One of the perks of living not to far from the beach is that we get lots of friends and family visiting over the summer, and we take our hosting duties seriously and try to make it like a little weekend vacation for them when they visit. In general, I’ve tried to avoid too much beach-themed decor in our house, but when it comes to party supplies and entertaining I’m all about the nautical touches. We have a few more weekends ahead of us that call for festive, nautical summer details — including planning for a big lobster bake feast before summer ends (and using our new personalized lobster cups!). I’ve been eyeing a few additions to my party supply arsenal, like an anchor-adorned wine cooler, some colorful lawn games and beach games, and I’m always adding drink stirrers and cocktail picks to my collection. I’ve rounded up a few more of my favorite nautical party supplies below so you can say Ahoy to seaside summer gatherings! 
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We have a few summer traditions that are absolute essentials in our family, and one is particularly tasty: making my grandma Ida’s homemade blueberry cobbler recipe. It’s simple and fairly quick to make. We’ve done it so many times I can almost assemble it blindfolded. Most importantly, each bite tastes like a burst of summer memories; the warm blueberries scooped out onto a plate with vanilla bean ice cream melting over the top. We had family visiting recently, and with the plethora of blueberries available this time of year it was the perfect time to pull out the weathered recipe card. It’s always such a hit, in fact, as I was taking these pictures, my sister’s boyfriend was hovering nearby wanting to know when he could snag a plate to dig-in. 
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This post was created in partnership with buybuy BABY. All opinions are my own.
In general, food is pretty much universally my favorite topic to talk about. When Jane started to show interest in solid foods I was so excited, because it means we get to talk about food even more than usual. With that big transition came lots of research and questions and frantic Googling (can babies eat greek yogurt?!), so I thought it would be helpful to share a little bit about our experience with Jane and food for others going through the same thing. We have found some products we swear by, and a few favorite foods that helped Jane make the solid food transition jump pretty seamlessly.
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It’s been radio-silence over here this past week. I’ve been busy working on some new projects for the end of summer; lot’s more (tasty) content is coming soon. I also took a little bit of time off to head down to New York for family time as we said goodbye to my sweet Grandfather. He was a huge part of my life; I was lucky to grow up on the same block as him and my grandmother and we had a close relationship because of it. We reminisced about his humor, his kindness, and his love for mischief (and whiskey) – a silver lining in all of the heavy heartedness was getting to spend time with family and friends we rarely see. 
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I’m having a mild panic set in that Jane will be 6-months old this week, how does time move so fast? Yet I’m writing this post at 8:30am and feel like day has been going on for hours upon hours. What’s that saying about children growing up? The days are long, but the years are short. That is exactly how I feel right about now. At 6-months I still feel like everyday is a new challenge, a new discovery, and even more fascination with this tiny human than we ever thought was possible. When Jane was first born I wrote a list of blog post topics that I found helpful during my pregnancy internet-research bonanza, and noted a few that I’d love to write myself once I had a bit more experience (in fact, I started a new baby section of the site with a few of those posts already!). One of them was a comprehensive review of everything we registered for — all of the baby gear we’ve loved using and the random things that I didn’t even know existed while we were trying to survive those first few weeks.
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When a box arrives in the mail from my friends at Martha Stewart Living, I always know there will be fun times to be had. This particular mail day I was excited to find they shared some adorable Martha Stewart glasses from Macy’s with me, and Kerrygold® Irish Cream Liqueur to experiment with! Given our recent heat wave and general summer celebratory mood, I decided to try my hand and mixing up a batch of spiked milkshakes for a simple dessert-cocktail.
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Our master bedroom project is almost complete, minus a few last details that are getting delivered in the next week or so! One of the best parts of starting to move everything into the new room was getting our brand new his and hers closets organized, which meant a fairly big closet clean out for both me and my husband. We donated bags of old college t-shirts, and I sifted through racks of formal work clothes that I’m not wearing anymore now that I work for myself. I also packed away all of my maternity clothes from the past year, and what was left was a pretty pared down selection of clothes I’m currently wearing. Mostly, a uniform of skinny jeans or jean shorts and an endless supply of navy and white striped t-shirts. Looking at this edited (dare I say, capsule?) wardrobe, I noticed how very blue my favorite pieces tend to be. A sea of chambray, navy, and other blue hues that mix and match pretty effortlessly with my favorite denim. I pulled together a bunch of my current favorite chambray and blue styles for a bit more style inspiration to fill that closet back up after our clean-out! Shop my favorites below: 
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I’m keeping pace with my summer Farmer’s Market challenge (in fact it’s the one thing I’ve marked off my summer bucket list – I need to tackle my summer reading list and some of our day-trips before summer slips away). So far I’ve made a charred summer vegetable salad, mixed in tons of fresh veggies in a farmer’s market pasta dish, and made use of those first summer tomatoes with a fresh bruschetta mixed with brine-y olives. The berries are starting to show up on the tables at our little Farmer’s Market and I had to scoop up some bright red strawberries to play with, and I ended up with a tasty strawberry goat cheese crostini recipe this week. 
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I have to start this blog post with an apology to my bestie, who is the biggest fan of my Rice Krispy treat recipe but also a total RKT purist. She texts me every time she sees me posting about new Rice Krispy treat experiments that I should just stick to the classics please, because you can’t improve this perfect, buttery, sweet dessert. So sorry buddy, I’m at it again, but I do think you might want to give these a try because I gave my favorite recipe a s’mores spin this time around.
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We’ve had quite a week around here. Last weekend was filled with houseguests and beach days and holiday weekend BBQs. Until Sunday night when I was knocked down by a stomach bug that kept me couch-ridden for 48 hours. It hit my husband next, right as I was coming out on the other side of the worst of it. We’ve been recovering, cleaning, and generally quarantining ourselves over here since mid-week. Between the great 2017 stomach virus and the holiday weekend, we blinked and the whole week passed us by. I’m telling myself we’ll catch up next week; Friday feels like we’re hitting the re-set button. Before I sign off though, I wanted to share my Friday download with a few fun links, products and recent blog posts worth sharing. Plus a cute picture of Janie, because after this week we all need to pop the bottle and have a drink!
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