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Love and Specs

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Entertaining, Holiday Favorites, Home, Home Decor

Fun 4th of July Inspired Red White and Blue Decorations to Love This Year!

Summer is officially here, and that means we have our mind on one of our favorite, festive holidays of the year that just so happens to be just a week and a half away – 4th of July! Our Independence Day celebrations may look a little bit more intimate this year, but that didn’t stop us from rounding up all of our favorite red, white and blue 4th of July inspired decorations from around the web that are perfect for small celebrations and general summer fun of all kinds, even if it’s just a backyard BBQ for two!

Beauty + Grooming, Lifestyle

Our 2020 Summer Bucket List & What’s in Our Essential Summer Supply Kit

This summer may look a little bit different than the last, but there’s still nothing we love more than a fun summer bucket list full of outdoor activity and adventure galore! So today we’re sharing our complete summer bucket list full of awesome ideas for couples and families alike, and the summer essentials that help us tackle every item on our list comfortably and with max enthusiasm!

Entertaining, Food, Home, Lifestyle

Our Husband vs. Wife Battle for the Best Easy Summer Cocktail with Q Mixers & Albertsons

To celebrate the summer season the best way we know how we’re mixing up not one, but two tastier than tasty summer cocktails, inspired by two of our favorite Q Mixers flavors from Albertsons! Come see the easy recipes for Chris’ refreshing Basil Lime Gin & Tonic and my bright, delicious Blood Orange Mezcal Mule and vote for which Carter cocktail is your favorite summer sipper!

Book Reviews, Lifestyle

Summer Reading: A Complete List of the Best Book Series That are Like the Virgin River Series

We’re definitely in laid-back summer reading mode over here, so I’m sharing my favorite, romantic book series that are just like the Virgin River book series, so if you watched the popular Netflix show or tackled the Virgin River book series and loved every charming second, you have a complete resource of similar summer reads to get lost in that you can easily refer back to all season long!

Beauty + Grooming, Holiday Favorites, Home, Home Decor, Lifestyle

14 Game-Changing Products I’ve Fallen in Love With at Home That Make Genius Mother’s Day Gift Ideas!

After hunkering down at home over the last month and a half or so, I’ve made some revelations, friends. Home revelations, garment revelations, cleaning revelations, life revelations & it’s made what’s essential, what’s useful, what works and what just downright makes our lives at home easier and more comfortable so much more clear, so I thought it would be really fun to take a different approach to Mother’s Day gifting & use what I’ve discovered to guide my Mother’s Day gift ideas! Gone are the tchotchkes of old & in are the unique things that make mom’s life easier or better in some meaningful or useful way! I’m going into detail about why each product has been such a game-changer in my life at home over the last month or so in hopes that something in there speaks to the mom in your life or… even just to you. Because treating yourself is always appropriate.

Cute Backgrounds & Wallpapers, Lifestyle

Our Cute & Free Spring Phone Wallpapers, Desktop Backgrounds & Zoom Backgrounds Are Here!

They’re HERE! Our fresh, new, super cute and totally free spring phone wallpapers and Zoom backgrounds are here and we hope the pretty pastel color palette and playful floral designs put a smile on your face while you’re staying safe at home or connecting virtually with friends, co-workers and loved ones

Book Reviews, Lifestyle

The Thunder Point Series: An Endlessly Fun Quarantine Activity!

Looking for the perfect escape during your time at home in quarantine? Look no further than the seriously fun, funny, deliciously romantic world of Thunder Point, a 9-book series by the same author that brought us all the beloved Virgin River book series that inspired the Netflix show of the same name! I absolutely loved getting lost in all of the happenings inside the tiny coastal Oregon town of Thunder Point, and today I’m breaking down everything you need to know about the lovable book series, including what you’ll find inside the pages, which of the 9 books were my favorite, where you can buy them right now and more!

Book Reviews, Lifestyle

The Virgin River Series Review: A Review of the 20-Book Series That Inspired the Netflix Show

We’re taking a slight detour today from fun DIY home decor tutorials, cottage home decor roundups, cottage-cool styling tips and casual outfit ideas for a fresh new topic that I just couldn’t be more excited to talk about – the Virgin River book series by Robyn Carr, which, if you’re not familiar, was just brought to life by way of a very fun Netflix show at the end of 2019. After reading all 20 books in the Virgin River series I’m breaking down everything you need to know if the TV show piqued your interest and you’re now considering a foray into the literary world of Virgin River including how the books are similar to or different from the TV show, what I loved about reading the books, whether or not you need to read all 20 in order to avoid confusion and so much more!

Entertaining, Food, Home, Lifestyle

10 Creative Ways to Celebrate the Simple Wins or Major Milestones with Cinnamon Toast Crunch™ & Albertsons

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re really into celebration around here. Give us all the happy, all the time! We love it. We live for it. We thrive on it. We grow from it. Which is why, with a little help from someone we know will absolutely, positively put a smile on your face, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and our friends at our go-to neighborhood store for all of our celebration supplies, Albertsons, we’re slowing it down today to convince you that you can and should be celebrating the small wins, major milestones and everything in between. We’re also sharing our favorite creative, simple, easily executable ways to celebrate the little things, so you can freeze the moment!

Holiday Favorites, Home, Home Decor, Lifestyle

Cottage Cute Valentine’s Day Home Decor Ideas You’ll Love All Year Round

My favorite season for home decor? Valentine’s Day season! I absolutely love capitalizing on the excess of heart prints, the pastel color palette and the romantic, playful decor pieces that hit the shelves and the web this time of year, so today I’m rounding up all of my favorite cottage style Valentine’s Day home decorations that you’ll love all year round!

Holiday Favorites, Lifestyle, Style, Winter

Lovely Valentine’s Day Outfit Ideas You’ll Love All Year Round

My totally unapologetic obsession with Valentine’s Day, the holiday that brings a delightful overload of hearts, pink and all the sweet treats I can handle continues this year, and I’m absolutely overjoyed to kick off a few weeks full of Valentine’s Day content and ideas with a foray into my favorite Valentine’s Day style finds that you’ll be loving and wearing all year long! This is the time of year that I capitalize on the abundance of pretty pink, purple and heart-clad pieces that hit the shelves and the web, and I consider it my life’s mission to get all of you on board the V-Day style train, too. Come feel the love, friends!

Fall, Lifestyle, Style, Travel

Our Family Trip to Blackberry Farm in Walland, TN: The Food, The Fun, The Magic

We spent a weekend celebrating my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary at the incredible, downright heavenly Blackberry Farm nestled inside the Smoky Mountains in Walland, TN just outside of Knoxville and to say that it was a most magical weekend is an understatement. Come explore this gorgeous destination right here in the U.S. to inspire your 2020 travel dreams!

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Maryal Miller Carter

loveandspecs

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Instagram post 17874356132304607 Another look at our backyard home office w/ our pretty new wood French doors! I don’t know how my life took this strange adulthood turn, but I am now obsessed with doors. Had you told my teenage self that I’d spend hours scrolling through the @usdoornmore site just daydreaming about all of the cool doors I could install around my house, I would have spit out my Slurpee & laughed in your face. Yet here I am, pregnant, freaking out about the magic of doors! 🤷‍♀️ I already loved our backyard office, but now it’s about 10x more cottage cozy with these doors & all that natural light streaming in! Working from home never felt so good 🥰 You can see the before & after pics & learn all about how to order custom doors online at the link in my bio!
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Instagram post 17906274784724051 The weather is starting to get pretty perfect here in Phoenix & it’s making me V excited to start exploring the amazing spring front walkway situation around Arcadia! I look forward to riding my bike around, snapping these pretty flower-lined spring paths pretty much all year & from what I’ve already seen around the neighborhood, this year’s spring Arcadia lovefest tour is gonna be GOOD! I think I’m basically just going to focus all my attention on the walkways this year. They’re just so incredible! Are you guys as excited for this year’s spring Arcadia tour as I am?! 🏡🌸🌼💐
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Instagram post 18195918829015109 Oh man am I excited to start sharing our finished exterior remodel of our cozy cottage-cute backyard home office! This space is & has always been a favorite part of our home & tackling the exterior remodel with the help of my parents over the last year has been so much fun & such an education. We’ll be sharing more of how we tackled replacing all of the exterior siding, etc. in the coming weeks but today is all about these beautiful new wood French doors that I’ve dreamed about putting here for years. Years! And they’re even prettier than I’d hoped. Hop over to the link in my bio to see the before & after pics of the front of the office & the doors & hear all about our experience ordering custom wood French doors online, how we easily sealed them to protect them from the elements & more! 🎉
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Instagram post 17897897764829822 You know I love Valentine’s Day so I’m just gonna allow myself to stretch the love fest out a little longer 🥰 💗Chris left this morning for a work trip for a couple of weeks & I swear pregnancy has made me even more sappy for this guy than I already was! 😭 I wish you guys could all know him & have a chance to laugh with him like I do because it’s just the absolute BEST! He’s just an amazing guy. Amazing friend, amazing partner, amazing uncle, amazing everything. I’d never gone through the pics on my phone and saved the photos of us in a folder so I could look back on our relationship over the years & reminisce a little, but I finally did it last night during my typical 3am to 4am pregnancy wake-up & now I’m just over here getting lost in reliving all of the fun we’ve had! 10 snaps doesn’t even come close to covering it. Swipe to the last pic to see our very first photo together that my sister snapped on our first double date to send to my parents so they could scope him out 🤣 Hope you’ve all been able to feel a little love in some way, shape or form this week & if you find yourself needing some more, just DM me & I’ll remind you how awesome you are & how glad I am to have you here! 💗💗💗
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Instagram post 17936172811445601 Man I just 💗 this holiday! I can’t help it! 🥰 Especially now that I get to have this incredible guy as my Valentine for the rest of my life (and my baby daddy). How did I get so darned lucky? So happy Valentine’s Day, my love. You’re my very favorite thing about life & make me the happiest girl alive, day in & day out. May you always find an ocean to ride a wave on! 🏄🏻‍♂️
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Instagram post 17884006397006795 It’s my birthday! And because I love birthdays & basically any reason to celebrate anything, I thought it would be fun to finally share a little secret me & Chris have been cookin’ up for my 36th year 👶🏼🤰We’re closing in on the halfway mark &  it feels pretty awesome. It’s also getting harder & harder to hide this big ol’ belly from you guys 🤣 Everything has been a lot slower around here (well basically me... I’ve been a lot slower) for the last several months, but I have to admit that I’ve kind of loved the slow down. We’ve been in a little bubble of happy. Guess quarantine really got us good 😜 Baby boy arrives this summer & I’ll just be over here fussing over his cozy cottage nursery (which has been SO much fun to design w/ my mom’s help) & Chris will be over there stockpiling all of the kids’ golf & fishing gear he can find. It’s gonna be a heck of a year! 🎉

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