Spring Yankee Candle Haul & A Peek at my Collection

Happy Monday!!

So now that its almost fall... here is my spring/summer candle haul!  My order came a few weeks before Tucker was born and I'm only just now had time to get a post up.

I haven't purchased many spring/summer candles in a long time so there were some new scents out that I hadn't seen yet.

These three here however are some old favorites.

Picnic in the Park smells fresh and a little bit sweet to me.  I'm not sure it really makes me think of a park but its a nice, lite scent that I think is good for a bathroom or smaller bedroom as its not the strongest scent.  Beach Flowers to me smells a bit like flower scented sunscreen.  I really like this one in the bathroom.  Its a nice summer scent that makes me want to go swimming.  Moonlit Garden is my favorite of the three.  It smells exactly how you would expect by the name.  Its a musky kind of floral scent and I just love it.

These three were new scents for us this year.  Beach Holiday again reminds me of sunscreen but it's not over powering at all.  Very light scent that also smells a little bit fruity.  Flowers in the Sun smells like honeydew melon.  I do imagine it would warm up a bit when lit but I smell more fruit than flowers but it is a very nice scent.  Honey Blossom is the strongest scent of the three but still light.  It is a nice, warm, floral scent.

Early Sunrise smells like Pledge to me...  It's very lemony and almost chemically smelling.  We use Pledge but I'm not sure how I feel about a candle that smells like it.  Not my favorite of this haul for sure.  Juicy Watermelon smells like a watermelon flavored Jolly Rancher candy.    I like the smell but its almost too sweet smelling.  I would put this one in a larger room as the smell is very strong although I havent tried it lit yet.  Morning Mist smells like a men's cologne but I really like it.  It's not too strong and I'm a bit of a sucker for cologne.

Line Dried Cotton has virtually no smell unlit to me.  Beau said he smelled a hint of rose but that was it.  When its lit, I do smell some rose.  Maybe rose water.  It is faint but it did make the room smell nice and fresh.  Meadow Showers smells to me like a typical summer candle.  Almost a sweet grass smell.  A bit generic but I do like it for a bathroom.  Golden Sands's scent is very faint but reminds me of candy.  It is a very sweet smell but a light sweet so not overpowering at all.

Pink Peony smells of... Pink Peonys!  It reminds me of Fresh Cut Rose.  Smells like you stuck your face in a bouquet of flowers.  Very fresh and lovely.  Peach Cobbler was one of my favorites because I LOVE any scent that is baked.  Unlit it smells like seasoned peaches and lit it smells just like peach cobbler.  It fills the whole room up and just smells wonderful!

These were just a few winter scents that were on 70% off or more clearance so I went ahead and got these 5.  All three scents are ones I've used many times and talk about in my Holiday Haul post.

Everytime I place an order, I always check the clearance section.  I'm always on the hunt for Illuma-Lids since I never seem to have enough for all the candles I have out and I like to change them out for the different seasons.  They only had one easter one left when I placed my order but I thought it was too cute to pass up.

These Celtic Knot lids I thought were good for every day or maybe St. Patricks Day.  I got, I think, 5 of them.

Pardon my disorganized office closet but these are my candle cabinets!  As I've mentioned before, I'm a Yankee nut and I'm also cheap!  I don't like paying full price for anything so I stock up on candles (and everything else) when I can get them super cheap rather than buying them at full price one at a time.  Our current house has huge closets so we just put them up in the guest room/office closet.

I prefer these cabinets to open shelves because I can close the doors to keep dust and this little stinker out of them!  She is a big fan of candles as well and loves to pop the lids off and smell them and since she has now learned to open doors, I've have had to put some child proof locks on the cabinets!

I keep Fall/Winter candles in one cabinet and the Spring/Summer ones in the second.  This is the Fall/Winter cabinet!  By the way, this wick trimmer is so worth the investment.  I was constantly trying to trim mine with scissors and would often trim them too short and this little guy keeps that from being an issue!

I have fewer Fall/Winter candles than I do Spring/Summer so I use the extra space here to store random things like my center piece holder and extra lids.

And here is the Spring/Summer cabinet!

I have been asked several times before what my favorite Yankee scent is and it is White Linen & Lace by the Simply Home Yankee line.  LOVE LOVE LOVE this candle.  I have two left and rarely burn them because I've only been able to find them at Marshall's or Ross and I always bought all that they had.  The closest thing I can think of that this smells like is the Moonlight Path scent that Bath & Bodyworks use to carry and I just love it.  Not sure why, but there you go!

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Until next time!

Texas Trip 2016!

It's that time of year again!
Fall is on the way and that means it's time for us to start preparing for our annual trip to Texas from our home in Virginia!

We've decided to drive again this year instead of flying.  Even though the drive is long, it's worth it to us to be able to have our own car and not have to mess with hauling 2 very small children and all of their junk not to mention ourselves and all of our junk onto two planes just to get there.  Not to mention a layover...  Yeah, no thanks!

We will be gone a total of 15 days and are going to be spreading our drive there over 3 days and the drive back over 2 days.  On the first day, we are planning on leaving as early as possible (hopefully 4am) on a Wednesday and driving to somewhere near Jackson, MS and stopping for the night.  We will then get up early Thursday morning (around 6am) and drive from there to my grandparent's house in Temple, TX and spend several hours with them before staying the night in Waco.  We plan on sleeping in a little bit Friday morning and head to Valley View, Texas which is only an hour from my parents house to visit some friends.  We will then get to my parent's house before dinner and that is where we will be staying for the rest of our stay.

On the way back we plan on leaving very early in the morning on a Tuesday morning and driving to Memphis, TN to visit some other friends and stay the night.  We will then make the rest of the drive the next day and hope to get home by 8pm.


We will be driving our 2015 Honda Odyssey mini van or "space station" as Beau calls it with our Rocket Box on top for larger storage.

Cleanest it has ever been!  This was the day we bought it!

Beau will be doing the majority of the driving while I deal with the kids.  We will probably try to swap while the kids are napping to give him a break.

I am going to be doing many different posts/videos throughout the packing/planning process as well as the trip itself so keep an eye out for those as well as Instagram and Snapchat for real time updates!

If there is anything I dont post about that you want to see, let me know in the comments below!!

Wish us luck!!


See our post from last year below!

Our 20 Hour (1 Way) Car Trip with a 1 Year Old

Tucker's Hands: Complex Complete Syndactyly

Hi Y'all!

As I mentioned in his birth story post, Tucker was born with a condition called syndactyly.  There are several different types of syndactyly and because we have not yet met with the specialist, we don't yet know which type he will fall under **Update, he was officially diagnosed with Complex Complete Syndactyly**.  His index fingers were also affected and are both short with one bent inwards.

I was born with my left index finger short (missing a joint) and my right bends inwards (has both joints) and both of my pinky fingers are also short and bent inwards (they have both joints as well).  I was officially diagnosed with Bell's Brachydactyly A2 at 18 months.  I had an elective corrective surgery on my right index finger when I was about 12 or so, hence the scar.  I had the surgery to try to make it less bent and fit better against the knuckle of my middle finger (like the left one).  I'm not completely pleased with the outcome but it hasn't bothered me enough to have it worked on again.  My pinkies are too small to operate on.

Pardon my horrible lack of manicure!  I've got a newborn ok! 

We don't know yet if his pinky fingers are affected at all and probably won't until the doctors either x-ray or during his separation surgery.

We have an appointment with Dr. Chang at CHOP (The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) in September.  The pediatrician referred us to a local hand clinic but we decided we would rather take him to a pediatric specialist.  CHOP is one of the top children's hospitals in the country and Dr. Chang came highly recommended so we decided that is where we wanted to start.  We are also lucky enough to have family an hour outside the city who have offered us a place to stay (and babysitting for Jordyn).  Its about a 6 hour drive for us so we are planning on staying for a short visit before the appointment.

I think being born with a similar condition has made this whole process much easier for both of us.  We both had a feeling in the later part of my pregnancy (although we neither one really voiced it until after he was born) that something was wrong so once we saw his hands, we were neither one really surprised.  That being said, with the exception of my fingers, we don't know of any family history of either condition.  It was quite a shock when I was born with my fingers like that so my parents did a genetic study and the best that the doctors could tell was that I was neither missing or had any extra chromosomes.  We would like to do some genetic testing with Tucker in the future but for right now our main concern is getting his fingers separated as soon as possible so that he can begin to learn to use them independently.

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Abbey's 2nd Knee Update

Abbey had her 6 week post op check the morning of her 2nd surgery (because the vet was nice enough to do them the same day to save me the trip).  When he called after her her surgery was over he asked me if I had noticed any change in her walking in the 6 weeks since her 1st surgery.  We had noticed that she was favoring it a little bit over about two days about a week and a half before the 2nd surgery.  He was very surprised that that was all that was all we had noticed because apparently she had somehow managed to crack a bone in her leg between two screws...  He was amazed that she hadn't showed more signs of pain but considering how high of a pain tolerance she has, I wasn't that surprised.  He said that it had already started to heal so we decided the best move for her was to be on a 2 week activity restriction then do an x-ray at her 2 week post op to see how the crack was healing.  Keeping her quite for 2 weeks was very difficult to say the least.  She and Jordyn love nothing more than running and jumping all over the house and yard and it was difficult to contain them.

At her two week post op, he said she was walking really well and that the x-rays showed that her crack was almost 100% healed so she could start her post op activity routine which consists of stretches as well as short, controlled walks that we slowly increase in length over the coming weeks.

She had her last follow up 4 weeks later and got a clean bill of health.  Her crack was completely healed and her other leg was healing well.

Is this not the saddest thing ever?  We have a gate on the deck so she can't get down to the yard but can still go out without a leash to go to the bathroom.  She went out and sat on the step and just stared at the yard. :(


Overall this was a good experience.  We would have really liked to have had some better physical therapy options then just a few stretches and short walks but overall she has healed like expected with the exception of the crack.  The vet is very pleased and we hope this will be the end of knee issues for her.


See our earlier posts on her knee journey here:

Abbey's Knee Surgeries

Abbey's 1st Surgery & 2 Week Post Op

Tucker's Birth Story

He is finally here!!!

This is Tucker!  He was born on Tuesday June 14th at 4:48pm.  8 Pounds, 3.75 OZ and was 20.5 inches long.

I started to feel some random contractions around 3am Tuesday morning but they were very random and not very strong at all.  I was able to sleep on and off until Beau got up at 7.  He waited to go into work until 9am and at 10am my water broke so he came back home to get the last minute stuff packed up and to finish sorting out babysitting for Jordyn.  We were very lucky to have a neighbor across the street who was able to watch her until my mother's flight landed.

We left for the hospital around 1230-1pm and by about 3pm, I was getting very uncomfortable.  Up until that point, I was up, walking around, snacking and pretty much doing my normal day to day.  The contractions were very different than the ones during Jordyn's labor and were much easier to handle.  Also that first time fear that I had with my first labor was gone so this one was much smoother and calmer.

After pushing on and off for about an hour, he was born at 4:48pm!

We stayed in the hospital for only 48 hours before we got to go home.  Other than a few small sleeping and nursing hurdles, we are both doing well!

I do want to share that he was born with some minor birth defects to his hands.  His middle, ring and pinky fingers on both hands are fused together and both index fingers are bent inwards.  We are planning to travel to Philadelphia soon to see a pediatric hand specialist/plastic surgeon for an evaluation at which point we hope to learn more about how is fingers are constructed and begin to develop a plan.

Thank you for all the support and be on the lookout for new reviews up soon!