back on the little upgrade our bedroom deck received. We spend as much time as possible out here, and it was so nice to finish this space off.

6. The kitchen got a few upgrades this year too! The painting bug bit me again when everything was shut down. I still love the fresh pop of navy in here, and the lights too!

7. The kitchen makeover spilled over into the breakfast nook with a larger table perfect for our growing kids. The round table and 3 chairs set up works so much better than the oval table with 2 chairs.

8. I think my fall living room was one of my most popular posts of the year. Now that Christmas is over, it looks like this again minus the pretty water out the window. The lake is totally frozen over and it’s a winter wonderland out there today.

9. Refreshing my parent’s home was another fun project I helped plan. And yes, I still need to share it all styled up! I keep waiting for a nice sunny day that I have time to go shoot it and the stars just haven’t aligned yet…the next sunny day we get, I’m there though so stay tuned!

10. Last but not least, my biggest project of the year was/is the pool house! We finally started and things are looking up. The painter is here this week and I’ll have a big ole update for you all on the blog next week. Can’t wait to share!

December 17, 2020 By Kelly 47 Comments

Merry Christmas

Well, somehow we have just about reached the end of this crazy year. My kiddos are finishing up school this week, and I’m going to take a few weeks off to spend time hanging out with them, whether they want to hang with me or not… :) I want to say a big thank you for spending a few minutes of your day reading my blog or chatting with me on Instagram. I love to share my ideas, projects, and recipes with you all, and I’m so thankful for this little community here! I still can’t believe that my little hobby has turned into a full-time job. I’ve had so many fun opportunities thanks to all of you for stopping by here year after year! The real MVP – ~~The Mr.~~ Charlie would also like special recognition of his many great contributions here on the blog.

The blog would not be a success without his superior photo bombing skills and vital assistance during brainstorming sessions.

He comes up with his best ideas while napping…

I normally post a little nighttime Christmas tour this week to wrap up the season, but since I didn’t really go all out this year, I thought I would just share a little camera roll dump instead. I also typically share our family Christmas card… yeah, didn’t get to that this year either… It feels very 2020!

The Mr. and I have been walking at night, partly for exercise and partly just as an attempt to stay sane and leave our house once a day. I snapped this shot of our house afterward last night. The Mr. couldn’t believe our children had every light on in the whole house (has he met them? I’m not sure they even know light switches also go down!), but I thought our house looked all warm and cozy.

Maybe because it was so freezing outside! The Mr. has outfitted us in the warmest walking gear complete with matching headlamps. I have to say I have been nice and toasty on our walks and the fresh air feels good. If you follow me on Instagram, you may be jealous of my full cat burglar outfit – I’ll link it below along with Dan’s heated vest he is obsessed with. The lake is starting to freeze, so pretty soon we may be able to take those walks on the ice which is always fun.

I will miss the sun shining on the water in the afternoon, but my kids are so excited to ice skate when it gets thick enough!

My three favorite guys hiking this past weekend. We are ready for some snow around here as it’s skipped us so far this winter.

While we are on the subject of the Mr. – I want to give him proper credit for snapping the above photo which turned out to be my most liked photo on social media this year. Well done sir!

Normally I’m ready to take my tree down right away, but I have to say I think I’m going to miss those twinkly lights this year.

Couldn’t resist snapping this cozy shot. And Charlie couldn’t resist the chance to cozy up with his favorite girl by the fire!

I think that’s all I have for you this year. I do want to take the time to invite you to my Church virtually if you are looking for a place to watch Christmas services. We have been missing gathering with our Church family, but our church Ada Bible has done such a great job with their online services every week, and I know they will have a fantastic Christmas service as well. You can check it out here – Ada Bible Online.

Wishing you all an extra safe and healthy Christmas and New Year – blessings to you and yours!

P.S. Linking our cold-weather walking gear for you below in case you want to be a toasty ninja too ;)

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a small commission for purchases made through these links at no extra cost to you. Just click on the BOLD links.

Fleece Lined Leggings

Balaclava Shirt

Fave walking shoes (we both have them)

Heated Vest

Head Lamps

December 14, 2020 By Kelly 8 Comments

Caramel Espresso Martini

If you hang around on Instagram with me (which I highly recommend because we have so much fun over there) you may have been enjoying the cocktails series the Mr. has hosting. He is my own cute personal bartender, but I like to share him with you all too! :) Basically, we are just trying to keep ourselves entertained over here in 2020 however we can. His latest concoction is this delicious Caramel Espresso Martini. It might just be my favorite cocktail to date!

It’s the perfect after-dinner cocktail to serve this holiday season. I highly recommend it as an accompaniment to any type of pie, or even on its own as a dessert.

The big key is to shake, shake, shake until you can’t feel your arm. You really want to get that yummy frothy bit going for the top like a latte or caramel macchiato.

If you aren’t a caramel fan you could swap the caramel for chocolate for a mocha vibe. Or stick with the classic vanilla vodka for just a hint of sweetness. We just use strong coffee since we don’t have a fancy espresso machine. If you have an espresso machine, one shot may be sufficient, depending on how strong you like your coffee. You can always add caramel directly to the cocktail shaker if you like your coffee sweeter. Think about how you take your coffee at home and adjust accordingly. The Mr. and I usually drink our coffee with just a splash of coconut milk, so we prefer a strong coffee flavor.

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Caramel Espresso Martini

Recipe type: Cocktail

Prep time: 5 mins

Total time: 5 mins

Serves: 1

Ingredients

2 shots of strong coffee cooled. If you use espresso 1 shot may be sufficient depending on how strong you like your coffee.
2 shots of salted caramel vodka (or vanilla vodka)
1 shot of Kahlua
caramel for drizzling (I use Ghirardelli caramel sauce you can find it by the hot fudge typically)
ice

Instructions

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice.
Add coffee, vodka, and Kahlua.
Shake vigorously until the mixture is frothy.
Drizzle caramel in a martini glass.
Pour martini into the glass.
Enjoy!

You can check out my other cocktail and recipe ideas on my recipe page. Cheers!

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