We're Launching a Pillow Business!

We are so excited/nervous/happy/scared to share with you all something that we have been working on for a while now — We will be launching a pillow business! Yikes! We’re working hard on getting our first pillow line out within the month and can’t wait to see what you guys think! 

We have picked out some really fun, colorful, modern fabrics that we LOVE and hope you will too! Here’s a peek at some of the fabrics:

I love finding and supporting small businesses, learning about them and how they got started. So here, goes, here’s our story:

Lindsey and I both love interior design (we actually both majored in interior design in college), love mixing and matching fabrics and getting creative with our living spaces. We’re both stay-at-home mamas (Lindsey also goes to school part-time) and both have been antsy to do something creative while taking care of our kiddos. We brainstormed and came up with the idea of putting our creativity, design background, and sewing skills to good use by making pillows.

A few things that I noticed while looking for pillows online for my own home, is that there aren’t a lot of affordable & fun pillows out there. There are a ton of fun, trendy, bright pillows that I would love to take home with me, but there’s no way I could justify spending $50+ on one pillow cover. So, we decided that our pillows have to be affordable. We want people who are on tighter budgets (like we are!) to be able to afford our pillows.

Both our husbands always laugh at us because we are always saying “fun pillows.” We both agree that rooms can be spruced up with some fun pillows. To us, fun pillows can be a pattern, a bright color, a shape, just something that makes a pop on a bed, couch, chair, outside or even on the floor.

We also want our pillows to be versatile. Many of our pillows in our launch line (!) work well together. That was important to us, since sometimes people love one pillow pattern but have a hard time visualizing how it might work with other patterns or colors. We love mixing and matching patterns and colors and had so much fun coming up with this first pillow lineup!

That’s our Home Style Love pillow business, in a nutshell. If you have any other questions about us or our pillows, please let us know and we’ll be happy to answer! We hope to have our first line of pillows available VERY soon, so stay tuned! 

Raegan's Big Girl Room Planning

I can't believe I'm already thinking about Raegan's big girl room! It seems like I woke up one day and she was no longer my baby, but my little girl! 

Since baby #2 gets here at the end of summer, Alex and I will be busy getting Raegan's big girl room and baby #2's nursery all set up. Since we don't find out if baby #2 is a boy or girl until next month, I've been mostly gathering ideas and planning Raegan's room and I am having so much fun! 

A few things that we're planning/are must-haves for Raegan's big girl room:

• A new bed (we'll be transitioning her over the summer! Yikes! Anyone have any tips?)
• A chalkboard wall. She loves her chalkboard-top table and I just know she'll have fun getting creative on a wall. Plus I'm sure we'll have tons of fun teaching Raegan that the other walls are off-limits with chalk! ;)
• Storage for small things like chalk, crayons, markers, etc. 
• Floor pillows for her reading nook. 
• She loves animals, so I'd love to incorporate animals into her room design. 
• I will frame a card from my mom and dad at Raegan's baby shower. It has a giraffe, a pink hippo and other colorful animals on it, so it will be a fun pop of color, but also something sentimental. 

My vision for R's room is white walls and I'll bring in some pops of color through art, pillows (on the floor and on her bed), sheets, books and through some of the storage. I like the idea of neutral walls so that things will be easy to transition again once she gets older. 

Here are some rooms/ideas I'm loving and may incorporate into R's room:

I love the DIY animal tops to these mason jars. [Photo via Design Sponge]. I could definitely use these to store her chalk, crayons, markers and other goodies.

I'm not sure why, but I've been in love with incorporating flamingos into Raegan's room somehow. [Photo via Design Sponge] Not sure if I will do it through art or in another way. 

Raegan already loves her reading area so I'd love to add some floor pillows and a rug to make it super cozy. [Photo via Mommo Design]

I'm planning to do a small-scale chalk wall for Raegan. I think it will be a great space to practice her writing and numbers. {Photo via Mokkasin}

Since Alex is not a fan of florals, I would love to include floral prints into Raegan's room. I think it's totally possible to use florals in a fun kid-friendly way that doesn't look like grandma's outdated room! {Photo via 6th Street Design School, designer Kirsten Krason's house tour}

I'm also trying to anticipate how Raegan will use her room in the next few years. Right now, it's mostly for sleeping and diaper changes, and occasionally playing in there, especially as we get her bath ready. I'm sure we'll be tweaking as she gets older too, but if any of you mamas have any advice for things that are worthwhile/not worthwhile in a big kiddo's room, I'd love to hear it! 

Food Friday: Kim's Chicken Casserole

This casserole is so yummy and easy to make! It's great to freeze and makes great left-overs. I mean what could go wrong with chicken and cheese? This recipe come courtesy of Lauren's good friend and college roommate, Kim. It was a regular dinner on the weekly menu then and has become a favorite in our household now.

Kim's Chicken Casserole

5 cups shredded, cooked chicken*
1 cup salsa
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 small can sliced black olives
4 ounce can mild, diced green chilies
dash of cumin
10-12 corn tortillas (uncooked)
shredded cheddar and jack cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all ingredients except chicken, tortillas and cheese. Once mixed add chicken and stir  with a spoon.

Cut tortillas into long strips (like pasta). Place half of the tortillas on the bottom of a greased 9"x13" pan and spread half the chicken mixture over the tortillas and cover with jack cheese. Repeat the process with the rest of the tortilla strips and chicken mixture and cover with cheddar cheese.

Cook 35-45 minutes or until cheese is brown around the edges. Let set 5 minutes and enjoy.

*To save time I buy a rotisserie chicken and shred the entire thing, which makes about 5 cups.

Give this recipe a try and let us know what you think. Happy Friday!

A Typical Morning With a 16-Month-Old

I haven't done any posts all about Raegan yet, so I thought it would be fun to do a day-in-the-life post. I love reading other bloggers' typical day posts because it gives people a glimpse into their real life — no staged photos, no perfectly clean house, but instead a typical day and real life. 

Tuesday morning: It's about 6:30 a.m., Alex is up getting ready for work and I'm half asleep but listening to Raegan on the monitor babble and talk to her stuffed animals. This is when Alex and I both usually say, "Could she be any cuter?!" She is so happy in the morning and loves repeating words in her crib until we grab her. It makes me smile every morning. 

Just before 7, Alex goes into her room. I hear her hand him her Kittie, Monkey and Booger Bear, one at a time. She comes into the kitchen with Alex and gets a few bites of his breakfast while I put my contacts in and brush my hair. 

Around 7 a.m., Alex says his goodbyes and I love yous and tries to sneak a kiss, or two, from Raegan. 

It's time for breakfast. Raegan is having half a pancake leftover from the weekend, sliced strawberries and Greek yogurt. Lots of "uh-ohs," "mores," two spoons on the floor and yogurt all over her face while Sadie, our dog, sits underneath her high chair hoping to get anything Raegan doesn't want. Raegan kisses her pancake and tries to share her food with me. When she gets squirmy, I know breakfast is over. 



At 7:45 a.m., I try to get a few things done around the house. A pile of Raegan's clean clothes needs to be put away. What should take less than 5 minutes takes 15. Raegan takes random things out of the bottom drawer of her dresser (this drawer is in desperate need of organization, but it's become more of a junk drawer), she finds a picture of a hippo and gives him a kiss, the dog chases the cat under the crib and Raegan tries to get under there, but not before I catch her. Finally everything is put away. 

It's time for a diaper change, but only if I can catch her running away from me, down the hall, with a pair of pink overalls on her head. 

I make the bed around 8 a.m. while Raegan sits on a chair in our bedroom, talking with Siri on my phone. We come out to the living room, I turn on Jack Johnson and do a quick sweep and vacuum of the hardwood. 




Now it's time to play! Raegan usually picks a few books that she becomes obsessed with for the day. Today it's "Olivia Helps With Christmas" and "Where is Love, Biscuit?" We read both over and over and over again while she points to the doggie and kittie. I grab some chalk and let her play on her table, but today instead of drawing, she's more interested in pushing a chair around the living room. It eventually ends up by the couch and Raegan gets frustrated because she can't push it on the rug. 

It's 9:15 a.m. and time for snack. Leftover yogurt and strawberries from breakfast while we sit on the floor. Raegan's back to her happy self, dancing, eating crackers, practicing tippy toes and being followed by Sadie, whose hoping to get some crumbs. Raegan spots Frankie, our cat, on the chair. She pets him, hugs him, shares a cracker with him and pulls his tail until he gets grumpy and she gets annoyed with me telling her to be careful for the hundredth time. 

At 9:30 a.m., I grab some of her toys and books and take them into my room so I can take a quick shower while Raegan entertains herself. I can watch her point to the doggie in her book and climb up and down the chair. We go back into the living room and she plays with Sadie and some of her toys. 

By 10 a.m., Raegan is starting to get a little grumpy, but I don't want her to nap yet, so I distract her by making a healthy milkshake with banana, peanut butter and cocoa powder. We sit on the couch and thankfully she shares her milkshake with me. 

By 10:40 a.m., she's ready for her nap. We do a quick diaper change, I grab her milk, stuffed animals and put her down in her crib. Once she's finished her milk, she talks to her animals for sometimes half an hour, then the house is quiet. She's asleep! Ahhh. And now I can get stuff done! ;)