© 2014 sarahfortune.

HELLO
Mom to Iris. Wife to Todd. Our little family lives at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains in Fayetteville, Arkansas. We love it here and I love sharing little bits of our life.

© 2014 sarahfortune.
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Sponsored, Travel

TRAVEL BLOG: 21c Kansas City

This post is in partnership with 21c Kansas City. All opinions are my own.

Oh, how good it feels to be traveling again! We were lucky enough to be invited by 21c Museum Hotels to visit one of their newer properties, the 21c Kansas City. Only a short three and a half hour drive from Fayetteville, we hit the road on a Friday afternoon for a two-night getaway.

If you’ve never stayed at a 21c property, there are quite a few things that set them apart. Most notably, there’s an art museum in every hotel which makes it as much of a destination, as a place to stay. Iris, however, would say that it’s the penguins that make it special. Each hotel has a certain color penguin so her first question was, “What color is this one?!” She was thrilled when she found out the penguin was sky blue, one of her favorite colors. These penguins are known to show up at random spots during your stay – sometimes even in your room!

My personal favorite though is always the restaurant. Each one is uniquely curated to represent its location, with one of the best food and drink experiences you can find. On the night we checked in we grabbed a happy hour drink at the bar, followed by dinner at The Savoy. The name is an homage to the old hotel that occupied the building previously. We had actually stayed there years ago and, let’s just say it has improved tremendously. I love that they kept the historic charm of the building, but gave it a modern, warm feel. Iris’ favorite part of the meal is always the cotton candy served with the check. And the cotton candy always matches the penguin’s color at that particular hotel. I live for little details like that!

Now I can’t talk about our stay at the 21c Kansas City without talking about the star of the show – our room. We had a corner suite with an adjoining king room for Iris, which made for a perfectly relaxing (and oh so comfy) stay. The beds, the sheets, the Nespresso machine – oh my!

As much as we loved our room, we wanted to get out and explore so on Saturday we walked around the downtown area and found the cutest little breakfast spot just around the corner. After downing a latte and biscuit, we headed to the nearby Nelson-Atkins Museum to meet up with a few old friends who live in Kansas City. The museum currently has an outdoor artist-designed, mini golf experience. It’s a temporary exhibit, but perfect for kids and adults (hello, drink cart!). I highly recommend getting reservations if you can.

After a fun day out and about in Kansas City, we decided to have a low-key evening back at the hotel. Before turning in, we took time to explore the different art exhibits around the museum. There were some truly stunning pieces on display. After our self-guided tour was complete, we got in pajamas, ordered room service from The Savoy, and curled up to watch movies. An absolute perfect night to end a perfect weekend trip!

Visit the 21c Kansas City website to join the fun and book your stay!

Sponsored

NEW In-Store Drop-Off Recyclable Nature Valley Crunchy Bar Wrappers

This post is sponsored by Nature Valley, but all opinions are my own.

As moms, we’ve learned to always have a few things on hand and I think we all know what’s at the top of that list. That’s right, snacks! As a busy family, we’re always on the go, so having stashes of last minute snacks in my purse and car are an absolute must. But in true mom fashion, that’s not where my preparedness ends. We also keep a bag in the car for all the wrappers and when I head to Walmart I just pick up the bag and drop them off. As my daughter grows, so does my desire to help her learn how to better take care of the world around us.

Sometimes that can be taught in little ways, like the choices we make and the actions we show just in our normal day-to-day. Tying in thoughtful choices with our daily lives makes these lessons a little easier to accomplish and hopefully creates some good habits along the way. Just one easy example is that we’ve started to buy Nature Valley Crunchy Bars with new in-store drop-off recyclable wrappers. Making the conscious effort to buy something that can be recycled (and then of course following through) is a lesson that I hope Iris will carry with her far into adulthood.

Not only are these already some of our go-to snacks from Walmart, but recycling the wrappers is easy. Just save your new recyclable Nature Valley Crunchy bar wrappers and other specialty plastics or film packaging at home and drop them in the bin at your local Walmart. Click here to buy: https://bit.ly/3sef2mO

Little efforts like this can make a big impact and are a great way to ingrain lifelong lessons one snack at a time.

So what exactly is Store Drop-Off Recycling? Store drop-off recycling is a retailer-sponsored program that collects plastic bags and other flexible plastic packaging in their stores. We can collect and save qualifying plastic films at home, such as certain plastic shopping bags, bread bags, dry cleaning bags, produce bags, and food storage bags and bring them into stores to recycle. Make sure to look for the Store Drop-Off How2Recycle label.

Here’s a link to learn more and start making a change with Nature Valley: https://bit.ly/3tdITgu

Fashion

Fave Girls Swimsuits for Summer 2021

It’s almost spring so that means one thing for me – time to start watching the kid swimsuit lines roll out! Nothing gets me more excited for summer than seeing fresh, adorable suits pop up in my Intstgram feed. Growing up I always had one swimsuit and wore that one until it didn’t fit any more. I’ve subconsciously decided to take a different approach with Iris because, well, frankly I just can’t help it. The suits these days are too cute and the summer is too hot, so we’re in water any chance we get. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but Iris has a whole dresser drawer dedicated just to swimsuits. As I was going through it the other day (she has some from two summers ago that still fit!), it made me think – I should share my favorites so far this year. So here are just a few for now…

1. Pink Chicken – Joy Tankini (mixed gingham)
2. Pink Chicken – Liv Suit (cyclamen pink vine floral)
3. Pink Chicken – Joy Tankini (antique white lemons)
4. Hanna Andersson – One Piece Suit (sweet heart)
5. Hanna Andersson – Sunblock Mixie Tankini Set (power pink)
6. Hanna Andersson – Sunblock Tankini Set (Hanna red)
7. Zara – Striped Ruffle Bikini (oyster white)
8. Tea – Long Sleeve One-Piece Swimsuit (watermelons)
9. Zara – Floral Bikini (blueish)

I’m sure I’ll have even more favorites as we actually get into spring and closer to summer. In the meantime, here are some photos of Iris in the one brand that is always at the top of my summer shopping list – Pink Chicken. Cannot WAIT until she can wear this at the beach!

Life, Northwest Arkansas

NEW YEAR, NEW SIDE HUSTLE!

I’m excited to announce that I’ve joined Flyer Homes as their newest real estate agent. While I’m beyond grateful for my day job (I’ve been there for 12 years and am still going strong!), I’ve always had the need to fill my free time in an entrepreneurial and creative way. In my 20s it was selling vintage clothes on eBay. In my 30s it was living the influencer life on the ‘gram. But as I inched towards 40, my next goal became clear – I wanted to be a licensed real estate agent. I’ve always had a passion (okay, obsession is more like it) for looking at houses and of course Todd is co-owner of Flyer Homes, so it just made sense. After completing my courses and passing my exams, my dream has come to fruition. So here I am, just getting started, but welcoming you to reach out if you’re ever interested in buying or selling here in NW Arkansas. ❤️🏠

Food, Sponsored

EDY’S® MELTING SNOWMAN FROSTED COOKIES

This post is sponsored by Froneri/Nestlé but all opinions are my own.

I’m not sure what it is, but I always crave ice cream in the wintertime and this year is no different! In fact, this holiday season I’m getting creative with ice cream by making my scoops a little more festive. EDY’S®/Dreyer’s has several ice cream recipes that look as fun as they are delicious, so Iris and I decided to try our hand at the EDY’S® Melting Snowman Frosted Cookies. We live in the south so our ice cream name is EDY’S®, but for those of you who live west of the Rockies, you would know this ice cream brand as Dreyer’s.

Grabbing a carton of EDY’S® Classic Vanilla Light Ice Cream from Walmart, along with a few other candy and cookie basics, we got to work creating our “melted” masterpiece. Not only is this recipe super easy, but the results made me feel like a Pinterest superstar (which, let me tell ya, is very hard to do). Iris absolutely loved that it included an assortment of sweets and, me? I loved the ice cream, and of course, making sweet holiday memories with my kiddo. On top of the recipe being easy, it was also a breeze getting everything we needed from Walmart using my Walmart+ account for free delivery directly to my doorstep.

EDY’S® Dreyer’s
©HDIP, Inc. 2020 Froneri/Nestlé