Sponsored by Zappos
 

 

Fall.
Autumn.
Fall or Autumn, speaking of that I have to tell you a funny story about Zack, a couple weeks ago before leaving on vacation, Zack and I were looking at the calendar where it says ‘Autumn begins,’ and Zack says to me, “Oh ya! Autumn begins. Now does Autumn come before Fall, or is it Fall before Autumn?” I about died laughing. I honestly couldn’t breathe. Immediately after it left his mouth I could see the regret in his face. He knew it was one of those moments I was never going to let him live down. But more importantly Fall, or should I say Autumn is finally here!

The leaves have began changing colors and are falling all around us. The weather has started to change and cool down. Halloween is right around the corner. Soup sounds good every second of every single day. It’s official, we are in what might possibly be my favorite season. Not only do I love the season and all it brings, I absolutely love, love, love dressing for it. Layers, jackets, dresses, booties, booties, & more booties!

I have been on the search for a pair of good booties for Fall, you know the kind that would go with Jeans, shorts, dresses, and all my fall attire. So I was more than excited when I found these Ariat booties on Zappos! They were exactly what I was looking for. They are going to be a staple in my fall wardrobe this year. The leather is such a beautiful distressed brown, highlighted with the golden buckle, I knew they would go great with most of my fall outfits. Not only that but they are sooooo comfy & can easily transition over & pair with most things.

Today I went for the classic fall outfit, jeans, oversized long sleeve shirt, and these beautiful booties. It’s the perfect outfit for running errands around town, headed to a football game, or meeting up with friends. The booties paired perfect with it & also kept my feet warm & protected from all this rain & mud we have been getting. Basically what I am getting at is you need to head over to Zappos & get yourself a pair!

Happy fall everyone! I’m looking forward to all this season has to hold!
  

Shop my booties here:

 
Booties: Zappos

 

 

 

 

 

Bathroom Makeover

ok this post has been a long time coming! We actually finished our 2nd bathroom makeover a couple weeks ago, I've just been hoping to find a mirror before posting the after photos, but i haven't found one i just love yet, so i'm going to post what we have done now, which is still amazing!

When I moved into this house in the summer of 2014 it was definitely a cowboy bunkhouse/hunting lodge to say the least! We have torn out everything except the drywall & started new! It's been a 4 year process & we are still not done, probably because i like to change things all the time, ha!

So in the original bathroom from the 70's was a few layers of linoleum flooring that was chipping away, and the floor was actually falling in, in front of the sink, so we had to completely scrape each layer of linoleum up & then replace the joist underneath the house & then the plywood base, from there we put in these dark wood laminate snap together wood flooring through out the house, i have a love/hate relationship with them, love that it's not the old flooring, hate how much they show, and how big of a pain they are to clean! anyway, so after we fixed the floors, or before we put in the flooring we scraped all the popcorn ceiling down, ripped out the vanity & started new!

We actually painted it the dark grey that it has been for the last 4 years, which i have liked but was ready for a change. We then moved onto my favorite part of the whole room, the vanity! I get people asking me allllll the time about my baby blue farmhouse sink! It was actually the sink from my great grandparents house, it was the sink my grandpa used growing up. The house he grew up in is ran down into the ground now, so my family & I went there a few years back just to see if there was any cool junk we could find, and i found this sink half way sticking out of the dirt & dug it up! My family all thought I was crazy to bring a sink home, & asked what i was going  to do with it. At the time I had no idea, but i knew i would eventually use it, and here it is! We built the wood vanity around it actually! With the first wood vanity it was supposed to have a shelf on the bottom, but that hasnt got done in 4 years, so with this new remodel i actually stripped the bottom shelf base off & stained the wood a darker brown to match everything, i'm sooooo madly in love with it!

Soooo here we are to the newest remodel of the bathroom, the facelift! Out with the grey, in with the new! We SHIP LAPPED! Ya! Added some new decor, stained the trim & vanity & called it good, it makes the room feel so much homier & brighter, & cleaner! I love it, Zack loves it, & the boys love it, it is their bathroom after all!


products:

Horse painting: Hobby Lobby
Ladder: Old found on the ranch (use as a towel rack/magazine holder)
Cactus Shower curtain: H&M from 4 years ago
Horse picture: found at a boutique years ago
books on shelf: random finds throught out the years
candle on toilet: bass pro shop
flowers: were my wedding bouquet, picked out my favorite fake flowers from hobby lobby
long mirror: target
light fixture & light cages: Lowe's

original bathroom 

first remodel

newest remodel

Little Buster Toys

Guys!

When i was approached from Little Buster Toys, about working with them, i about died. My husband & I have been eyeing their stuff for years! Long before we had babies, we always talked about how we couldnt wait to have babies, & how one of the first things we would buy them, would be Little Buster Toys!

They are seriously the best, scale sized toys of actual ranch life, rodeo life, ag life, the rural, western lifestyle. For us, the ranching toys worked best for our life, and were exactly what we were wanting, not only for the babes to play with, but honestly for Zack & I to play with, ha!

We love using them to strategize with, hopes & goals we would love to achieve with ranching personally, play "dream ranch" and build dream work pens, talk about cattle, practice dr'ing cattle, and learn more about each others different ways of ranching.

Zack & I both grew up ranching two different ways, so me moving to West Texas on his parents cattle ranch has been a new learning experience for me! It's been fun & interesting to see how different parts of the world ranch.

The really great thing about these toys is it gives us an advantage of teaching the boys this lifestyle at a young age! Right now they are still so little & curious there is no way we could just let them run wild in the cattle pens, although that time will be here sooner then i would like, this is a way for me to keep them little, a little while longer all while still keeping them involved in our way of life.

Right now they're still a little to young to really understand exactly what we are talking about but you would be surprised at how much they actually do pick up, they say right now is when the brain learns the most, so why not start young! Our favorite activity to do with the boys right now & the toys is putting the hay bale into the hay ring, and vice versa on the hay trailer. They throuroughly enjoy that. We then like to point out the different breeds of cattle & point out colors, & play the "what does the cow say?" followed by a giant, "MOOOOO". We are showing them how to drive the truck & back up a trailer 😂  it's never to early to start dreaming!

Basically what i am getting at is we LOVE these toys! Not only are they built to withstand two twin boys, made out of actual materials, and built to scale, they are beautiful & amazing! I could not be happier to be working with such a wonderful company!

Even better! They are giving all my followers a 10% OFF coupon to use whenever you want! use code

RACHEL10

anytime to score 10% off your purchase! What an awesome deal! It's never to early to start teaching ranching, and you're never to old to play with toys! That's a good theory in life to live by!


One last thing, they pack up so easy! i throw all of this stuff into a little toat, and dont' have to worry about it breaking, and i can take it with us to Arizona so the boys can play with it there, i can take it down to the pens and throw them in their play yard to play with if Zack & I are busy doing something, all you rodeo moms out there looking for a good travel toy to entertain your kid with, this is it! You'll be seeing a lot more from us about Little Buster Toys

Thats all she wrote folks! Seriously don't miss out on these! Christmas is only 23 weeks away, it doesn't hurt to start shopping early.

www.littlebustertoys.com

           

getting back at it

Hi guys!

Long time, no talk over here. Honestly, i want to be so much better at blogging then i am. More so for myself, i want to write down memories, so my old feeble mind can look back on this one day & read memories i can keep forever. Like Townes first word, which was "Thank you" just started saying it clear as day, lately he's a little bird & really trys to mimic a lot of the words we say, especially "no-no" which he tells his brother a lot. I have just been so absent minded when it comes to my blogging & really need to put in the effort to just come here, to my space, and let my thoughts flow & transfer them into words.

Sooooo, heres to me and trying to be better at something for myself.

Time & the burden of it

Time, you're a wicked devil.

I'm a new mom here, fairly new. New enough to where I still find myself constantly searching google about every little thing.....what color is normal for baby boogers....what does yellow baby poop mean.....fast breathing, slow breathing....hair on babies legs....all the usual good stuff, ya know. But I am broke in enough to this thing called motherhood that I find myself cursing time, already.

My twin boys are 6 & 1/2 months old already, with an adjusted age of 4 & 1/2 months, since they were born two months early. So that means developmentally they are more in line with a 4.5 month old compared to a 6.5 month old.

I CAN NOT BELIEVE I HAVE 6 MONTH OLDS! Honestly, I feel like it was just yesterday they were giving me the horendous news "We are taking your babies out first thing tomorrow morning, if we don't it's likely baby A (Townes) won't survive". And here we are 6 months later....healthy as can be and wild as sin.

I find myself wishing things away, such as all the middle of the night feedings. In the moment i'm so groggy & exhausted & grumpy and want nothing more then to be sleeping, and constantly find myself thinking, 'I can not wait for these boys to sleep through the night.' But once i finally get up & stumble my way over to their bassinets & see the way their faces go from yelling, to a smile that could light up the brightest of arenas, all those thoughts dissipate into mid air. It's ridiculous how much these little people love me, these little men could care less if i was having an off day, was grumpy, not on my best level, didn't wash the dishes, or my hair, no matter how bad i could be doing at mothering that day, they could care less, when they see me instant happiness takes over their little bodies, and in return completely melts mine. They literally think I hung the moon.

I hate that I wish these things away, I already curse the day that they turn 18 and move away. I am in a constant battle with myself of wanting them to be older to be walking and crawling & talking & all the "good things" people tell me are coming my way. But on the other hand I already cry over the thoughts of how big they already are. They are getting so big that instead of just being able to sit & rock them all day, they are constantly squirming & wiggling all over the place when i try to snuggle them, they want to be standing & bouncing, and 'riding the pony' also known as my bouncing knees, they no longer just want to sit & snuggle and fall asleep on my chest anymore. 6 months, I thought 'for sure I would have these cuddle bugs for years to come, that all these boys would want to do all day is snuggle their mama', boy was i wrong, that time went by before i had the chance to blink.

Time i curse you.

To think that this is just the beginning of things that will disappear before i have the chance to realize how good it is in this very moment has my eyes filling with tears. This post is a friendly reminder to myself, my mom self, and to whoever else out there wants it, that time will come and go. Whether we want it to or not it's coming, and going....before you know it. So instead of wishing for things to come or thing to go away, enjoy them, learn from them, take every little moment of these little things in, & live for them. Just live in the moment. And live for yourself and these babies. Time goes to quick, one day you'll wake up & it will be towards the end, and you'll be daydreaming of these days of no sleep, & heavy eyes.

HI friends!!

Hello amigos!

So, I know I have been saying for a while now that I was going to create this blog & commit to writing it. Well, as some of you know,  and some of you don't, I was in the hospital for six weeks  on bed rest, followed by another 7 weeks waiting for my babies to get released from the NICU, for a total of 3 & a half months in the hospital, it was one of the longest, most trying journeys of my life, thus far. From leaving the NICU & then being released into the wild with these two brand new babies, and two new parents who had no clue what the hell they were in for. It has just been crazy, absolutely crazy but oh so beautiful trying to figure out this new life of mine. Finding time to step away & write a blog was pretty much last on my priority list.

Pre babies I was going non stop with my job at Ariat, traveling all over America, and Canada as well, to rodeos, concerts, horse events, store openings, etc....and when I wasn't off traveling for my beautiful job I was off traveling for my husbands music, his band Dolly Shine was a full blown  touring band playing 3-5 nights a week all over the Midwest. And then in between all the traveling Zack & I decided on doing a full blown house remodel.

Soooo, life has been chaotic, and I know always will be, especially now being a twin mama, the thing is I think I've somewhat figured out how to manage this chaotic life of mine, at least enough to where I think I have some sort of control over it, and a little extra time. With all this extra time (like 30 seconds) I think I will actually sit down & try to comit to this blog, for me, to have an escape for my thoughts & just a minute to sit & think & write, and for my husband & kids so they will have a place to read stories of our life together & will have memories forever locked into a space that can't disappear.

It will be a mystery to me & to all of you as to what this blog will be about. From our everyday lives, celebrations of my children and their growth, recipes to share, my husbands music, our lives on my in laws ranch, the growth of zack & I's small heard of 8 angus cows, fashion, our house remodel & anything else I can think of to throw in the mix . An array of cattle & all of you as our company at a peak into at our everyday life in west texas.

I hope you all enjoy.