This is Guinivere.  Her friends call her Guini.  She is my second baby, and she is turning 6 on Saturday….yup.  SIX.  I can hardly believe it myself!  She’s also starting 1st grade in a few weeks, which is totally weird because she will be at school all.day.long.  Yikes – I’m gonna miss those freckled cheeks all day.

Guini loves ramen noodles, horses, nail polish, and a slew of movies and tv shows.  I think she would watch tv all day if we let her.  She’s my cuddle-bug and and she can be extremely talkative, or extremely quiet.  She loves to laugh at her big brother’s jokes, and play “mama” to her baby sister.

“Jump!”

This is a unicorn that Stormie made for Guini for Christmas.  She loves it:)

I offered to let Guini borrow my little horse ring- she was excited:)

We put some purple streaks in her hair – she looks adorable with them!

See the purple?  Nail polish to match of course.

Guini is beautiful.  She is caring and sweet and sometimes fiesty.  She is a skinny-minny with a big appetite (lucky girl), and loves a good nap.

I love her!  I will share more about her actual birthday next week – it’s going to be a busy busy weekend!

Love,

Stephanie May*  (a.k.a – Guini’s mom)

Sorry for the late posts this week.  I’ve been very busy with things around the house, and haven’t felt much like writing.  I guess this is going to be a quiet week from both of us MayDae girls:)

Instead of me writing out what I’m doing this week – why don’t you tell me what YOU’RE doing?  Give me some inspiration from your life – I would love to hear it!

{source}

Love,

Stephanie May*

This week…I am scheduling, emailing, making phone calls, working on photo backdrops and generally trying to get as much rest as possible…although that’s at the bottom of my list and will probably be the most likely to not get done.

Saturday is the big day…the music festival that I’ve been working on for months will be over in 6 days.  Holy heck, it’s so close!  That being said, I am making excuses now and saying that I will mostly be MIA on the blog this week.  I will post a photo here and there but no super-involved time-consuming posts for me, thanks.

{Photo Sources}

Here’s to a crazy week ahead.  Go.

Love,

Stormie Dae

Seeing as how it’s after midnight, today is our parents 30th wedding anniversary!  30 YEARS!!!  Holy heck, that is a long time!

{Source}

Aren’t they the cutest?!  My parents are honestly two of the coolest people I know.  Both gifted in words, they write the BEST tributes to their children on birthdays and everyday life in general.  Any creative bone in my body definitely came from them and my love for music…yeah, that too.

My momma, so pretty – just like today.

30 years ago today, my mom said yes to my dad – and I am here because of it.  I am reminded daily of the blessing of being part of this family.  This crazy, loving, sarcastic, creative, compassionate, loud and amazing family – and I have my parents to thank for that.  I can only hope that when I get married someday, my love story will make even a small impact on other people like my parents love and marriage has impacted so many.

My parents are my go-to people.  I call them to ask about car problems, gardening, cooking, carpentry, relationships and Biblical truths.  They are wise, caring and giving.  I’m pretty sure if I called my parents house late at night(needing anything), my mom would be up to talk – and if I called early in the morning before work, my dad FOR SURE would be.  They are always available to their children and want nothing more than what is best for us.  I would say that’s the case for any parent, but unfortunately it’s not – and fortunately for me…it is true for mine.  See?…blessed.

Because of the music festival next weekend that our whole family is involved in, we aren’t able to celebrate with a big party for my parents right now – we plan to in the Fall…but the sibs and I wanted to do something for them on this VERY special occasion – so we all(minus our brother who couldn’t make it) gathered at my parents house at 11pm tonight to “decorate” for their big day.

In addition to decor, there were also cookies, dogs and frogs – okay it was actually a toad, but that doesn’t work with my rhyme

The Culprits…

Also…as a joke, as long as we were there – our sisters boyfriend was staying at our parents house last night and when he went in the house, we tagged his car too…which we thought would be funny, especially since he’s in the Army and has to drive to base early tomorrow morning.

No they aren’t engaged yet…we are just cool like this.

30 years and still  madly in love…seriously, it’s kind of embarrassing sometimes.  I can’t tell you how many times since I’ve moved out that I’ve heard them say to all of us kids to call before we come over now – because they may or may not be wearing clothes.  Yeah, I know you wanted to know that about as much as I did:)

We love you mom and dad and we are SO STINKIN ECSTATIC that you chose to spend your lives together, we all benefit from it and are better for it!

…all around.

Stormie Dae

I am especially happy to post these outfit photos because my computer tried to be evil and deleted them yesterday.  I almost cried.  Fortunately, Tristan is amazing with all things technological and he did his magic and got them back for me.  Handy AND cute I tell ya:)

Specifics:

Lace maxi dress (nightgown) – thrifted

Black leather wedges – borrowed from Stormie Dae

Metallic gold belt – thrifted

Black jersey maxi dress (under lace) – thrifted

Black blazer – thrifted

Gold tassel necklace – garage sale

I love color in fashion, but sometimes I just love the simplicity of black.  I think I was inspired by Stevie Nicks a little bit in this outfit – I wish I could be that fearless with clothing.  I also just realized after typing up the details, that this whole outfit only cost me a little over $10 to put together….and also that I shop a lot at thrift stores.  I guess I’m more like poor man’s Stevie:)

I didn’t get to go thrifting this weekend because of our demolition zone of a house, and I missed it!  I’ve been watching American Pickers this week and I have the major urge to dig through piles of dusty objects and find something swoon-worthy.  I’m pretty sure I could do that for a living.  Maybe Stormie and I should do our own thrifting TV show….would you watch it?

Love,

Stephanie May*

Music festivals…one of most fun things to do during a hot Summer…yes?  Last year, both Stephanie and I were involved in working for a one-day music festival(Heaven Fest) and this year is almost no different…except that Stephanie decided to take this year off so it’s just me:)

The festival has been keeping me super busy for the last couple of months and specifically the last few weeks because it happens next weekend…yikes!  So while I will be working like a crazy person the day of – I still need to feel like I’m decent enough for people to see.  I decided to throw together a few, “if I could afford it and it wasn’t so close to the festival, I would buy these to wear” Etsy picks for you – aren’t you excited?!

{Source}

{Source}

{Source}

{Source}

{Source}

I find this absolutely breathtaking and I want her hair.

{Source}

Kiss Kiss,

Stormie Dae

(source)

I love this print from AshleyG so much.  Staying home is a wonderful thing.  Comfort, closeness, privacy, intimacy, goofiness, realness – these are all things that I experience most when I am at home.  Since we are right in the middle of making some changes in our house, it has made me think a lot about this.  Do you like to constantly be out or stay home most of the time?

………………………………

In other news:  my bangs need cut.  But I want them to grow.  Quandary.

Love,

Stephanie May*

Yes, I’m a little bit obsessed right now – raspberries, especially freshly picked from the garden ones, are SO yummy!    Lemonade with fresh raspberries?  Even better.

I ate breakfast in my nook the other morning and noticed something quite lovely…

Do you find it as charming and sweet as I do?  I stinkin love my drinking glasses.  I’m 99% positive this is the prettiest shadow in the entire world.  Ever.  Seriously.  If I could put more periods in this sentence to prove my point I would, but I think you get the picture.

Happy glasses and happy raspberries…I am enjoying this hot Summer as much as I possibly can.

Love!

Stormie Dae

This week has been crazy in our house!  We are installing new flooring in our living room, kitchen, and entryway, and it is SO much work.  We’ve had linoleum in the kitchen and carpet everywhere else for the 9+ years since we bought our house, and it was definitely time for it to all go.  We have wanted to do laminate flooring for a long time and it is finally happening (eeep!).  I wish that I had a Before & After to share with you today, but it will probably be a few more days until we get completely done with this project- but I promise to share photos when I have them:)

Here are a few of my favorite flooring DIYs – enjoy!

Even though we are doing laminate floors, I have a major soft spot for painted flooring.  It’s so unique and not something that many people have the courage to do – love it!  I love the soft grey floor above.

This stenciled floor above is incredible!  How could you not smile with joy every time you walk into this room?

I couldn’t find a “before” of this floor, but Ashley Ann’s stenciled bedroom is so creative and thrifty!  I love that she painted right onto the subfloor – that takes some guts!

Would you ever rip out your carpets and paint the floor?  :)

Love,

Stephanie May*

Are you ready for shoe overload?  This past week was the end of Cobbie Cuddlers – I have finally made it through every pair of shoes in my closet.  It only took 9 weeks too! ;)  My goal was to wear a different pair of shoes everyday until all of my shoes had been worn.  I almost made it everyday…but there were definitely a few days that I wore repeats or didn’t wear shoes at all.

For a recap, click on the link below each picture to see that full week in review:

{Part 1}

{Part 2}

{Part 3}

{Part 4}

{Part 5}

{Part 6}

{Part 7}

{Part 8}

And for the last week, part 9 – a little back story.  I sprained my ankle pretty bad in a car accident a couple of years ago and I am just now getting it back to being able to wear my very high heels – I definitely don’t wear heels everyday so I was happy that I could actually last full days, multiple days in a row.  Until Friday.  I was leaving work and looking at my phone(which I shouldn’t have been) and I stepped on a crack wrong and twisted said previously sprained ankle.  Ouch.  I wore as many heels as I could this week, but I also needed to give my ankle a rest so it isn’t messed up permanently.  As a result, I sadly had 4 pairs of heels that so far have not been worn…but I’ll show them to you anyway at the end of this post:

Day 57 – Friday: Work and dinner with the sister and her boyfriend – cutout wedges

Day 58 – Saturday: Coffee date with nephew, Gavin, for his birthday – Pumas

Day 59 – Sunday: Church, band practice and music festival meeting – woven platforms

Day 60 – Monday: Work and dinner with the parentals – rest day for the ankle so comfortable/sturdy shoes

Day 61 – Tuesday: Meeting, work, power outage – vintage lace up flats

Day 62 – Wednesday: Work, youth group – glitter Oxfords

Day 63 – Thursday: Work and a very restful night – also a rest day for the ankle

And the heels that didn’t make the cut but that I adore nonetheless and will wear soon anyway:

I started with 53 pairs of shoes…I definitely bought a few during the course of the last 9 weeks.  BUT, I am also getting rid of 9 pairs…so I am ending up with 49.  Not a huge change, but I am adding some shoes that I absolutely LOVE!  Any opinion on which of my shoes are your favorite?  I know there are a lot to choose from…:)

And fin.

Stormie Dae