Many of you requested June’s wish list or a June gift guide when I asked for your input, so before we get into gift guides proper for 2017, I thought I’d offer up another installment in my Baby Favorites series! Except now it’s a Toddler Favorites series!! (Sniff, sniff!)

Here are a few things June, John, and I have been loving lately, many of which would make great gifts for the toddlers in your life…

— So we don’t actually have a Cozy Coupe, but our neighbors do, and June makes a beeline for it whenever we go outside. Thankfully, they very graciously share!

— Once we outgrew the utensils featured here, we replaced them with this Ikea set. (I bought ours on Amazon since we don’t have an Ikea nearby!)

— June’s aunt and uncle gave her this stroller for Christmas last year, and it’s been a hit ever since! She likes to push stuffed animals around in it, and I like that the design is simple :)

— June wore these shoes pretty much every day this summer. The only downside is that they can kind of start to smell after awhile, but a quick spin in the washer takes care of that!

— June loves to flip through books in her very own chair, a birthday gift from my parents.

— Since switching schools we are now packing a lunch every day, and I couldn’t resist this unicorn thermos!! Too cute!

— We just flew for the first time with our car seat, and this travel bag kept it safe and sound (and clean!).

— We have one of these bento boxes for packing lunches, and I love it! Hoping to get a second one for Christmas so we’re not washing the one we have every single night.

— As June’s legs have gotten longer, car kick mats have become a necessity. These are basic and do the job.

— We haven’t started potty training yet but bought this simple potty to ease her into the idea. She is a big fan of sitting on it, often fully clothed :)

— Once she saw her cousins using water bottles this summer, it was all over for the sippy cups. (For a time — thankfully she’s back to tolerating them!) This colorful bottle satisfies all her big girl dreams.

— Three favorite books in the rotation right now: Peekaboo Wild, Good Night, Gorilla, and Sheep Go to Sleep.

P.S. I will be posting an additional gift guide for kids, including a few items on June’s wish list!

Past family favorites:
The first six weeks
Five months
Eight months
One year
Fifteen months

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Updated: Megan S. is our winner and has been emailed! Thank y’all so much for participating! :)

Having an almost-two-year-old this year is making me even MORE excited than usual for all things holiday! June is talking up a storm all of a sudden, and I just think she is going to be thrilled by a tree in our house (!), Thanksgiving dinner, matching jams with her cousins, decorating sugar cookies, and twinkly lights everywhere.

Of course, it will take her a few more years to appreciate some of the things I love most about the end of the year — sending and receiving Christmas cards being one! We’ll be mailing Minted cards again, and I’d love your help choosing a favorite!

1. Jingle | 2. Luke 2:14 | 3. Wonderful Love | 4. Berries of Fun | 5. Fun Botanical Frame

No fancy professional photo this year, but I have to say the iPhone portrait mode + the PicTapGo app does a pretty darn good job! Of course, everything looks good framed by a Minted design :)

This year I was drawn to some of the more lighthearted, colorful designs to match our bold outfit choices. And as always, I’m partial to the cards that include a nod to Christmas’s true meaning! (I love that you can easily filter by “religious Christmas” on their search page, if that’s your thing.) Since I knew which photo I was going to use from the get-go, their “show with my photo” tool helped me narrow down my favorites quickly.

No matter which design you choose, you can use their sophisticated design software to easily adjust your photo as well as the placement of text elements, fonts, colors, and sizing. Minted also offers the most darling envelopes, shiny foil designs, free addressing, and extra-thick stock, if you’d like.

Now for the extra-fun part: I have a $100 Minted gift certificate to give away!! To enter, just comment below with either your favorite option from our Christmas card finalists, or the Minted design you’d most like to order for your family! (Or both!) I’ll randomly choose a winner next Tuesday!

Now back to work on designing our accompanying newsletter! :)

Minted has graciously gifted us our Christmas cards, but I chose to write this post, and the opinions are my own! I have loved everything about Minted — especially their crowd-sourced designs — for many years, and it is my joy to share what they’re up to with y’all!

Cast about on Pinterest and you’ll very quickly find exhaustive (and exhausting!) lists about what to include in a guest room. Some of them are helpful, but many go a little overboard, I think! It’s important to remember our guests aren’t coming to us because we’re the Ritz-Carlton — they’re coming to us to enjoy our company, and gracious hospitality is an added bonus.

With all of our family living at least a state away, we’re no strangers to house guests. As we approach the holidays, here are the few of the things we’ve done (and some that we’d like to do!) that have made their stays comfortable and special…

1. Hang a mirror in the bedroom. If, as in our home, a few bedrooms share the same bathroom, it’s great to have mirrors in the bedrooms to cut down on morning congestion — that way, gals can do their makeup, etc. without delaying showers. I’m hoping to hang this one in our main guest room (above) before our Christmas guests arrive!
2. Set out a few essentials. Your guest bathroom doesn’t need to function as a pharmacy, but it’s nice to stock a few things guests may have forgotten either on the counter or in a drawer: a toothbrush, toothpaste, tampons (those can go in the drawer, ha!), Q-tips, a shower cap, etc. We keep larger pump bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in the shower instead of using and tossing bar soap every time. Don’t forget to keep a few extra rolls of toilet paper where guests can easily find them! And to REALLY be prepared for everything, always have one of these within arm’s reach — your guests will thank you!!

3. Add greenery. Because of their fleetingness, a bud vase of blooms or clipped greenery from your neighborhood says “I thought of you and I’m excited you’re here” like nothing else.
4. Make space. Clear a few hangers in the closet and empty out a drawer if there’s a dresser in the room. Until I had a child I NEVER unpacked anywhere, but now that we usually share a suitcase, it’s so much nicer to get things organized in a drawer, even if we’re only staying for a day or two!
5. Hang them up. Right now, our guest bath has three towel bars, which seems generous, but when 6+ people are sharing the bathroom, space runs out quickly. Before Christmas, I’m hoping to remove one of the bars and add hooks, instead, to give everyone a place to dry their towels! My Parisienne heart kind of loves these ones.
6. Light the way. Especially if you have older guests (or much younger ones!), add a nightlight or two to the hallway for nighttime bathroom runs.

7. Stock their room. Set out folded towels before they arrive. Tuck an extra blanket and extra pillows in the closet. Keep a box of tissues on the nightstand and a little wastebasket in the corner. Add a stack of a few of your favorite books or magazines. Write out the wi-fi password on a post-it note, or pop it in a little frame if you’re feeling fancy.
8. Make it comfy. We recently purchased this fluffy mattress topper for our “blue bedroom,” and for $60 it has made that room’s overly-firm mattress SO much comfier. Five stars.
9. Pack some snacks. If you don’t think your guests will be comfortable rummaging through your pantry (not a problem with my family, ha!), set out a basket or tray with a few snacks on your counter: granola bars, bananas, apples, clementines, trail mix, little bags of Pirate’s Booty…
10. Leave the light on. Finally, if your guests are arriving in the evening, I think one of the loveliest touches is turning on a bedside lamp in their room to greet them. There’s nothing like a soft, warm glow to set a cozy tone.

Before I leave you, it has to be said: when we first moved to our house, our guest bedrooms were largely empty, and the thought of rounding up eight pillows to sleep all of our family members when they came for Christmas was daunting (and required stretching the budget to secure one for each person, let alone extras!).

Your guests don’t expect anything close to perfection; they just want to spend time with you. Hopefully some of these ideas are helpful, but know that all of them are overshadowed by a kind, warm, engaged hostess – you!! It’s not about being fancy or photographable, it’s about setting the scene for a relaxed, memorable visit with the ones you love. Let that guide your preparations, and you’ll be golden.

Any other tips to add? I know there are so many more! My friend left a water carafe on my bedside table when I visited her last year, and it made me feel so chic! :)

P.S. We always make our guests sign our guest book — there is a strong tradition of guest books in our family!

Photos by Anna Routh from our last home tour. Affiliate links are used in this post!

Soon after June was born and we realized how much time we’d be spending on the floor for the foreseeable future, a new rug for our living room moved to the top of our “to buy” list. While I loved the look of our old rug, it was scratchy and thin (and I even predicted at the time we would want to replace it when a kiddo came along!).

For its replacement, we wanted something soft and plush. I’ve also always loved the look of Turkish/Persian/Oriental-style rugs, vintage or otherwise, so that was our top choice. (Plus, all those colors can more easily hide spills!) These were a few of the photos that inspired me:

Glitter Guide, My Domaine, My Domaine, Style At Home, Traditional Home

I logged several weeks of searching my usual haunts – like esalerugs, where I’ve had good luck before – but everything in the size we wanted (9×12) was absurdly out of our price range. Then, I stumbled upon the Betty rug on One Kings Lane, and couldn’t believe my eyes. While the colors weren’t perfect, the price absolutely was – $575 + shipping and taxes (our total ended up right at $650). Since we were able to sell our old rug for $100, our net price was just over $500, which I think is incredible!

We eagerly rolled the rug out when it arrived a few days later and… meh. I felt it was way more orange and brown in person than it had appeared in the online photo, and the blue was more steely than aqua. On the plus side, the plushness was just what we were hoping for, the size was right, and the price, of course, was excellent.

I debated for several days whether to return it and try again, but in the end, I didn’t think I could find anything I’d like better even close to that price and decided I just needed to accept it and move on.

We’ve now had it for about a year and a half, and I still feel about the same way, ha! I wish it had more pink instead of orange, that the blue was brighter, and that there was less brown. (My dream rug is pretty much this one, but at six times the price of our current rug, it’s not happening unless the CWD crew gives it to me for free :)) But it’s served us very well, and if I ever find a reasonably-priced rug I like better, I know I’ll be able to get a good resale price on this one. Plus, we’ve gotten lots of nice compliments on it from visitors, and that’s always appreciated :)

Oh rugs… they are so hard! Any pieces in your home you’re currently living with because the price is right? :)

P.S. If you want to snag our rug for yourself, it’s currently on OKL for only $499, which is less than we paid!! Such a steal!

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