SCENES FROM FATHERS DAY

We loved celebrating Father's Day with all of the special fathers in our lives. We had a delicious meal with my family and Jon's family. I have always loved that our families get along so well and feel like one big happy family when we are all together. It's such a special time when we can all get together! -- Jon is such a natural father and it's amazing watching him father Soren. Soren is crazy about Jon and so am I. ;)

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

These pictures are so special to me for many reasons. First of all, we hardly ever get snow in Atlanta. Soren was born on a snow day and two weeks later (yesterday) we got to enjoy more snow together in our cozy neighborhood. :) As well, these are our first photos together as a family of three. We are just completely enraptured by Soren and love learning about him and getting to know him more everyday. :) Feeling pretty blessed to be celebrating Valentine's Day with my two favorite guys!

Wishing you a very happy Valentine's day from the Wallace family!! xoxo

FAVORITE BLOG HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2013

One of my favorite things about blogging is being able to look back on the year and see all of the wonderful memories captured. 2013 was such a special, challenging, and emotional year. I'm so thankful for every part of it, including the valleys and difficult times. Take a look at some of the highlights!!

1// Jenny and I took a trip to California to attend Blogshop Video, visit our best friend, Anica, and stop by Disney! We had so much fun touring LA and enjoying a wonderful trip to kick off 2013.

2// The Makers Summit was one of our favorite conferences of the year. We love every chance we get to make a weekend trip to Greenville, SC.

3// Made an exciting announcement on this day and decided to quit my 9-5 job and work full-time with Maiedae! It was such a blessing when Jenny was able to join just a few months later. Maiedae grew SO  much in 2013!

4// I always enjoyed writing for my Living Well series. This was one of my favorite posts about emotions and how to express them in a healthy way.

5// One of my first YouTube videos! I loved developing my YouTube Channel in 2013 and I can't wait to see how it grows in 2014!

6// A fun post about 5 things you might not know about me.

7// Another video featuring some of my favorite products from one of my favorite companies, Lush!

8// In order to get ourselves ready for both being full-time with Maiedae, we took a retreat to Savannah, GA for some serious planning time and LOTS of photos.

9// Jon and I love taking mini vacations, check out some of our tips for vacationing on a budget!

10// Celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary with some dear friends in Tennessee. Had such a relaxing time and ate lots of yummy food!

11// 2013 was the year we hosted the first annual Maiedae Mixer! The event was so successful and such an amazing experience! We can't wait to do the second one this year!!!

12// A little video about what's in my beauty travel bag.

13// Last year was the year of conferences! We loved attending Alt Summit in NYC, despite being in my first trimester and a little woozy!

14// The most exciting announcement of 2013! Jon I and found out we were pregnant and got to share our good news. It was one of my favorite moments of the year being able to share the news with Jon, family, friends and you.

15// Loved working with Minnetonka on this summer lookbook feature!

16// Hands down our favorite conference of the year! Made so many new friends and got to connect with tons of bloggers we met through blogging. SO much fun!

17// Along with the news of getting pregnant, Jon and I also became first-time homeowners! It's been such a great adventure and we've loved our home so much.

18// Shared with all of you a big trial and the diagnoses of my mom's cancer. However, I also got to share around Thanksgiving of 2013 that she was officially cancer-free and in remission! Despite the difficultly of going through this journey, God did SO MUCH good through all of it. Currently celebrating my mom's recent LAST chemo treatment. She is now focusing on recovering in order to be a first-time grand-mommy. :)

19// A few peeks at our new home shortly after moving in.

20// A reflection on slowing down time, being thankful and choosing joy.

21// Got to reveal our babies gender and name! So much fun! We can't wait to meet Soren in a few weeks! He's bound to make our 2014 the best year yet.

22// Master bedroom decorating progress! It felt so great to make a little headway with this room.

23// Had a wonderful Thanksgiving, Jon and I loved being able to host it at our new home with our family. It was such a special time and so wonderful to celebrate my mom's remission.

24// And finally, a simple post on a last minute, get-out-of-town trip with Jon. It was very much needed and so wonderful. I love living life with this man.

Bring it on 2014!!!

CAPTURED: GET OUT OF TOWN

Sometimes you have really bad days. Sometimes bad days happen a lot easier when your pregnancy hormones are raging and all technology is out to get you. ;) Friday was that type of day for me. I woke up feeling bleh-sad-weird-unmotived and as the day progressed little things kept building up and making it more and more BLEH.

Jon knew my day was not-so-hot and being the loving and sweet husband that he is, he surprised me by coming home early from work with my favorite drink from Sonic at hand. He's been so attentive and sweet during this pregnancy. It's been so wonderful to have him by my side, taking such great care of me. I love him SO freaking much!! We had talked about going out of town on Saturday, but in a spur of the moment decision, and after realizing it was much needed, we decided to take a late night drive to Greenville, SC, and stay in a hotel.

We spent the majority of the day on Saturday enjoy the downtown area. We went to the Holiday Indie Craft Parade, visited a few pop up shops and ate some delicious BBQ at a local restaurant. We had such a laid-back, restful time, it was exactly what I needed. It has seriously been an emotional roller-coaster of emotions during this third trimester! I am SO completely thankful for a mini trip away and for Jon. I couldn't have made it through the weekend in one piece without him. :)  

CAPTURED: THANKSGIVING

It was such an honor for Jon and me to host Thanksgiving at our place for the very first time. Usually Jon and I go out of town to celebrate Thanksgiving with his extended family and then celebrate with my family on the weekend, but due to some changes in our normal plans, we got to all gather together at our place for a wonderful meal.

We decided to use the "living room" that we are planning to convert into a dining room for our dinner. Since we didn't have enough tables and chairs we used six 2x4 fold out tables and extra folding chairs to make everything work. We used a roll of craft paper that we already had for a tabletop cover, our plates from West Elm, plants from around our yard for decoration, and we painted names above each plate. Since this room isn't wired for electricity, we decided to string bulb lights from the ceiling to give it an "al fresco" feel. I love having the lights up like this, it adds so much character to the room! -- Jon and I can't wait to invest in some tables and chairs to make this look more permanent.

This year's Thanksgiving was very special to us. It's so wonderful having our family together and sharing a delicious meal. I loved every minute. :)

CAPTURED: FAMILY MOMENTS

I so treasure family photos. Before my mom started her chemo treatment she wanted to make sure we got some good family photos taken. We set up a tripod in my parents' backyard last Sunday and snapped a few photos. These are so special and I'm so thankful to have them. :) I love these people!

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend, friends! I'm planning some home projects and date time with Jon this weekend. Also, I haven't been able to reply to all of the comments yet, but thank you all SO much for all of your sweet and supportive comments on my post about my mom the other day. It meant so much to me and was such a blessing. Thank you for being so encouraging and sharing some of your stories with me as well. Love all of you bunches. :)

TEXAS STYLE COUNCIL RECAP

Yesterday, Jenny and I returned from an amazing weekend in Austin attending the Texas Style Council. This was probably our all-time favorite conference of the year. We had so much fun networking, meeting new people, meeting friends in person, learning, and enjoying Texas. :) It started on Friday night. We were invited to attend a dinner hosted by Minnetonka. We got to meet a handful of other amazing bloggers that have worked with Minnetonka, got a peek at their new line of shoes, ate delicious food and mingled with some awesome ladies. You can get more details from our dinner over on Tieka's blog! After the dinner on Friday, we attended a clothing swap party hosted by Lulu's. It was hectic and awesome. Jenny and I each scored some great pieces that we're excited to wear. :)

Saturday and Sunday were filled to the brim with amazing classes taught by awesome bloggers. There were so many incredible sessions to choose from it was hard to pick! Saturday ended with an amazing dinner with some of my favorite ladies and a "Prom" party complete with a dance-off and superlative awards. Jenny and I were able to connect with a lot of great companies during that time and have fun with our new friends. Some of these blogging ladies sure can dance!! Sunday was the last day, but we ended it with an after party and more great conversations. It was so sad to leave on Monday, but we were so thankful to have the opportunity to attend the conference and connect with so many amazing people. I knew I liked a lot of the bloggers attending, but after meeting them, I just love them to pieces! What a supportive and encouraging community to be part of! Can't wait to go next year!!

Top photo credited to Tieka of Selective Potential 

CAPTURED: NEW YORK CITY .02

Thursday was a LONG day. We started the day early getting ready for the conference. We took the subway to the Martha Stewart Omnimedia Center and were greeting by handfuls of swag, an incredibly beautiful space, and breakfast! We started mingling, doing crafts right away, and getting our minds prepped for a day of speakers, learning, and fun. Everyone was seriously dressed so cute. I'm not usually a fan of people who run into my photos, but this day was an exception. Everyone looked adorable and so vibrant. You could tell all of the ladies were thrilled to be there. :)

The lovely Grace of Design*Sponge kicked off the conference with a keynote presentation. There were several panel discussions, eye opening ideas, AND an appearance from Martha Stewart herself! I should have recorded the reaction of the audience. It was incredible. At the end of the conference, we celebrated with a cocktail/candy bar party on the rooftop. The view was amazing! We met so many new friends and had SO much fun. Jenny and I headed out shortly after that to grab dinner near our apartment. I also had my first taxi experience! Whooo! We got burgers, gelato, and coffee. We also managed to snap a few outfit photos. New York has the best backdrops.

PHOTOS FROM THURSDAY:

See part one of my NYC photos here. :)

CAPTURED: NEW YORK CITY .01

Jenny and I had such an amazing time in New York. Looking back, it was such a whirlwind. We arrived on Wednesday and got to our beautiful apartment. Janee, Maddie, Jenny, and I decided to go with a vacation rental in East Village and loved it. Everything was white and bright and it was a darling space. We had so much fun rooming with our new friends. :) After grabbing some much needed pizza from around the corner, we started getting ready for our sponsored dinner. Jenny and I went to a dinner sponsored by Bing and catered by Sunday Supers. It was located in a somewhat suspicious building, but as soon as we hiked several floors of stairs and walked through a long hallway, we were taken to an absolutely stunning space worthy of a spread in Kinfolk magazine. It was gorgeous, I couldn't get enough of the lighting and spent the first 15 minutes shooting photos.

PHOTOS FROM WEDNESDAY:

I have a lot more photos from our ALT Conference day on Thursday and our exploring on Friday! I'm planning to share the rest throughout the week. :)