Christmas is Coming

I know a lot of you are already getting ready to head back to school.  Mini K has until August 26th and we are going to try and pack as much in as we can over the next few weeks.

The Grove has been nonstop holiday and trunk show prep lately!  The holiday emails are coming in and we are already processing corporate gift orders and a LOT of people seem to be having holiday weddings this year.  This bring means to THAT WORD:  Christmas...and yes it is coming.  Well, not tomorrow, but I have been busy getting everything prepped for this holiday season...including some great deals!

Based on the emails I have been receiving, A LOT of you have taken advantage of having your family together to get your holiday card photos taken!  HATS OFF TO YOU!

I wanted to let everyone know that we will again be having a double your order for FREE sale on Holiday cards for those of you that order early...same goes for other items, so stay tuned to our Facebook page and make sure you can see us in your feed.

I am loving some of our new designs, and this one is perfect combination of classic and chic!

Wishing You A Sparkling 4th!

Happy 4th of July!   Baby C woke up the entire house this morning at 6am screaming "I am ready for the fireworks!"  Before we could say anything Mini K informed him, in her very grown up 7 1/2 year old voice, you wouldn't have this day if it wasn't for General Washington!  THANK YOU PBS FOR LIBERTY'S KIDS!

As a country we are one year older today, but there is something about driving by Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day and the 4th of July that really make me stop (not in the middle of the road) and think about all of the men and women, and their families, that we will never meet, that put their lives on the line and chose a career to protect our way of life.  It is truly humbling.  I pray they have peace today and can relax and enjoy the day, and the fireworks, with their families!  For those of you working today, THANK YOU FOR WHAT YOU DO!

I also want to say thank you for supporting my independent small business!   Until Sunday all items in my ETSY store are 20% off with code:  SPARKLER.  SO if you have had your eye on our engraved sunglasses now is the time to purchase!

Enjoy the long weekend with your loved ones and friends!

Monday Mayhem

I wanted to pop in because I feel bad for not posting, but today has turned a little crazy!  So here is our summer thus far:

1.  Mini K has gone and returned from summer camp and LOVED every moment of her week away from us!  (We received 1 letter which stated:  this place is awesome, i have no time)

2.  Swim Team is a full time job

3.  We celebrated her half birthday party this past weekend and a great time was had by all...a complete post is coming

4.  Tonight we are packing up camp care packages for her 8th grade buddy, 2 family friends and her pen pal Miss M

5.  I have shipped out over 100 pairs of monogrammed sunglasses in the last 96 hours!  Stay tuned to our Facebook page as we think we might need to scare the rain away with a Thunder SALE on sunnies!

6.  Next week I will be in D.C., CA, TX, PA and back home...I am tired and I haven't boarded a plane yet!  I am already making lists of what to pack!

7.  I am still in LOVE with my Dry Bar hair dryer

8.  I am disappointed with the Nordstroms half-yearly sale, of course a half price Celine bag was probably too much to hope for right???

10.  Right now I will DOUBLE your order on flat or folded notes for FREE.  You can see all of the designs HERE.

11.  I am patiently (or attempting to be patient) the delivery of my newly lacquered quest room furniture this week.

12.  It is supposed to rain ALL week...I think this alone deserves a pick me up right?

13.  I am trying one of those home spa services this Wednesday...a manicure and pedicure at home with my DVR sounds like heaven right now.  Throw in a cold glass of white wine and I might not ever get up.

14.  I did 25 burpees today, followed by my Crossfit workout, followed by Ab Mat sit ups and now I am wondering if movement is necessary tomorrow.

15.  I have 2 kiddos begging to watch Ninja Warrior so off I go!

Severe Storm Warning

Mini K has field day at school tomorrow.  She also had swim practice tonight.  My phone started beeping during said practice as if it was trying to communicate with outer space.  9 texts, ALL weather related, but the best was from my husband that said:  "Don't worry about the power, that is why we have a generator, but we need bourbon."  I of course start googling...massive rain, flooding, high winds.  If that is what you are thinking, you need to read more of my blog.  Nope, I turned straight to the sugar and my new LOVE:  Sally's Baking Addiction.

On the way home, Mini K and I stopped at the grocery store and the liquor store.  Chocolate chips, toffee, brown sugar, pure vanilla extract, fruit water, honey nut Chex (trust me, Baby C is not a pretty sight when the box is empty), champagne and bourbon.  We are now ready for the storm.

If you haven't ready Sally's Baking Addiction, you MUST.  There are days when I can look at the photos and feel full...so full that I am literally not hungry.  There are other days, like today, when I frantically write out a shopping list in preparation for tomorrow's baking, I mean storm survival.

So if the storm comes, Mini K is staying home and we are having our own Sugar, I mean Field Day and here are the events:

1.  Nutella Stuffed Sugar Muffins

2.  Pretzels

3.  Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mini K and I will also make our Summer Bark!  She loves to make this with me, bag it and tie the bows, we then surprise our friends and neighbors with it.  What is Summer Bark you ask?  Well I am about to let you in on a very simple recipe and you will have so much fun with!  Adults cannot figure it out at first, but the kiddos ALWAYS know right away.  I have given this as a hostess gift, a pick me up and just for fun.  Tie a little note to it that says:  I hope your summer ROCKS!

Summer Bark is..........white or milk chocolate covered.... POP ROCKS!  We take about 15-18 packets of Pop Rocks and sprinkle them all over a Silpat baking sheet and cover them with melted chocolate.  We then sprinkle the top with colored sugar...usually the same color as the Pop Rocks.  Simply break it up once it cools, bag it bow it and off you go to help someone kick off a rockin summer!  Who said smiles were hard to come by?

I have about 20 pairs of engraved sunglasses to wrap up so I can ship them out tomorrow!  I keep seeing similar glasses for close to $50 and ours are still under $40!  I do my best to keep our prices LOW since we all love to shop!  My fabulous customers are clearly also party animals as they ALL seem to be taking advantage of my 30% off ALL invitations sale.  In fact so far everyone is either order their holiday party invites or BBQ invites....isn't someone having a birthday or a shower?  You can see them ALL HERE.

If you are in the path of this storm...stay dry!

The Juggle

It seems my new strategy is to retreat from the blog when I am feeling like my to-do is suffocating me, so I am going to push myself out of my comfort zone and just deal.  There are people out there dealing with a LOT more than I am and definitely stuff more IMPORTANT than mine, and I have always tried to steer clear of thinking it's because I am a working mom, because I had weeks like this long before I was married or had kids, it is life.  There seems to be this unspoken of state in blogland where moms that work judge moms that stay at home and bloggers that are married or have kids seem to claim the high ground over singletons.  In my personal opinion we as a country like to glorify the act of being over scheduled and at the end of the day there is nothing really luxurious about it other than the reward when you cross everything off of your list and take a break.

So here I am and I am here to stay.  I said I would keep it real and in the case of today's post, it's all over the place.  We ran into our friends at Lowes today...we squeezed in a trip between last minute camp packing shopping (I'll get to it) and a rock climbing birthday party, because I needed Mr. G to help me pick some tile for a shower insert.  Let's not even discuss that it was for a shower we never intended on re-tiling, but I promise after this week all I have left is a few more pieces of furniture to cover, 4 area rugs and the driveway.  We agreed to put off the new range and fridge until the end of the summer because I am driving myself crazy with spreadsheets trying to decide between 3 models of each!  Anyway, my friend sent me an email that made my day, and made me stop, she missed the blog posts about shopping and wanted to schedule a time when the adults could get together and the kids could play and it made me realize that in the end life is about those memories and the emails and calls that make us feel like we are a part of something bigger than our to do lists.

Now, I will admit my to do list for tomorrow is done, and waiting for me in my planner, and I will tackle with gusto...TOMORROW.  Mr. G is watching Game of Thrones in the other room.  I will confess, I am not into that show, I need subtitles to understand it so I am blogging.

That birthday party I mentioned....well here is a little snapshot of it:

Mr. G took Mini K and let me tell you NOTHING says adult supervision like your spouse texting you a photo of your child rock climbing while blindfolded that says, she is having a blast and hasn't broken anything.  What would we do without them?

We have 3 1/2 days of school left and field day, and Mini K will be a rising 2nd grader.  A week from tonight she will be heading to bed in her bunk in her cabin at camp!  Our front room is now officially the packing staging area.

As with everything I seem to do, I turned to EBATES for camp prep.  I mean if I have to purchase a page full of items (and YES I monogrammed EVERYTHING) I might as well get cash back right?   SO we ordered her lime green camp trunk from Wayfair.  If you need a camp trunk, join EBATES and then head to Wayfair.  Their prices were 25% less than everywhere else, free shipping, no sales tax and cash back!  My mom sent her a trunk organizer that fits in the top of her trunk and has these 2 page protector like openings so I wanted to fill them with photos.

I typed in collage prints on EBATES and Snapfish came up so we spent yesterday morning uploading photos and creating 2 8.5x11" collage prints on Snapfish and picked them up a mere 35 minutes later at our local Walgreens.  The best part, well besides crossing it off the list?  10% cash back!

As a child I LOVED camp, but I will confess there is a word that when I see it on a note from school or an email or anywhere it makes my skin crawl:  LICE.  I think it might be one of the worst 4 letter words ever!  My fabulous hairdresser told me about a line a year ago that I consider a camp and school must have:  Fairy Tales.  The line is all natural and I am a believer.  You can purchase it online at Amazon and our Ulta also carries it.  There is a lice be gone treatment that I use on Mini K once a once.  It smells nice and I always let her watch tv while it is on her hair.  The week before she goes to camp or starts school I use it twice in one week.  It literally kills and repells lice, nits and eggs on contact.  They also make a lice repelling shampoo, conditioner and detangling spray that are already labelled with Mini K's name and ready to go in the shower caddy when I picked it up from my monogrammer tomorrow.  I want her to have a great time at camp, but I do NOT want any little friends making the journey home!

In the middle of all of this prep, the Grove is in party mode.   Or I should say our customers are in party mode and I love seeing what theme each new order brings!  I have gotten some great ideas so I thought I would continue the party spirit!  ALL invites are 30% off with code: GTA3.  The sale will run through June 25th so you have some time to plan your soiree and save!  All invites are on sale so if you have a shower or party to throw save yourself some money so you can get a little something for yourself!  There is something about seeing an invite in my mailbox that makes me smile.  Is it just me or can you identify an invite over any other piece of mail?  You can see all of the designs on sale HERE.

I kept it real, and this post might be the written equal of a sleeping pill, but I will be back tomorrow and seeing as how we are swimming in fabric over here I might have to do a post!

In With The Rain

The past 6 weeks have been a blur...a blur of wrapping orders, swim practice, lacrosse games, party planning, construction punch out lists, family travel, home decorating and the dream of sleep.  Today is the first day I feel caught up and I am celebrating it as a new chapter.

The flip flops are unpacked, the seersucker is hanging in my closet and the promise of summer soirees and bbq's is on the horizon.  The end of a school year and the start of summer have always been one of our busiest seasons.  We get so many emails from clients wanting to get a head start of holiday shopping, teacher gifts, etc.  I always struggle with how to best help and this year I am hoping I have picked the best SALE...you will have to share with your friends and let me know!

Starting tomorrow through June 3rd our ENTIRE paper site is on sale...that includes cell phone cases, ALL invites, stickers, if it is HERE it's on sale!  Simply add your items to your cart and your discount depends on your total purchase.  The SALE code is:  SWST13

20% off orders of $50
30% off orders of $100
40% off orders of $200 or more

Order your cards, invites, favor tags and more!

One of our biggest sellers this spring have been these tags personalized with:
Thank you for dinner or Thank you for having us!  Clients have told us they will tie them to homemade bbq sauce, bottles of bubbly, boxes of truffles and other hostess gifts!

Camp time is around the corner, turn our calling cards into K.I.T. (Keep In Touch) Cards.  I LOVE this one!  Simply personalized with your camper's name, email and mailing address and help them have a pen pals throughout the year!

Label their gear with our waterproof stickers!

No camper, no problem...a sale is the perfect time to finally order some wrap around address stickers!  Send your packages in style!

The sale starts tomorrow, but you can add items to your cart tonight!  I am going to spend my evening, catching up on all of your blogs and organizing our summer schedule!

Yellow Is Not My Favorite Color Today

My car, front porch and I am pretty sure the inside of my lungs are yellow today.  Not a pretty pale yellow, or a bright sunshine yellow, but a nasty, cottony (is that even a word?) POLLEN yellow.

Despite an allergy shot and meds, I am not winning the battle but come tomorrow my hose and I will be in full force and I am determined to win the war this year!

Until then, sweet dreams of the non_pollen variety!