Casual Friday 009

Funny story from this week. Greta is fiercely independent and social. She loves playing with friends and making new friends and inviting everyone she sees over for dinner. We love her for this and I'm even a little envious of her social skills at such a young age. We have pretty strict rules to protect her that she's not allowed to play with anyone whose family we haven't met. For days and days over the past week, she talked about a boy, Ethan, that she wanted to play with and I kept reminding her that we don't know Ethan's family so we'll have to meet them before she is able to go play at his house. Wednesday morning, she was sitting on a stool in front of the ranges and staring at the minutes pass by. "Greta, what are you looking at?" "I'm waiting until 10am because that's when we're going to meet Ethan's family." I'm not sure if I didn't fully process what she said or I just didn't believe her, but at 10am, she bounced off the stool and told me she'd be right back. I watched her out the window, hop on her bike and within minutes a parade of Ethan's entire family was coming toward our home. Haha! They ended up coming in (I hadn't even vacuumed!) and chatting for over an hour while Ethan, Greta, Faye and their 3 other children played downstairs. I heard from the mom that the day before Greta asked if they would be available sometime to come over and meet us and she said, "Tomorrow at 10 could work?" Greta made it happen. And we met our lovely neighbors and now they'll probably play together all summer long.

More fun things this week!

The above photos are from a barbecue we had at our place last weekend with a few friends. Pizza on the grill, ribs and s'mores with Reese's aka the only way to eat s'mores. (This s'mores basket is amazing!)

Wow! Kim and Scott's vlog is so very refreshing and fun! I love how us DIYers are mixing up the blog game a bit!

My go-to house warming gift. 

I've been on a pillow hunt for our sectional downstairs and I'm obsessed with this simple striped kilim pillow cover at an absolute steal! Paired with this pretty vintage one--dead. Yes!

All the feels with this commercial.

We ordered this big, rectangular black and white striped umbrella for our outdoor dining table and I can't wait for it to get here (backorder--boo!). I just think black and white stripes will never go out of style and can go with any style. Here's one for $219, $144 (love the variation in stripes!) $49 and another for $49.

When we did a little get-to-know-us on Instagram this week, a few of you asked me where I shop being so tall (I'm 6'). The answer is no where special, really. My favorite jeans are currently these $34 ones  and I have a closet full of gray t-shirts.

Hope you have a really great weekend! By now, we're probably on a plane headed to Pittsburgh for the kitchen renovation of our lives! Follow along with all the progress on Instagram and SnapChat (juliamarcum). It should be pretty drastic and entertaining. I have a special Saturday post scheduled for tomorrow and a few posts scheduled to go live next week. So although we'll be renovating our little hearts out, we'll still be checking in here.