FRIDAY FAVORITES #103

Hey girl hey!  It's our final Friday before school starts up again (#teambacktoschool over here) and I've got a fun little list of Favorites for you today!

Back to school is technically favorite #1.  I've said it multiple times.  I love summer and all the freedom but I need my house back!!  Work-at-home moms, I know you get me.  It's hard to get stuff done when your kids and all their friends are annoying the crap out of you from sun up to sun down every.single.day.  😂😂😂  Boys are so dang loud, y'all.  #canIgetanamen

Anyway, let's get to it.

Linking up with Erika, Narci D and Andrea, as always!

Back to school time gets me all geared up for Fall.  Unfortunately, it doesn't start to feel like fall around here until November.  Possibly a few in October if we're lucky.  But nevertheless, we tend to ignore that it's 90 degrees outside and go buy ourselves pumpkins, booties, sweaters, cozy blankets and candles in hopes that we can fake it til we make it.  🤷‍♀️

So speaking of candles, I've been on a candle buying binge the past couple of weeks.  We had a couple of cloudy days recently for the first time in a while and it got me feeling all fall-y.  So, I headed to Bath and Body Works to see what was new and came home with these.

Oh yummy.  Next time you're at B&BW, stick your noses into these scents.  Also worth mentioning, these little single-wick candles smell up my entire downstairs and even drift upstairs.  I was super impressed with how much scent they put off!  I bought 4.  Two in my favorite Limoncello scent and 1 each of the Vanilla Pumpkin Marshmallow and Pumpkin Apple.  

So one candle (or 4) leads to another...4.  I ended up ordering these from Amazon.  They were too cute to pass up and I was dying to know if they smelled as good as they looked!

I opted for this little variety pack so I could try out a bunch of scents before deciding on just one big one and I'm so glad I did!  They all smell AMAZING.  Fresh Linen was my least favorite just because I like baking smells more but it was still nice and fresh.  The rest have tied for first.  All are so good!  There are so many scents and several variety packs to choose from too. You can go here and click the dropdown menu to see them all.  (Psssst!  There's a FALL variety pack too!)

Look how cute they are!  These are the perfect size for a bathroom but even in my bedroom, they filled the room nicely!  These would be a PERFECT gift for a birthday, Christmas, teacher gift or for a housewarming!

I am such a sucker for sugary lemon smells.  Ahhhhhh.

I've been focusing on my Etsy shop a lot more over the past couple of weeks in preparation for back to school and fall sign orders.  I'm also working on several new signs for Christmas (my favorite!) so when I'm not working on current orders, I'm working on those.  It's fun to create new things but it tacks on extra hours to my work week and it has put so many other things on the back burner!  My laundry room needs major attention right now.  And I'm lucky I even managed two blog posts this week.  My head has been so focused on all the new stuff I want to make!  I get tunnel vision when I get ideas!

The first thing I HAD to make was this adorable Friends-inspired teacher sign!  I first told you guys about me weird/extreme Friends obsession a couple of years ago in this post.

The sign can be changed from "teacher" to coach, friend, mom, dad, secretary, assistant...you get it. Great as a teacher gift or a gift for yourself!

I also finished my first new Christmas sign and I'm hoping it's a hit with all my fellow buffalo plaid lovers.   This one may be staying with me. ;)

I've got several more that are half-finished and I hope to have them posted next week!  Can't wait to show you!  Be sure you're following me on my Etsy Instagram if you want a peek as soon as they are ready.

And speaking of my Etsy Instagram, if you follow me over there then you've probably seen me posting about these bottles.  They are such great back-to-school water bottles! My boys have each claimed one as well.  I've sent out a bunch of these in the past couple of weeks and they are pretty great if you ask me! ;)

Did you catch my June & July book review this week??  Three of these books are now in my Top 3 books for the year!  Funny, sassy, sweet, a little sad at times and just so darn good!  Head to the post HERE to see the review and as always, you can find all my reviews in the top menu under the "Bookworm" tab.

Did you guys watch the 90210 reboot this week??  I was so stinkin' excited for it and then...not so much.  Ugh.  I feel so disappointed!  I was going into Wednesday night thinking this was a reboot.  Because that's the word that kept being used.  In my mind, a reboot is that they are restarting the same show and picking up on where the characters are now.

I was so excited to see how Donna and David were, what Brenda was up to, if Brandon and Kelly were together...and instead, I got Tori, Jennie and the rest of the cast as themselves talking about their time on the show.  I was confused for the first 10 minutes.  I'll definitely watch and I'm sure it will be good but don't y'all think it would have been SO MUCH BETTER if it was a real reboot?  I'd love to see who was married to who, their kids, their lives.  From the comments I've been reading, I'm not alone in this.  Although someone on Tori Spelling's Instagram was trying very hard to shame all of us who were disappointed because we had not "done our research" before tuning in.  hahaha  Because we all must do our research before watching a new TV show.  ;)  I haven't watched a commercial in forever because I record everything so if I missed the previews, that's clearly on me.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm going to watch the heck out of this show because I love seeing them all back together, regardless.  It's just one time I didn't want to see behind the curtain.

Oh my.  This big 6th-grader-to-be got his first REAL phone this week.  And he was positively GIDDY about it.  (I was not.)  But it was time and he'll be much further away from me this year since his middle school isn't just down the street like the elementary school.  

He is the classic firstborn.  Cautious, careful, responsible, and introverted but with a spunky streak when he feels comfortable.  I love this kid so much and hate that he's growing up so fast.

What parental control-type programs do y'all use to monitor your tween/teens phones?  We've used Kidslox for the past couple of year (you can read more about my review on this app HERE) and it's been great but I'm just wondering if we should step it up now that Matthew is older?  I don't know.  Just wanting to make sure I've got my bases covered, so please drop any suggestions in the comments!

And that's it for today, y'all!  See you back here next week!