Category Archives: FAMILY

FAMILY, INSPIRATION, My Family

Our Forever House!

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Hey Luvs!

I’m back! And boy have things been crazy. First I want to say Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays. We spent Christmas and New Year’s Eve back home in Florida. It was great to see and spend time with family and friends but it was tough with Zakai. He is in a super clingy phase that didn’t allow for much kid free time AT ALL. But, ah well!

Now we’re back in Georgia and are starting 2017 with some really exciting news. If you follow me on Instagram then you may already know that we have closed on our forever home!

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I can’t tell you how excited I am for my family to grow and build memories here.  The house needs a ton of work but we’re going to take it on in phases.  The first phase of renovations has already started and we’re forging ahead.  What an amazing start to the here.  God is so amazing!  If you’re interested in seeing a complete house tour click here.

That’s all for now.

XOXO

~TJ

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BEAUTY, FAMILY, INSPIRATION, Mom Life

Halloween Spider Makeup

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Hi luvs!

I always consider Halloween a great opportunity to get super creative with my makeup. Last year I did a little spider web eye. It was pretty subtle but still fun and creative.

This year I decided to take the spider web action up several notches. I did some research on Pinterest and found this extremely impressive spiderweb makeup by MadeULook by Lex.

I love how crazy realistic this look is! I totally felt like trying to recreate this was way out of my league, which frankly made it perfect! I love a challenge. It’s the only way to improve. I used a simple black eyeliner pencil by Jordana and a few shadows from my bh Cosmetics palette. Here’s where I ended up

Although lacking a lot of depth I was very happy with the final look which I completed in 30 minutes. I used part of Zakai’s nap time to do it and that’s all the time he gave me.

Had tons of fun with this spider web makeup! Zavien was a pretty amazing looking Ninja. He was totally in character. 


Zakai wore a batman onesie, but of course I didn’t snap any pics before daycare (uugghh!) 

They both had s great time and of course we have tons of candy to show for all the fun tHey had.

Looking forward to next year!

XOXO 

~TJ

FAMILY, food, INSPIRATION

Pumpkin Rice Krispy Treats

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Happy Halloween Luvs!

I hope you all had a great weekend and enjoyed your Halloween. We had a pretty busy weekend full of excitement and possible new beginnings that I hope to share soon. 

To end the weekend I spent last night making snacks for Zavien’s Kindergarten class for today.  I’ve been having a lot of fun getting creative with his snacks. I’ve done cereal butterfly bags and pencil wafers. 

This time, I decided to go with Rice Krispy Treat Pumpkins!

Here’s what I used

  • Rice Krispy Cereal
  • Jet-Puffed Marshmallows
  • Butter
  • Mini Reces Pieces
  • Green Apple Airheads

Here’s how so did it:

Melt 3-4 Tablespoons of butter in pan on low heat

Add marshmallows (I honestly didn’t measure) and melt (stirring occasionally) on low heat

Remove from heat once completely melted

Add food coloring. I mixed red and yellow to make orange.

Next I added the rice Krispy treats. Again, no real measurement here, I just poured and stirred until I liked the consistencey. After that, I sprayed a little cooking spray on my clean hands and formed little pumpkins.


Once they cooled I turned them over so they would be more round and not completely flat on one side. I added a mini recess piece to the center for the stems and a small piece of green apple airhead for the leaf.

That’s it! Zavien and his class loved them. Oh…hubby did too. Well, that’s all for now.

XOXO 

~TJ

FAMILY, INSPIRATION, Lifestyle, Mom Life

New Pantry Organization

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Happy Friday Luvs!

Super late blog post tonight but I had to share my new pantry organization with you all. I’ve been wanting to get things more organized at home and I’ve finally taken the plunge by designating a project space and just going for it!

I wanted to start with a space that when organized would benefit the whole family so the pantry seemed like the perfect space.  I neglected to take a true before photo, so the one below will have to suffice.  In this photo I had already cleaned out the very bottom, which was a mess, and started organizing the third row.


As you can see there was no method to my previous madness, and as a result I really had no idea how much food I actually had in my pantry!

So, I began by determining what type of storage pieces would serve as a solution to this disaster of a space. Big Lots, Dollar Tree and Walmart were my go to stores for getting what I needed. The clear bins pictured above are from Big Lots. The teal canvas bins and teal cereal containers below are from Walmart. And the other plastic bins are from Dollar Tree. I stuck with teal and red for pops of color since those colors are consistent with my living room which is right off of the Kitchen. 



I pulled everything out of the bottom of my pantry which had become a storage space for pretty much anything. My little person helped me go through everything 


After I got through that I went on to pairing like items in each bin. This is when I realized how much food we had! It was crazy to see just how much we had been over purchasing. After two days of hard work I completed our new pantry organization and couldn’t be happier. 


I’m so excited I just leave the doors open since the colors flow so nicely with my family room decor.  The black chalk name tags are from Walmart.?I spent roughly $50 to complete this project. I’m so inspired and ready to move on to the next space. Stay tuned! 

XOXO 

~TJ

FAMILY, Lifestyle

Sissy & Me In The City – Day 4

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Happy Labor Day luvs!

Yesterday was filled with amazing food and an even more amazing show! We started the day off with brunch at a restaurant called The Smith. It was a really cool spot with some unique but delicious food.  I decided on the jalapeño cheese grits, eggs and sugar bacon.

Oh my goodness, it was so decadent and delicious! After brunch we made a quick stop back at the hotel and then it was off to Time Square to the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre to see The Color Purple.


Headlining the show was Cynthia Erivo as Celie, Danielle Brooks as Sofia and Heather Headley as Shug Avery.  The job they did was absolutely phenomenal!  I was blown away by the performance. If you have the opportunity to see it I highly recommend it.

After being thoroughly entertained we caught the subway uptown to Harlem for dinner at Sylvia’s Soulfood Restaurant where I partook in some of the most amazing collard greens, macaroni and cheese, fried shrimp and catfish EVER!  Seriously, it was love at first bite.

After our tummies were full we decided to go back to the hotel and rest where we spent the rest of the night watching football and food network. Sounds boring but we had a lot of fun and some great quality time.

Today we’ll be heading home. Four days was the perfect amount of time. Now, I totally miss my guys and am ready to head back.


I’m so grateful for my amazing hubby who suggested this trip and made it happen for us. My sister and I had such a great time here in the big city. Thanks for following our journey! I’ll be back with more hair and beauty content this week.

XOXO,

TJ

BEAUTY, FAMILY, FASHION, Lifestyle, NATURAL HAIR

Sissy & Me In The City – Day 1

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Good morning!

I’m super excited because my sister and I are in New York for the long Labor Day weekend. We have never been on vacation together and she has never been to NY which makes this pretty awesome.

We had a really long day yesterday. My sister was up at 3:30am to get ready for a 6am flight.


We made it to NY by 10:30. The traffic from Laguardia to our hotel was crazy, but the views were awesome.

Whe got our hotel in the Financial Distruct early and our room wasn’t ready so we had a good few hours to spare. We decided to go get some lunch. We walked a few blocks and saw some interesting restaurants but decided on a philly cheese steaks from a food truck.


After that our tiredness started to consume us so we went back to the hotel to check in and get some rest.

For dinner I made plans to meet up with several of the ladies from my Natural or Not Hair We Come Facebook group that live in NY. Sissy and I got prettied up and headed out to a restaurant called Harlem Tavern


I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun we had or how great it was to finally meet and hang out with these ladies! They have such amazing spirits. We talked we laughed we drank and ate to our hearts content.

Day 1 down 3 more to go!
XOXO

~TJ

BEAUTY, FAMILY, Lifestyle, NATURAL HAIR

Sissy & Me In The City – Day 2

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Hey Beauties!

Soooo…day 2 in the city was all about sight seeing. We decided to do a full day of The Big Bus Tour which was pretty awesome. We got to see soooo many things and oh my goodness the architecture was A-MAZING!! We started with the Downtown tour where we saw Time Square , Freedom Tower, the Empire State Building and a whole lot more. Let me go ahead and dive into pictures.

After all of that downtown sightseeing our phones were dying and we were starving so we decided to have lunch before we moved on to the uptown tour. We strolled over to Hard Rock Cafe where we fueled our bodies and our phones!  We had some delicious nachos and you see that Electric Blue drink down there, one of the strongest drinks I’ve ever had in a restaurant!


I can’t forget to mention that our waiter was awesome. Super mellow but super cool. He reminded me so much of the actor Justin Long.


After lunch we headed back out for more sightseeing!  It was off to the uptown tour starting in Harlem and ending with the super affluent side of town. We didn’t have seats on top of the bus like we did for the downtown tour though so we didn’t get as many pictures, but we did catch some pretty fabulous art.

All in all the tour was great! Next it was back to the hotel to chillout!

With no idea what we were doing for dinner I took to Yelp to figure it out. We wanted entertainment and great food and we found it at Lips, the Ultimate in Drag Dining. We got prettied up with some dramatic looks and headed out.


Dinner was so delicious! We had lump crab cakes for an appetizer and lobster ravioli for our entrée. As for cocktails, we kept it simple with vodka and cranberry.

As for the entertainment, well it was hilariously fabulous! We laughed out loud ALOT!

Another fabulous day and night in the city!
XOXO,

~TJ

FAMILY, INSPIRATION

Life Update

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Hey beauties!

I’ve been doing quite a bit of traveling over the past couple of months to Tampa, Vegas and then New Orleans. And, with planning my Fearless Textures tour and every day mommy and wife stuff I’ve been pretty busy. Then, on top of that, when I got back from New Orleans last weekend we all faced a week full of tragedies that took a big emotional toll on me and the rest of the world.

As a result of all of this I’ve been feeling a little disconnected from my luvs!

So, I just wanted to share a little life update video with you all.  If you want to check it out just click here.

XOXO,

~TJ

BEAUTY, FAMILY, FASHION

Birthday Haul!

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Good morning luvs!

My family and I spent the long Memorial Day Weekend in Tampa Florida with family and friends. We had a great time! Hubby and I enjoyed some alone time since the Grandmas and Aunts wanted to spend time with our little guys. Two back to back date nights celebrating my birthday a little early (My birthday is May 31) was a total win! I love when I get to spend quality time with this guy.

 
After a great long weekend we drive back to Atlanta on my Birthday. We left early in the morning and arrived in the early afternoon. Although I was super tired a tried to put myself together a little since it was my birthday! I didn’t do too bad. I decided to wear a new cute dress I got for my birthday, paired with my Michael Kors sandals and adorable Betsey Johnson purse all from Marshall’s.

   
    
 
I spent the rest of the day with Hubby and my 5 year old Zavien❤️. 

I ended up getting a lot of great things for my birthday. If you want the deets check out my birthday haul here.

XOXO

~TJ

FAMILY, Mom Life, My Family

7 Pregnancies, 5 Losses, 2 Miracles, ALL Worth It

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Mother’s Day weekend always reminds me of how worth it these last 9 years 7 pregnancies 5 losses and 2 Miracles were. I’m so grateful for my boys. It was a rough ride getting them here but I can’t imagine my life without them. If you haven’t heard my pregnancy journey story you can watch the video here.

Sitting around watching them play this evening put such a big smile on my face

   
 
  
  
It’s definitely rough at times but I can’t imagine life without them. They both brought me home goodies today that were beyond sweet

   
 
I’m going to attempt a little Mother’s Day photoshoot tomorrow and hope to share those with you all next week. Until then I wish you beauties a very happy Mother’s Day weekend

XOXO

~TJ