Spring & Summer Playlist

Morning! Something my husband and I like doing every couple of months is making a new playlist for us. Jeff uses Google Play on his phone, and he pays for "All Access" which is awesome and means you can listen to ANYTHING. You can download a whole album, or make a radio station (similar to how Pandora works), or you can create your own playlists. This is actually what we did for our wedding reception, and just had our own playlist going in the background, rather than having to worry about a DJ or asking a friend to pick random stuff. We got to pick exactly the songs we wanted, and put them in the order we wanted them too. It was perfect. 

And we've been listening to that playlist a lot since October, but we were ready for a new one for the spring and summer, so this baby was born last week. We listened to it on the way to the beach Sunday, and it was great! Now it's a little heavy on the country music, but I did try to add in a good mix of other stuff too. Just thought I'd share this with y'all, in case you'd like to use it as inspiration for your own spring and summer playlist!

 

• 19 You and Me - Dan & Shay
• Automatic - Miranda Lambert
• Beat of the Music - Brett Eldredge
• Best Day of My Life - American Authors
• Bottoms Up - Brantley Gilbert
• Chainsaw - The Band Perry
• Compass - Lady Antebellum
• Cop Car - Keith Urban
• Dark Horse - Katy Perry
• Don't Let Me Be Lonely - The Band Perry
• Done - The Band Perry
• Drink to That All Night - Jarrod Niemann
• Everything I Shouldn't Be Thinkin' About - Thompson Square
• Goodnight - Glorianna
• Groovy Little Summer Song - James otto
• Happy - Pharell
• Hey Brother - Avicii
• Island Song - Zac Brown Band
• Jump Right In - ZBB
• Keep Me In Mind - ZBB
• Not A Bad Thing - Justin Timberlake
• Play It Again - Luke Bryan
• Pompeii - Bastille
• Radio - Darrius Rucker
• Red Lights - Tiesto
• Rewind - Rascal Flatts
• Send Me On My Way - Rusted Root
• Slow Me Down - Sara Evans
• Song About A Girl - Eric Paslay
• Sunny & 75 - Joe Nichols
• Sweet Annie - ZBB
• Talk Dirty - Jason Derulo
• Team - Lorde
• That's My Kind of Night - Luke Bryan
• That's The Only Way I Know - Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Eric Church
• The Man, Aloe Blacc
• The Mona Lisa, Brad Paisley
• This Is How We Roll - Florida Georgia Line, Luke Bryan
• Timber - Pitt Bull
• Toes - ZBB
• Wagon Wheel - Darrius Rucker
• Wake Me Up - Avicii
• Whatever She's Got - David Nail
• Wild, Wild Love - Pitbull

I know no one technically asked to see the playlist I made, but maybe you'll enjoy it anyways. I know we are enjoying it already, and will for the next couple of months, until we decide to make a new one! I'm sure we'll also add some more songs along the way, because these kinds of things are never really final. Hope y'all have an okay Tuesday, and I'll be back tomorrow to share another wedding shower post :)

Sunny Love, 

Halie

Prim's First Beach Trip

Another couple of days just happened that were just too good to make me want to go back to work on a Monday morning... also, I just realized how weird that sentence sounded once I typed it out, but I'm too lazy to reword it or even change to a whole new sentence, so let's just roll with it, mmmkay? :) And let's just hop right into the weekend recap, where my brain has to work as little as possible...

Friday night, Jeff's youngest brother and his wife were in town from Texas, so we went over to my in-laws house for some quick pizza, and then they treated us all to a night at the movies! We saw "Noah," and we actually really liked it. Now, please hear me say this - it is NOT 100% scriptural. There are parts of the movie that are just blatantly wrong, or not the way the story happens in the Bible, but that happens a lot when Hollywood spins their take on a Bible story. However, it was still a really good movie.

Saturday, Jeff helped one of his coworkers move into a new house. So I stayed home to do all the little wifey duties around the house - laundry, dishes, straightened up a couple rooms, went grocery shopping, played with Prim and her rope, and did a few other things. Then I got to watch a couple episodes of Parenthood on Netflix before he got home. For dinner we walked to Chili's for dinner (we live less than a block away from one), and then Jeff fell asleep on the couch around 8:30 :) I put him to bed around 9:30, and I continued watching more Parenthood!

Sunday we decided to take Primrose to the beach for the first time! We decided to try out a new beach, so we drove about two and a half hours over to Santa Rosa Beach, which is close to Destin. We did end up driving around Destin a bit, and had a late lunch there at The Shrimp Basket. Then we went back east a tiny bit to Santa Rosa Beach to enjoy the sand and sun for a while. The beach was gorgeous, but we decided we still like our usual spot at St. George Island best. It was good to explore a new place though!

The skies were blue and clear, and the water was absolutely gorgeous - but it's still freezing! I walked in the waves a tiny bit, but barely let it get up to my ankles. Mostly we just sat in our chairs enjoying the great outdoors, and laughing at Primrose. She was so funny, because she really just wanted to sit in our laps, even though we brought her little bed for her to sit on.

Well, it turns out, she HAD to sit in our laps anyways, because Walton County requires a permit to have your dog on the beach, or you get a $100 fine! Well, the Sheriff that came to talk to Jeff was feeling nice I guess, and told us that as long as we kept her in our laps, we wouldn't have to leave, or get fined. So she sat in our laps for the last hour, which she loved of course anyways :)

Everything was fine in the end, but I guess we'll have to check to make sure doggies are allowed on the beach next time we go somewhere. Oopsies! At least that Sheriff was feeling generous yesterday, right? It was kind of chilly with the wind blowing like crazy, so we finally packed up and got the car all loaded up again.

We stopped at Wendy's on the way home and fed Primrose some nuggets for dinner, since we forgot to bring some food or treats. And I'm sure she didn't mind, because she devoured those nuggets! But since we ate lunch so late, we just waited till we got back to Tally to grab some Chinese on the way home to share. And that was so yummy. We unpacked, gave Prim a bath, showered, and then crawled in bed pretty early after a long, fun day.

It was a great weekend, and I'm glad spring and summer are finally on their way here! It's not completely hot yet, and that's good for now, but I'll be so glad once it's full-blown summer and we can spend the whole day soaking up the sun and just enjoying life in Florida! I love it here :)

Sunny Love,
Halie

High Five for Friday: Week 3

It's Friday morning now, and I'm just clinging to the hope that work flies by today, because as usual, I'm ready for the weekend! (Not like there's ever a Friday that doesn't apply, but still...) This past Monday I didn't feel like writing a post, so I didn't recap my weekend. And since not too much happened this past week, today's High Five For Friday (with Lauren Elizabeth) post will be a mix of last weekend, and a little bit from this week as well...

1. Seriously you guys, my doggie is the cutest girl ever! Look at her squishy little face sleeping under the pillow :)

2. Last weekend, my Mama and I had a little day-date together, and it was such a nice day. We had lunch at one of our favorite local spots, Hopkins, and sat outside to enjoy the nice weather. Then we ran some errands, including a "grand tour" of the local Hobby Lobby. (That means we walked up and down pretty much every single aisle.) And somehow, I made it out of there spending under $20 bucks. Amazing right? I know, I know. 

3. I absolutely love making us really yummy Saturday morning breakfasts. This past weekend, I made "open-faced" ham, egg & cheese biscuits. Well, they only turned out to be open-faced because I had prepared too much eggs and ham to all fit inside the biscuit. But it was delicious!

4. Have you guys heard of The Little Free Library? I only just heard of it a couple of weeks ago, when I stumbled upon the hashtag on someone random persons Instagram. But they're so cool! It's just a little "take a book, return a book" kind of deal, but they put them in the cutest little baby book-houses! Last weekend, my Mama and I found the two here in town, and I got some great books. (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea {hardback, Reader's Digest copy!}, The Cricket in Times Square and Hansel & Gretel, A Little Golden Book.) Can't wait to see what other things I find the next time I go back! If you like books as much as I do, you should check out their national map and see if there's one in your town.

5. I watched "Frozen" twice this past week, and it was so stinking good. Once on Wednesday night at home with Jeff, and then on Thursday night with my whole family on family dinner night. When I watched it at home with Jeff, I was singing at the top of my lungs to every song, but I tried to refrain from such dramatics with the whole family, because some of them hadn't seen it yet, and I figured they might want to hear Idina and Kristen rather than me ;) It's just so stinking good!

So that wraps it up here for the past weekend/week and my high fives... This weekend we were going to go camping, but it turns out it's supposed to thunderstorm pretty much all weekend. So we're postponing the trip, and hopefully we'll go next weekend instead. If the weather isn't too nasty, I might do some garage sale rummaging in the morning with my dad. Otherwise, I'm sleeping in and being lazy on the couch all morning. And then we're crossing our fingers that it's sunny on Sunday afternoon, because we want to head down to the beach for a couple of hours! So here's hoping that happens. 

Hope y'all have had a good weekend, but that you have a great weekend! I'll be back on Monday to pick up right where we left. Peace out friends.

Sunny Love,

Halie

Free Shutterfly Honeymoon Album

Shutterfly albums are kind of the bomb. I even made one using our engagement photos and others of our relationship, to create our wedding guest book, and it turned out perfect. Last night, I made one of our honeymoon in Cancun, and got it free with a special code! I only had to pay about $9 for tax and shipping, and it should be here next Friday. I am so pleased with how it looks on screen, and I can't wait to see it in real life next week!

Unfortunately, the code expired last night at midnight, but next time they send on out in my email, I'll be sure to share the code with y'all, in case you're interested in making one too!

Soon, I'll actually share a couple of posts with our honeymoon photos, but these can tide you over until then :)

Click here to view this photo book larger

Click here to create your own Shutterfly photo book.

Sunny Love,

Halie

Bicycle-Themed Wedding Shower

I am so freaking excited to finally start sharing some of my wedding posts! I kinda stopped blogging last August right as all the fun was starting, so pretty much nothing made it to the blog. And now it's finally time! So get ready, because there will be about 20 or so come at ya. I'll try to space them out (if y'all want me to), or I can just send a flood of them a couple days in a row. We'll see how it plays out.... But regardless, I can't wait to share all the lovely wedding things with y'all!

My very first wedding shower was thrown by some very special women -- my sister Megan, my Grandmother, my Mama, and some amazing helpers - my "Aunt" Jane and her daughter Amanda. ("Aunt" Jane is my mom's best friend, and not an actual relative, but she might as well be sometimes!) They hosted the shower at the University Center Club at FSU. I knew they had been working hard on the decorations for a while, but I didn't know what they were doing. So I was thrilled and surprised to find out that they had incorporated some amazing bicycle decorations, to match our wedding theme!

Sister, Grandmommie, me, Mama

Me, "Aunt" Jane & Amanda

My Granddaddy actually took apart an old bicycle, cleaned it up, and then painted the wheels to match my wedding colors! It was so amazing, and I was so impressed! They they attached pretty flowers and sparkly pieces as well. They also used the seat, the pedals, the handlebars, and even bought a brand new basket all as the centerpieces for the tables. And come to find out, practically my whole family got involved in making the centerpieces - my Papa, Aunt & Uncle all ended up helping and I was so touched they all had a hand in it! Amanda made homemade oatmeal raisin cookies, and little purple pieces that look like bicycle gears. So cute!

Blog-friend turned real-life-friend Angie :)

It was a seriously beautiful shower, and I'm really glad it was the first one. It was a great way to kick off the wedding festivities, and my sister, Grandmother and mom did a wonderful job with everything! I was so touched they took the time and energy making my shower match my bicycle theme. They put so much hard work into it, and it really showed. The guests all loved it, and thought it was cute. And of course I loved it too! (And the great part is I got to keep all the cute decor, and recycle it for the wedding too!)

Thank you again to those lovely ladies in my life, who hosted such an incredible shower for me!

And I'm linking up with Kristyn at Chits & Giggles today for Wedding Wednesday!

Sunny Love,
Halie

High Five for Friday: Week 2

Friday's are always the bestest. Everyone is just in a better mood, things seem a little more jolly since the weekend is so close, and there's only nine short hours of work to get through until you're free for a couple of days. (Minus one glorious lunch hour in the middle of the work day.)

I want to join in with Lauren again today and celebrate Friday with a couple of virtual high fives, and highlight some of my favorite things from this past week :)

1. Jeff and I started Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University class on Tuesday night, and we're both pretty excited about it. Wednesday night we sat down and did some of the homework, and we're both feeling ready to really accomplish some of our debt and get our budget under control! We can do this!

2. My sweet little Primrose, always ;)

3. Making my springtime bucket list for the next few months. There's lots of fun things on the list, and I'm looking forward to getting to do some of those things. I think my goal will be to do at least one of those things this weekend..... but which one should it be?!

4. The new Cascades Park down by our house is really pretty! I took Prim on a walk around the park yesterday to check it out more, and there's so many cool parts of it! The beautiful waterfall feature is just one of the cool things, but there's really so many more!

5. Instagram :) Seriously you guys, I love Instagram! I didn't do as many of the photo-a-day prompts this week (because some I didn't like, and some I just couldn't think of anything), but I still like to upload some random pictures anyways, so this is a mix of some of the photo-a-days from the week, and some "regular" IG photos.

Top L: "Letter" S is for springtime! // Top R: I just liked the light // Bottom L: yummy sammie // Bottom R: Cropped.

Tonight my aunt and uncle are having us all over to their house for a cookout, to welcome home my cousin on his spring break from seminary in New Orleans. So I'm really excited about a big yummy dinner with my family! We're a pretty crazy family, so I know we'll all have a good time together. Then tomorrow I'm looking forward to lunch and Hobby Lobby shopping with my mama :) 

Thrown in to the other bits of the weekend will be the usual house cleaning, and maybe some time spent in the sunshine as well - because time in the sunshine is always necessary at this time of the year. Hope y'all have a great weekend, and I'll be looking forward to reading the recaps on Monday! :)

Sunny Love,

Halie

Springtime List

Happy first day of spring ladies! Isn't that an exciting thing to hear? Well, for me it is anyways. Because down here in Florida, it actually does feel like spring, even when a lot of the country is still suffering from this past winter's crazy attitude. Sorry to those that applies to - feel free to move down to Florida and enjoy our loveliness!

Spring in Florida doesn't really last too long, because by mid-April, we're practically already experiencing some full-blown summer temperatures. But nonetheless, I want to make sure we take full advantage of these next few weeks while the weather is practically perfect in every way (we watched 'Mary Poppins' the other night...) and really make the most of spring time. So today I'm doing a copy-cat post from one of my favorite blog-friends, Miss Erin at Love, Fun and Football, and sharing a spring bucket list!

1. Finish hanging pictures and cute things around the house. After more than five months of marriage, just this week we finally started hanging things, and I want to get that finished! And I'll probably swing by the good ole' Hobby Lobby to grab a couple more items this weekend, because I got an email this morning that home accents are 50% off this week. Score!

2. Spring cleaning, of course! This past weekend I got a little start on it, but there's still a lot more to accomplish... The BIG one we want to tackle is our spare bedroom, because right now it's a disastrous dump zone for anything and everything. And it's a nightmare for my OCD self, so it's got to go. Immediately, if not before.

3. Go to some concerts at the new amphitheatre that just opened by our house! Actually, I won't have to try too hard for this one, because I've already won tickets to the very first concert! Tracy Lawrence will be here on April 12th, and we get to go for free - awesome.

This is our new little amphitheatre, from the grand opening of the park last Friday night.

4. Have a picnic in the park date. There are tons of parks very close to us. Some within walking distance, some within biking distance, all within driving distance :) I can make us yummy sandwiches, pack some veggies and ranch dip, with some sweet treats as well. We can throw a blanket in the car, and just enjoy the great outdoors!

5. Attend at least one weekend afternoon FSU baseball game. The tickets are only like $8 a person, and we get to sit in the sun, eat a hot dog, and watch some baseball? Sounds like a good deal to me!

6. Eat out at a restaurant we've never tried before. Even though Tallahassee sometimes feels like a small town, there are still tons of restaurants all over the place, and new ones popping up all the time. I'd love to start trying new ones more frequently, so let's start this spring!

7. Go camping again. Back in the fall we bought a big tent with some of our wedding gift cards, but we've only used it once! We went camping back in November, but then haven't been since then. And I really want to go again. So we need to pick a good weekend, and head to a local state park for some quality time enjoying nature and each other's company :)

8. Start exercising again regularly. I've been off my game ever since we got back from the honeymoon basically, and I really need to get it under control. I've definitely gained weight since the wedding, and that's GOT to go! Time to get active again, and what more perfect time to do it than in this beautiful spring weather?

9. Shop around for some patio furniture. We have a front porch and a side deck on our current house, so there's lots of space to hang out outside. Except there's nothing on our side deck right now. So I really want to find a cheap little patio set for out there! So I've started looking around on Craigslist and stuff. And even if it's in bad shape or something, we're both pretty crafty and I'm sure we could fix it up to look real nice.

10. Go to the flea market or some garage sales. This will actually help with a couple of our other things as well, like finding more cutesies for the walls, and maybe even some patio furniture. Plus, I just like browsing around and seeing what treasures I can find - especially when you can get things for so cheap! Also, I love adding to my book collection this way :)

Can't wait to get started on some of this stuff! It's going to be a good spring, I can tell already. I mean, it's our first spring as newlyweds, our first spring in our precious turquoise house, our first spring with little Miss Primrose, and just so much more! I'm really excited right now, and it's actually killing me to not be outdoors even as I write this! Ready to start enjoying this Florida springtime, and ready to get some things accomplished!

Sunny Love,
Halie