Friday Favorites

Happy Friday, friends! I hope your week was a good one. Ours seemed to go by really fast which is always a blessing a curse because sometimes I wish things would just slow down a bit. The boys ended up catching a cold towards the end of the week and night time has been rough over here. With all the coughing and waking up, I’m hoping everyone will be back to normal soon.

Here’s a look at some of my favorites from the week…

1. Giving back: I was honored to be selected to work with Barilla on their #sharethetable campaign over the next year. To kick it off, I joined them on a service project with the Food Bank For New York on MLK Day. If you follow me on instagram (@beautifully_candid) then you might have seen some of the behind the scenes in my stories and how much attending this event meant to me. One of the things I really wanted to focus on this year was not only explaining to my boys about the importance of helping others, but by being an example and actually doing it. This was the perfect way to jump start that.

2. Mom’s birthday: it was my sweet momma’s birthday last Friday, so after work we had a little dinner and cake for her before she left the next morning on a trip to FL. I am so jealous she has been in sunny FL on the beaches and even took a cruise to the Bahamas. We’ll be celebrating more with her this weekend and I can’t wait to hear all about the fun she had.

3. All the noodles: the struggle to keep the boys occupied with all of this cold weather around here has been real. A friend recommended a local ramen house and it turned out to be the perfect place to take the boys. The atmosphere was loud (but not annoying), it was laid back, and Eric and I could enjoy our meals without telling the boys to be quiet every five minutes. The boys also loved it and ate their meals like champs. I’m going to be putting a post together with some of our favorite indoor activities and places to visit in the winter and will be sharing that next week. So if you’re looking for some ideas be sure to stop back.

4. Wood wall: in our living room we have this small wall that our tv is in front of. We have it sitting on a stand that I’ve never liked, and it’s not even an official tv stand. It’s more of like a cabinet that we used to have in our dining room. When we moved into this house we kind of just put it there for the time being and then it never moved.

The other day the boys were running around and I saw the tv wobble a bit. That was enough for me to finally make a change and want to get rid of this setup. I talked to Eric about putting a wood wall in and then mounting the tv there. The amazing man that he is was on board with it. He’s basically a wood wall pro at this point. Not really, but I’m sure he’d appreciate the compliment 😉

I made my way over to the supply place where we get our wood from and picked out the boards I wanted to use. I’m excited to get this little project underway and share a bit more here. Plus I kind of feel like when the holiday decor comes down, something is just missing. I think I’m going to run with this one and do a little overhaul to our living room. Here are some pics of previous wood walls we’ve put in, all at different houses that is. We aren’t some sort of wood wall fanatics, but I do think they make for some great accent walls and add a bit of character.

5. Snow time: we had some more snow this week and the boys were excited to find out that they had a delayed opening. This was the perfect snow for building a snowman. Unfortunately this guy lasted not even five minutes before he toppled over. The boys did go out later that night and built new one,. This time around it wasn’t so tall and better supported. It was dark and instead of trying to capture every moment with my camera, we danced around and jumped up and down for Mr. Snowman.