Ailee Petrovic

Mom Talk September 8, 2021

Heading Back to School with Walmart

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Walmart. The opinions and text are all mine. Thank you for supporting the brands my family loves!

As a kid, back-to-school shopping was something I waited anxiously all summer long for! As an adult, it turns out not much has changed! I still feel a thrill loading up on new shoes, clothes, pens, notebooks, water bottles, etc. This year, our back-to-school shopping included more Clorox wipes and hand sanitizer than in the past though!

Walmart has everything my girls need (supplies, clothes, shoes, tech, snacks – you name it), and I can get it all in one trip. The best part is, I can get all our back-to-school items at home with fast free shipping ($35 minimum) or pick them up curbside (also a $35 minimum) without leaving my car. The price point is affordable – you’ll see that many of my selections below are under $10!

Snapshots August 10, 2021

Our 2021 Durango Summer Diary

This summer, we were lucky enough to spend 2.5 months in Colorado, and after experiencing just a few days of Houston’s heat and humidity, we are even more grateful for that time in Durango! We left when Poppy was just 3 months old, which means she spent almost half of her young life in the mountains. It is such a beautiful place – one near and dear to our hearts. We spent the days playing in my parent’s front yard, walking to nearby parks, getting treats at our favorite cafe (just a few blocks from our house!), and throwing rocks in the river. For the first time ever, we signed the girls up for camps and classes (gymnastics, tennis and wilderness) to meet friends, but funnily enough, we met the sweetest family on our first weekend there and continued the friendship over our duration. The girls are already asking when they can go back to see them! We spent a lot of time with my parents at the house with us, but also were lucky enough to have Jill, Kevin, Karine, Hunter, and some of our close friends come to see us. It is such a joy to share one of our favorite cities with loved ones.

Personal July 21, 2021

Documenting the Girls’ Early Years with Artifact Uprising

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Artifact Uprising The opinions and text are all mine. Thank you for supporting the brands my family loves!

If you’ve been following along for any length of time, you will know my love for Artifact Uprising. I have over 30 hardcover books printed – they are some of my most prized possessions. I have trusted this company with the girls’ Baby Books, and I was thrilled to hear that they recently launched an Early Years Book to encourage parents to document details of your little loves beyond the first year of their lives. The book has space for photos and text to help remember all of the sweet details of your children’s lives from one to five. Georgie (age 2), Emilia (age 4) and Isla (age 7) have loved helping me fill out the pages of their books so far. We have laughed at silly memories, gone down memory lane with stories of their younger days and I shed a tear (or two) as we taped in their first birthday photos!

The prompts inside the pages are so unique. You can see them on their website! One of our favorite pages asks you to write down words that your kid mispronounces and what they say instead – I love the sweet little ‘miswords’ that Georgie uses right now and am glad to have a place to write them down.

The Early Years Books are absolutely gorgeous – the high quality linen fabric is the same as their Baby, Layflat and Hardcover Books, so they look great next to our others! Every Early Years Book comes with a unique code for a free set of Everyday Prints, which was so nice to have a set of prints to use to get started. I can’t wait to print more photos and fill out more with each girl during 1:1 time.

Artifact Uprising has kindly given readers a 15% off code to use – SNAPSHOTS15, which applies to all products on the Artifact Uprising site (Photo Books, Prints and more!).

Décor July 9, 2021

Austin House Updates with Serena & Lily

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Serena & Lily. The opinions and text are all mine. Thank you for supporting the brands my family loves!

We are excited to be in Austin in one month – it feels like we’ve been talking about moving for years! In fact, we bought our lot two years ago this month, so it has been a long time coming. I shared details about our move here – but in short, we are rebuilding our Houston house with just a few changes, mainly to accommodate having a fourth kid (we only had one when we first drew up plans!). This means adding an extra bedroom, locker in our mudroom, and changing the layout of our kitchen island to allow for six barstools (instead of four). We spent a lot of time hanging out in the kitchen, and I always felt like it was sad to only have four barstools when we were a family of five. When Poppy was born, I told Sasha it was important to me to have six seats at the island, so we reconfigured it to make it work!

Personal June 29, 2021

Happy Seventh Birthday, Isla Milijana!

Isla turned seven years old earlier this month, and we had so much fun celebrating her birthday here in Durango, Colorado. Before we left Houston, her classmates sang her “Happy Birthday!” at the end-of-year party and spoiled her with the sweetest gift. She was absolutely elated – I will cherish that photo of her beaming forever! For her birthday, she asked for a two-wheeled scooter, Polly Pockets, Barbies, Junie B. Jones books, an iPad, and “squishies,” amongst other things! It’s such a fun age – she still enjoys imaginative play but also can get lost in a good book (Junie brings lots of laughs!).