My kids love making blanket forts. The bigger, more elaborate, and more difficult to live your life around, the better. Once they start building one, you can bet that all chairs, stools, tables and blankets that aren’t nailed down will be used. They always build these fortresses in high traffic areas, of course. And they have also taken to duct taping the pieces together to make them near impossible to disassemble.

While I’m all for wild feats of engineering, sometimes it’s a huge pain in the ass. Like if I need to leave the room. Or if we don’t have three hours to take the whole thing down and get everything put away. Or if I really want to sit down.

To give the girls the magic of a secret hideout without the necessity of tearing the whole house apart every time, I had been considering one of those incredibly cute little teepees that are popping up everywhere. I always drool over them on Pinterest, but then wonder how logical they would be in my house. Namely: where the hell would I fit one?

When Teepee Joy offered to send us one to try out, I jumped at the chance.

The plight of the second child, man. My little one has spent most her life living around her big sister’s whims. From being dragged to each and every occasion her sister has participated in since her birth (and being expected to nap nicely and cooperate while doing so) to the layout and decor of their shared bedroom, Ellie has always been expected to sort of go with the flow. And, don’t get me wrong—she’s good at it. But once in awhile, you have to throw a girl a bone.

As she gets closer to the end of her kindergarten year, Ellie has started standing her ground a little more. She’ll still tear up and play the baby card any chance she gets, but she’s starting to show signs of liking things a certain way (like the three separate piles of Fancy Nancy books lying in the middle of the floor in their room)—and she’ll fight to keep them that way.

To give her a little space of her own in the midst of their big-sister-dominated shared stuff, I teamed up with The Baby Cubby to create a small, simple kids reading nook where she can practice her brand-new reading skills.

I recently perfected the recipe for the best DIY body butter ever—the mother of all DIY body butters, if you will. Get your pinning finger ready, because you are definitely going to want to save this one for later!

I originally posted a recipe for a creamy, luxurious DIY body butter just in time for Mother’s Day back in 2013. It was pretty awesome, but it had one drawback: you had to refrigerate it in the warmer months to keep it from melting because it was coconut-oil based. Now, I love me some coconut oil so I was not about to eliminate it from the recipe. But I did find a way to make it hold on to its creaminess.

Today, I’m completely updating that post to give you an even better recipe that doesn’t require refrigeration and that makes the perfect budget-friendly gift for any lady in your life (yourself included) who might need a little pampering.

My daughters, who are experts in the art of papering, are obsessed with this stuff and have been slathering it all over themselves ever since I made it. Note to self: double the recipe next time and stash some where they can’t find it! 😉

On a typical day, my microwave is disgusting. We’re talking completely splattered with caked on gunk that I try really hard not to think about because how do you even begin to clean that crap up? Except I don’t feel that way anymore. At least, not since I stumbled upon my new absolute favorite cleaning trick of all time.

Let me get really real for a second by showing you the actual level of grossness I’m talking about, so you don’t think I’m being dramatic or pretending a little soup spill is my definition of gross.

This post is sponsored by Minted, but all messes and opinions are my own. 🙂

Our master bedroom has always been one of the most overlooked places in our house. Tucked away upstairs, it’s not a spot that many guests see (unless they’re tiny humans running through our room while playing with my daughters). Couple that with the fact that it doubles as an office for both my husband and myself and you’ve got a room that is super easy to flat out give up on.

How can you make a space that serves so many different functions cozy? Well, I made it my mission to at least makeover the area surrounding our tired bed (which, as you’ll see below was devoid of any personality).