Maggie Mermaid is obsessed with bath time when her imaginary magical tail appears in the tub. On her first birthday & Christmas last year she received hooded bath towels. We use them daily & she loves them. Hooded bath towels are the cutest + easiest gift that will be used time & time again. I know I'm always searching for non-toy gift ideas for kids & this one I just had to share. I've picked my favorite little girl bath towels to share below. The majority are below $25!

For my birthday all I wanted was to wake up in all new bed linens! I decided on a blanket from West Elm & organic sheets + duvet cover from the Hearth & Hand - Magnolia Collection at Target. I debated back and forth on the linen, as I had never slept on it before, and I wondered if I'd prefer a really soft Egyptian cotton instead. I'm so happy I went with the linen, it has this airy + cool feel to it at night, and it's very refreshing yet cozy. If you've never used organic linen bed sheets before I highly suggest it, especially for the warmer months. And what a great Mother's Day idea, wink wink.

I had a good cry this morning. I watched a FB Live post by a high school friend that is volunteering as an ER nurse for 21 days at a hospital in the Bronx. Her real life experiences about what is happening within the walls of NYC hospitals just ripped out my heart. It's one thing to hear stories on the news, and while they are painful stories to listen to, it really hits home to hear it from a personal friend. The semi-truck morgues on the side of the road, her friend nurses Facetiming relatives of ICU patients while they die alone, & the risks they take each day as they reuse PPE - it's hard to hear. I have no idea how she does it, or how any nurse or doctor can do what they do. They are angels on Earth.

Then I watched Magnolia put on a swimsuit & run around pretending she was at the pool with her cousin Ollie. I overheard her saying "the people are sick" something she says daily. Watching her play alone every single day with imaginary friends & pretending her cousins are over is taking a toll on me. Yesterday, Ryan & I were talking on our way home from our nephew's parade birthday party, where we saw all of our family but couldn't even hug them, about how serious this is for the children. This is an entire year (or more) of their childhood they'll never get back. In my last blog post I talked about how hard we are trying to be fun & even more involved in her play, but I'll never be able to be her four year old cousin Ollie. That's just the sad reality.

We've been listening to the Willie Nelson station on Spotify lately & the song Bring My Flowers Now by Tanya Tucker always comes on & stops me in my tracks. "There's always sunrises, rainbows and babies........So if you've got love, then you're sittin' on a gold mine" 



Sorry, I like this little spot on the internet to be a place of inspiration & happiness, but also real. And today, on this rainy Monday morning, I'm not feeling as cheery as I normally do. I know I'm not alone as I feel sad & worried for the world and our children.

Ending with......there's always sunrises, rainbows & babies. 

xo

Our sweet Maggie girl, still called Magnolia by her mommy & daddy, her aunts + cousins call her Maggie, & if it was her choice everyone would call her "mermaid!" Ryan & I are corrected on a daily basis, we can't even say she smells like a strawberry without being told very firmly that her name is in fact Mermaid. Her personality has blossomed just like the spring flowers. She plays with her imaginary friends all the time, and her best friend is named Anna (probably from Frozen). I hear her talking to her friends often saying "my mom" this & that, and I'll often giggle out loud, to which she'll ask me why I'm laughing. Not only does she make me feel like the luckiest mommy in the world, she also makes me feel like I have super powers. My kisses, on her injuries, are magic! She's in love with T-wift aka Taylor Swift. Ryan & I cannot bring ourselves to correct her name pronunciation & therefore we now call her Twift also. I'm fully aware that encouraging mispronunciation might not be the wisest, but we are loving the cuteness too much right now to push her language too far into little-girl-hood. Her new scooter arrived, the reward for using the toilet full time, and she rides it back & forth from the bathroom now. By the way, she basically taught herself how to use the toilet. Once we got over the hump of going the first time, it was one million times easier than I expected. We are just so proud of her & her little butt in underwear is quite precious. TIGER KING, can someone please tell me how she knows who he is??? We only watched a little bit of it once, I hated it so we turned it off, and then weeks passed & she was talking about him. She even pointed him out on my phone when I was scrolling on Instagram. Like, what in the WORLD is going on!?!? She is a freakin' sponge & it's a little scary to know how much she is picking up on nowadays. On that subject, she's been making face masks out of toilet paper. She also asks me almost daily "are the people all better yet?" And we have talked about that subject & why we can't go places right now. She seems to understand better than I would have thought. We are still doing music class once a week on a Zoom call & we do quiet time with deep breathing during class. Now if I'm stressed out about anything she'll stop me & basically help me deep breathe with her. My little angel she is! Her prayers before bed melt my heart into one million pieces. Not one single night has passed that she doesn't pray (all on her own) for a little girl named Eva that we have been following on Instagram for months. You can follow her dad here & join us in prayer if you'd like. This sounds crazy, but I dream about Magnolia getting to meet her someday, when she is all better & healed by our Lord in Heaven. Magnolia just loves her to pieces & wants to check on her all the time. Last night in her prayer she thanked God for her new helmet, some nights she'll pray about dinner & one night she even prayed about her daddy's pizza that didn't make it in our Walmart grocery pick-up. Magnolia does all the modeling for my sister's clothing boutique Little Lucca Love & I have a phone full of the most adorable photos of our girl. I decided to share the last round of styles & her sweet little poses here. She is quite the hoot with her natural modeling abilities.