Thursday, February 25, 2016

TurquoiseThursday: Drooling Over Anthropologie Furniture

Why does Anthropologie have to send gorgeous catalogs to my house. I'll be honest... I usually am not crazy about Anthropologie's clothes as a whole. However, their home pieces are a completely different story especially when turquoise is a favorite color palette of theirs.

And these four pieces are particularly gorgeous! If they combination of all four pieces weren't over $8,000 then I would have immediately went out and purchased all of them. 

1. Premium Leather Olivette Sofa - I've alway been a sucker for a tufted leather sofa. I am just going to keep telling myself that it is probably really uncomfortable. 
2. Lacquered Mirror - This mirror comes in three sizes and I love the turquoise lacquered color. 
3. Tamsin Dinning Chair - I love the subtle color of this chair and think it would give any room the perfect pop of color. 
4. Lacquered Wellington Dresser - They are also several other pieces of in this Wellington collection. 

So now that we've all come down off our turquoise high let's make a pack. Since all of these pieces are pretty much ridiculously expensive let's all keep an eye out for equally as gorgeous, but much less expensive pieces and notify the group as soon as you find something! Deal? 

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Eight Tips for Your Wedding Registry

It is hard to believe that the Boy and I are approaching our fourth wedding anniversary. Say what?!? The year that we got married, and the following year we did ALL the weddings. I am talking like six weddings in one summer. We had a lull for a couple years and now the next wave of friends getting married has begun.


Everyone will tell you picking out what you put on your registry is one of the best parts of wedding planning, and they are right! But, it can be hard to decide what are the items that you want to remain in your home for the rest of your life. After using our registry items for almost four years here is a little advice.

1. Get way more flatware than you think you'll need. Why? Because I think forks and knives have a missing sock club and will disappear. Oh and there will be the situation of your flatware will be discontinued and you'll be stuck trying to find something similar.

2. It is worth registering for nice pots and pans. Yes, these items can be expensive, but we found that the most expensive items on our registry were purchased first. Often guests want to go together and make a purchase therefor they purchase those larger ticket items. I was thrown a Pampered Shower shower and we purchased a lot of our kitchen ware through the party with our hostess credits. p.s. The Pampered Chef stuff is amazing and is still in the same condition it was when we received it four years ago.

3. Get a Kitchen-Aid Mixer. They are bomb and I use mine all the time. Even if you aren't a big baker they are great for dips and shredding meat. We also received a lot of the attachments, but honestly we haven't used them much. I do recommend a second bowl though. Our came with the metal bowl and then we registered for the glass.

4. It is worth registering for serving ware. Even if at this point in your life you aren't hosting Thanksgiving or big dinners at your house one day you will. It will save you a lot of money not having to run out to buy serving platters, bowls for mash potatoes, serving utensils.

5. However, we didn't register for China. Instead we went with a neutral white dinner plate from Pottery Barn, and then we also got a setting of bright turquoise plates. The white is nice because it goes with everything and every holiday, but we have the option of throwing a little color in there.

6. You will always use nice storage containers. We received some glass Pyrex and Pampered Chef containers and they are fantastic. Of course I use my share number of disposable Gladware pieces, but I love that I can reuse these over and over again.

7. Don't be afraid to register for those off the wall pieces that represent your passions or hobbies. We actually asked for a liquid nitrogen tank that stores bull semen and cow embryos. They are quite expensive, but something we knew we would really need for our farm. A group of our cattle friends went together to buy it for us and it is a great reminder of them.

8. Make sure you put enough stuff on your registry. I have talked to so many of my girlfriends that tell me, well we really don't need that much stuff or we are hoping to just get gift cards. There are going to be a lot of people that want to buy you a tangible gift, and if you run out of things on your registry they are going to by you something they "think" you will want. That is when you end up with stuff. Continue to check back and see how many items are left and if items have been discontinued, and don't be afraid to add more.

Update: Jon and I celebrated our eight year anniversary this spring and I will say everything that I recommended above we STILL have. Only a few of our Pottery Barn soup bowls have had to be replaced and I am really hard on things. After eight years our Pottery Barn sheets hit the dust. Our Shark vacuum only lasted six years but I think that is pretty good considering we have a dog and live on a farm.

Monday, February 1, 2016

We Are Having Babies

Not me. The cows. Yes, it is calving season on the farm. Typically beef farmers and ranchers try to calve their cows in the least amount of days as possible. This is because when they wean the calves from their moms, and breed the heifers the following year, they want them to be as consistent in weight and age as possible. But our farm is a little different.

Remember our farm raises purebred cattle. Now there are LOTS of "purebred farms" that follow the same calving philosophy that I posted above, but not us. Since we sell quite a few of our calves to be show heifers (youth exhibitor them at shows throughout the year) people want them to fall into certain age "divisions." When heifers are shown they are broken up into classes by age. So the Januarys show together, the Marchs, the Aprils, etc. When a family comes to our house to buy cattle they like that they can buy heifers of different ages so their kids don't have to show against each other in class. Therefor we calve a few cows in January and February and then the rest will come in March and April.


Above is the first heifer (girl) calf we had born this year. I love the babies when they are first born because their moms haven't taught them yet that you should run away from people! 90% of calves aren't going to let you get too close after the first day of their life. 


And this is Wall Street. He was born the beginning of January. This was right after he was born. He's got a good mom and she was able to give birth to him with no help from us. 

Make sure you follow me on Instagram at @CrystalCattle to see lots more pictures. Also, #calfwatch16 is a good hashtag to follow if you love baby calf pictures. 
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