Sweet Paris – Snapshots & My Thoughts by Ailee Petrovic

Baby December 4, 2016

Destiny’s Baby Sprinkle

Yesterday, I threw one of my best friends, Destiny, a baby sprinkle to celebrate the impending arrival of her sweet baby girl (and also her 25th birthday!). The shower was at Sweet Paris’ CityCentre location, and despite the weather outside being frightful, the atmosphere inside was seriously delightful (ode to one of my favorite Christmas carols). Destiny’s mom flew in from Las Vegas for the shower, and it was so nice getting to celebrate with Baby Thompson’s Nana there too!

We ate crêpes, decorated cupcakes, guessed Baby T’s arrival date, took photos in front of the sprinkle backdrop, watched as Destiny opened one adorable baby item after another, and had wonderful conversations amongst old and new friends. I love baby showers!

Destiny and I met last summer and quickly became good friends. We both have 2.5 year olds, Truman and Isla, who are also best friends, and I love seeing them together, as Isla always lights up when she sees her pal. Destiny is one of the most sweet, considerate, and thoughtful people I’ve ever met, and we wanted to show her how loved and appreciated she is. The group of ladies at the shower definitely filled the room up!

There were a lot of talented ladies who helped me pull off the sprinkle, and I’ll start with the invitations, which were created by Papellerie (the same gals who did our wedding suite and Isla’s birthday invitations). I am thrilled with how they turned out – they have sprinkles in them (see video on my Instagram here).

The gorgeous wedding cake was made by Lisa of Maple & Love, whom gave me all of our incredible travel suggestions when we went to Melbourne. It was a lemon and strawberry cake, and although I don’t eat eggs, I did totally get a bite of the icing – glad I did!

My Cricut got a good workout, as I used it to create the bottle shapes for the Eos party favors, the ‘Guess Baby Thompson’s Birth Date’ activity and the vinyl shapes for the mylar balloons. I left the heavy duty laser cutting to Monica of Paper Flour Ink, who made wooden boards reading Oh Baby Girl that she covered in sprinkle paper. She is the best!

At a recent party I co-hosted, one of the other gals suggested we order thank you cards and pre-address/stamp the envelopes to help the mama-to-be, and I thought this was such a great idea, so I ordered pretty pink and gold thank you cards from Tiny Prints. I also ordered customized mug from Tiny Prints that read, “Sugar, spice, all things nice – that’s what Baby Thompson is made of” for the tea and coffee. Side note: I’m also obsessing over their gorgeous Holiday cards. We’ve gotten a few in the mail that are Tiny Prints, and I love them!!

My amazing friend Amanda baked cupcakes that were at each place setting, surrounded by colorful sprinkles from Layer Cake Shop. Guests got to decorate them as they wanted, then take them home (because crêpes and cakes made for fully tummies!) in boxes, which had customized birthday stickers, also from Tiny Prints.

Meredith, the queen of creativity (hello invitation stylist!), helped me to blow up and stick all of the confetti-shaped balloons to the backdrop, which my wonderful mom sewed (Sasha DIYed the PVC pipe stand and Amanda sanded it down! Talk about a team effort!).

I am seriously so excited to meet sweet baby Thompson. Our oldest babes are already best friends and I know that she and Emi will follow in their siblings/mom’s footsteps. It was such a joyful shower, and I would love to re-live it all over again. She deserves all of the love and attention, as she is one of the most selfless people I know. February cannot come soon enough!

Personal August 24, 2015

Week in Review

Can you believe August is almost over, and that Texas public schools start back today? Oh goodness, where is this year going?! We spent part of the afternoon planning our trip to Australia in January, as it felt so far away until we pulled out our calendars. Only 4.5 months until we leave! I cannot believe it. I’m so ready to sunbathe on Manly Beach (plans changed from a trip to New Zealand to Sydney!), photograph the colorful boat houses on Brighton Beach, play with koalas at Taronga Zoo, watch our favorite players at the Australian Open, etc. However, the insanely long flight with a 18 month old will be less exciting (ha!).

Overall, we had a fun week, filled with a few shoots, tiny train ride, a birthday party, a high school pep rally and a whole lot of rain. Isla loves to splash in the puddles, so she was in heaven.

Other highlights from the week included:

Photographing two DEFINE body shoots for some of their new clothing and another for DEFINE Foods (I kept snacking on the set food!).
Attending a Butter Artistry and Fave4 hair styling event and getting a fancy schmancy braid in my hair. It was a great event, but I need a serious private lesson to learn Britt’s amazing skills.
Taking a trip to the Rice area, where we had ice cream at Cloud 10 Creamery then headed to Hermann Park to walk around the Japanese Gardens and take a train ride, which Isla LOVED. We grabbed Niko Niko’s on the way home – they have the yummiest falafel.
Shooting our friend’s newly built, gorgeous house, which I’ll feature on the blog this week!
Going to our niece’s adorable 4th birthday party at their house and laughing at Isla’s crazy pool antics. Like I said earlier, she loves to splash.
Having both my older and younger sisters babysit Isla, which I love, as I want Isla to be very close to her aunts!
Receiving my Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite flash in the mail. I’m so ready to take some photos in the evening now!
Photographing the Memorial High School cheerleaders at their back-to-school pep rally. It seriously made me nostalgic! I cannot believe I graduated 9 years ago. What?!
Getting the house painted grey – we finally landed on Benjamin Moore’s Classic Grey! I cannot wait for it to be completed.
Planning another fun shoot that will take place in a few weeks with lots of my favorite creatives and entrepreneurs like Lindsay Marcella, Willow Crowns, A Fine Flourish, Cake & Confetti, cuteheads, Miss J’s cookies and Shop Sweet Lulu.
Eating lunch with Meredith of Cake & Confetti and Leah of The Monogram Shop at Adair Kitchen to discuss some potential collaborations between the three of us – a store with every cute item imaginable, a stylist and a photographer. Expect colorful things to come!
Going to church at Bayou City Fellowship and catching up with our sweet friends, Sydney and Philip, then going to lunch at Buff Burger afterwards.
Eating a delicious and fun brunch with Megan of Willow Crowns and her sweet little Olivia at Sweet Paris in City Centre and then running around the green afterwards. Isla fell fast asleep as soon as we go in the car – she was worn out!
Participating in the Rising Tide Society challenge (#risingtidechallenge), which was so inspiring and I got to ‘meet’ lots of other creatives whom I’m now following and already loving. I am so pro “community over competition” and think it’s great that this global group is pushing it so actively!
Organizing jewelry on our dresser with new holders from Target – the stacking glass jars and another West | Emory bracelet holder that is now out of stock! I’m glad to finally get more organized.
Getting started on Snapchat! You can add me by my username @aileepetrovic and I’ll add you back! It still confuses me a bit, but I’m getting the hang of it and love seeing my friends’ fun activities (especially the little babes!).

How was your week? What were your highlights?

Personal April 27, 2015

Week in Review

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny Sunday, so I decided to take our wading pool (currently used to house play balls) outside for a little ‘swim.’ Isla had been standing by herself for 10 second stretches of time in the last few weeks, but hadn’t really taken many purposeful steps (just a few between objects, like from her walker to the table). While we were in the pool, she got very adventurous and began taking 4-5 steps from one side of the pool into my arms. Sasha was at Home Depot getting tools for my projects (thank you, love!), and when he walked into the backyard, he was floored (and very excited!) to see her waddling across. After we dried off inside, she started doing longer walks in our playroom before expressing her exhaustion by having total Jello legs (short video here). There were lots of ‘Yay, Isla!!’ chants yesterday, but I’m equally nervous about how many breakable items we have at reaching distance. Time to get serious about baby proofing! Isla’s favorite Instagram-friend, Livi, is totally motivating her – check out this video that her sweet momma posted yesterday. She’s amazing! Go, Livi, go!

The definite low point of the week was getting my first cavity filled. I am such a baby. I opted in for the laughing gas, and I still felt like I was going to faint. And then the ache in my jaw all day long? I’m brushing five times a day now and going to start using Act. No more cavities for me!

A few highlights of the week included:

My seriously amazing husband bought me a Canon 5D Mark III camera and the 50mm f 1.2L lens to show his support of my photography business, which I’ll be sharing more details about soon and hopefully ‘launching’ in less than a month! I am still learning the ins and outs of it, but I adore it. Half of the photos below are taken with the new camera, and the others are with my iPhone and my trusted Nikon D5000.
Meeting one of my college best friends, Blake, at Sweet Paris after church on Sunday – Sasha ordered my vegan crepe, which we laughed about as it arrived covered in powdered sugar and Nutella. I joked that he was trying to get me back for the one time I ordered him a salad and it had a cream dressing. Needless to say, I picked out the fruit from the crepe. I do love Sweet Paris though – especially the restaurant’s interior design. See my friend Christie’s post about it here.
Going to Tiny Boxwood’s with one of my favorite people in the world – Brooke – on Saturday for a mid-afternoon drink. Tiny’s has the best drink in Houston (in my humble opinion) – the white wine mojito. Yummm.
At long last, my bestest friend, McKenzie, and I celebrated her birthday (ahem, which is in July! Yikes!) with a spa date at the Houstonian’s Trellis Spa. We enjoyed the sauna, our treatments (massage and facial), and a glass of bubbly in our robes afterward. It was pure heaven!
Enjoying a wine and cheese night with two girlfriends on Tuesday – I am guilty of eating the entire Brie triangle. I cannot stop myself. I love spontaneous girls nights like these!
Getting my hair cut and colored by Eric Vaughn at Estilo Salon. He is so wonderful, and although I am the world’s least patient person and almost didn’t survive a three hour appointment, I love the outcome and had The Paris Wife to read while letting the color set.
Family visits from my mother-in-law, dad, and my older sister! She came over for dinner and a game night of Bananagrams, which I’m slightly addicted to. Since we’ll be spending most evenings in during our trip (except for our night out in Paris with a babysitter!), I’d love to hear any fun two-person game suggestions!
Being treated to TCBY twice in one week. With all of the self-serve places popping up, my loyalty to TCBY that was built during college sort of dissipated, but it’s back. We are addicted!
Receiving my first Voxbox from Influenster. I will be reviewing the products this week!
Finally hanging up our new West Elm mirror in our master bedroom and selling our futon – now all that’s left is to get a bookshelf and have the room painted, and the room is complete! I’m so excited.
Carter’s Instagrammed about my Baby Hospital Bag giveaway last week, which helped spike entries! I got very excited to see all of the giveaway pins on Pinterest! Thank you for participating. The winner of the giveaway is Daphne K.! I’m so excited for her and her sweet baby girl due in May.