Friday Faves.
A simple round-up of the week’s favorites and some lovely things I’ve found online to share (including some holiday gift picks and kid favorites).

Favorite IG Moments

Favorite Face

Favorite Link
Welcome to Dinovember.  You will smile.  Love this: “Childhood is fleeting, so let’s make sure it’s fun while it lasts.

Favorite Holiday Kid Picks

1)  Plush Campfire Set from Land of Nod.  (We frequently get asked about our Etsy campfire, but the shop doesn’t make it anymore.  Land of Nod debuted this beautiful one this holiday–love that birch log!)
2)  Hand carved magnetic fishing set from Wooden Moose Creations.  We bought this set and stained it ourselves for Nella for Christmas(natural wood set is priced a little lower).  Well, Santa did.  I’m so excited for her to open it.
3) Obsessed with these finger puppet stocking stuffers from Folkmanis.  I want them all.
4) Turn your favorite photos into a personalized memory game: Pinhole Press. 

Happy weekend, ya’ll!

I am excited to be partnering with Target this holiday season for promotion of their Cartwheel app. This post is sponsored by Target.

Holiday Zeal 2013 (proper noun, of course) has obviously commenced around these parts, but it now has even more reason to be celebrated, and it involves two good things:  cool stuff and saving money.    

It’s no secret that I’ve been a longtime Target lover or that my kids recognized the bullseye logo shortly after their first word.  Brett jokes that we’d save on gas money if we just had a tram built between our house and Target–har har, very funny.  It’s not my fault that their holiday aisles are the Keepers of Happiness.  In all seriousness, as a longtime Target shopper, I’m thrilled to be using their new Cartwheel app to save money on things we already buy.  I’ve never been very good at clipping coupons and I forget to look at ads, but the Cartwheel app?  This works for us.  I have Brett hooked on it too. Cartwheel allows you to easily browse Target collections and categories to find numerous deals on everything from groceries and toiletries to clothing and toys.  You simply tap any deals that interest you to make them part of your personalized Cartwheel collection, and all applicable savings are applied to your receipt when you check out.

We dove into their holiday aisles this past weekend to take the festive up a notch in our home and used Cartwheel’s “Deck the Home” Collection to find several great deals–20% off all Smith & Hawken home décor, 10% off Holiday Indoor décor, 15% Threshold candles and holders and more.

Oh, and we had fun doing it.  Thankfully, the holiday music sampler is appropriately positioned so that we can shop and have a dance party at the same time.   Except the girls fight a little over who gets to push the buttons. 

I saved $9 alone on our new Smith & Hawken wreath and took my bottle brush tree obsession to new levels.

I’ll be sharing some of my favorite Target moments and finds on IG and Twitter over the holidays (their ornaments this year? I die.). In the meantime, you can begin saving money by downloading the Cartwheel app for free in iTunes or in the Google Play store for Droid devices–you just need a Facebook account to login (or, after tomorrow, you will be able to log in using your Target.com login).

Thank you Target and Cartwheel for partnering with us, and thank you readers for supporting the sponsors that help support this blog and our family.

In keeping with her adventurous life, my friend Melina (who writes at The Wilder Coast and who wrote this guest post for me back in March) did one of her spontaneous road trips this past weekend.  Thanks to an extra  four hours she tagged on to her drive, she landed in our neck of the woods.

I had 24 hours to give her an accelerated tour, and I still have no idea how we managed to fit in what we did. It was like the one-day Naples Bucket List Adventure–parasailing over the gulf, zip-lining between hotel roofs, swimming with dolpins, photographing a midnight sea turtle hatching.  Okay, we didn’t do any of those things.  But equally exciting, we found a funky new coffee shop that not only offered the most amazing steamed bagel sandwiches, but roaming cats which puts it in the esteemed Key West category.  Locals–The Tuckaway, Fort Myers Beach.  Yer welcome.

I love the magnetic pull between out-of-towners and our beaches.  And I love that each time we happened to casually stop by the beach, Melina couldn’t keep from going in.  And none of this dainty little “I’m just going to get my feet wet” thing.  Sister carpe-ed the diem out of that dip.

We showed Melina how to eat sand.  Because we’re so good at it.

And the best part about sandy babies…the bath that follows.

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I’m over at All Parenting this weekend with Rescue Missions for Challenging Parenting Moments (like that one time my cousin hid from her kids–in the shower. With a box of chocolate Swiss Rolls).

It’s 68 degrees out right now.  In Naples terms, basically that means it’s going to snow.  With a sliver of daylight left and another hour of watching my kids play (wearing sweaters!  Sweaters, I say!), I’m out.

An exciting partnership post coming tomorrow…and I’m bringing back the Friday post this week with a new feature that’s going to be fun to write.  Y’all have a good night.