Get Me Outta Here

This cold air is making me crazy. It is not even mid January but all I can think about is tropical getaway. I would be more than happy with a trip here:


Cabo, it is at the top of our list of places my husband and I want to travel to. He wants to surf. I want to shop, eat, lay out, read trashy gossip magazines and drink alot of this.

Yes, I am a true tequila girl. I love a tequila shot, but only if it is good tequila. The best tequila I ever had was Partida. I had it while in NYC at Dos Caminos (if you love tequila they had an amazing list there). It was so good it went down like water. Wouldn't you know they don't sell it in NC or SC. I have since found a comparable tequila they actually sell here called Corzo, that is great!

I would like to stay here, Las Ventanas. How incredible does this place look?




I would also like my bags to be packed with all these gorgeous Diane Von Furstenberg Resort pieces.






Is this too much to ask for? So tell me, is this cold air making you crazy too? Do you want/need a vacation as much as I do?

5 Ingredient Fix

Amongst all my fabulous Christmas Gifts, was this cookbook.

The 5 Ingredient Fix by Claire Robinson. I liked her right off the bat after I found out she was good friends with Katie Lee (formerly Joel), one of my favorite cookbook authors. This cookbook is awesome! I was skeptical at first, I mean how great can meals with only 5 ingredients be? But, Claire does not disappoint. The first recipe I tried out was for Brown Butter Banana Muffins. Do I have your attention now? Not only were these muffins so easy to make but the brown butter gives them an incredibly rich flavor. I really liked that they were not sweetened with sugar, but agave nectar instead. Made me feel better about eating 5 at once.


Smashed Bananas

Browned Butter

5 Ingredients Mixed

Muffin Trays filled with delicious batter

The Finished Product


BROWN BUTTER BANANA MUFFINS
Ingredients
4 ripe bananas
1/3 cup raw agave syrup or honey
1 stick unsalted butter
1 large egg
1 3/4 cups self-rising flour

Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper muffin liners.

Peel the bananas and add to a large bowl. Add the agave syrup and mash the bananas with a fork until very liquefied but still a little lumpy.
Melt the butter in a small saucepan or skillet over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the milk solids have turned a nutty golden brown.

To the brown butter, add about 1 cup of the mashed banana mixture and whisk to combine. Cook for a few more minutes until a darker golden color is achieved. Add to the remaining mashed banana mixture and whisk to combine, then whisk in the egg. Fold in the flour, in 2 batches, with a rubber spatula, until just combined; do not over mix. With an ice cream scoop, evenly divide the batter among the muffin tin cups.

Bake in the center of the oven until golden brown and the tops spring back when pressed, about 25 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then transfer the muffins to a rack to cool completely. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Print Recipe HERE

Gaga For Herve

Herve Leger, that is. After seeing so many celebrities look flawless in his dresses, they are on my lust list! Sadly, they are entirely out of my price range at $2000 a dress, but how fabulous are they? These gorgeous numbers suck you in all the right places. I swear they have permanent spanx built in. All I have to say, is yes please! Any of you own one of these gorgeous dresses?
Here are a few I wouldn't mind calling my own.






This last one is definitely my favorite! And its on sale for only $1130, must be my lucky day (Just kidding, had to add that for my husbands sake because he would think I would seriously buy it- total joke Matt, no dress has been ordered).
All dresses can be found at SHOPBOP
**Check out Melanie's Blog, Scout a Mom's Guide to Stylish Living. She is giving away a $100 giftcard to Shopbop!**

Wallpaper or Stencil?

I don't know what it is about the New Year but it makes me want to redecorate. Out with the old and in with the new right? We have made some great progress in our Master Bedroom, so now my new obsession is re-doing the guest bathroom.
OUR GUEST BATHROOM:
Currently it is painted Benjamin Moore's Brookside Moss.


I tried to match the paint to tiles in the shower. However, with a shower curtain up you don't even see the tiles so I think I could really do any colors I wanted. We don't have the budget to completely gut the bathroom, so it needs to be minor changes. I am thinking wallpaper. I have always wanted to wallpaper a room and thought the bathroom would be a great place to start. Has anyone wallpapered before? Is it hard to line up the paper and get it straight?
Here are some wallpaper inspiration images I saved of some lust worthy bathrooms!









My other thought was to stencil the whole bathroom. Megan at Honey Were Home did a great giveaway with some beautiful stencils from Cutting Edge Stencils. Here are a few of my favorite patterns from their website, that are gorgeous and would look great in my bathroom, or any room for that matter!





Just not sure which will be the easiest route, wallpaper or stencil? Because decorating with a soon to be one year needs to be quick and easy!
So, help me out. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated if you have decorated with either!

Something Must be in the Water

I feel like a whole slew of Celebrities (really skinny ones at that) keep getting pregnant. It still kind of baffles me how people that skinny get preggers because I am pretty sure they don't get their periods, at least not regularly. Newest to the group is Mrs Victoria Beckham, aka POSH. She is expecting her 4th baby this summer! With 3 precious boys, I am sure she is probably hoping for a girl. Like Rachel Zoe, I can't wait to see Victoria's maternity style. She is always so put together, I am sure we will never see her in sweats. I used to not be huge fan of hers, but then I watched her reality TV (the one where it featured them moving to the U.S.) and it kind of made me like her more. Don't get me wrong she is way too skinny and could smile more, but she was pretty funny in the show. Congrats to the stylish couple.

I couldn't do this post without some eye candy of David. Even if you are not a fan of his, you can't argue with that body.

Wine + Strange Artwork

On Saturday afternoon I left the Hubs with Sterling and went to meet my two favorite ladies, Jill and Alissa, for some wine and girl time. It has been a long time since I have been out baby free for a few hours, and let me tell you it was wonderful! We started off at the bar at HUSK, a new restaurant here in Charleston. I have yet to eat at the restaurant but the bar was pretty cool.

Their drink list was insane, including a martini called the Walterboro that contained boiled peanut pork-jus. Hmmm... I'm not so sure about that. We ended up sticking with old trusty red wine. We were too scared to try out any of the crazy cocktails.

After HUSK, we headed to a new wine bar I have been dying to try called BIN 152.

It did not disappoint. Their wine selection was amazing. We went with a Spanish Tempranillo and it was delish.

They offer a fabulous cheese list too that was several pages long. I didn't even know where to even begin since I like any and every cheese ever made. We had the owner pick out our cheeses to compliment our wine. This is our massive platter that we almost entirely dominated. The platters consist of two cheeses, a meat and bread. Absolutely delightful with the wine.

Enjoying our wine



Now for the strange artwork. We looked above our table and noticed this weird child with an adults body wrapped in plastic.

This was quite disturbing to me. I felt kind of uncomfortable the whole time like she was watching me. I mean her face is totally creepy, right? I discreetly snapped a picture, I had to show Matt this artwork. The other artwork throughout BIN 152 was equally as weird, or maybe I just don't know good artwork? Strange artwork or not I would most certainly return for some wine and cheese.