Can we say "Retakes"?

The pictures totally crack me up!!! They love them, but I think we'll try again. Retakes please!

Whippy Cake

is having a giveaway here: http://whippycake.com/blog/2011/08/whippy-cake-reaches-10k-followers-giveaway/

Wish me luck!

21 Day challenge

One of the blogs I read is starting a 21 day challenge to be more put together. I'm hoping it will get me out of my pajamas! Here's what she says:
For 21 days I will post a daily outfit prompt. Each Saturday I'll post the list of prompts for the week so you have some time to prepare, then the day before I'll put up a more detailed post with inspiration pictures.Then, get dressed, take a picture and upload it to the 21 Day Challenge Flickr group* and/or blog about it and submit your link here on my blog.

My little guy & diy Anthropologie

The above two layouts are pictures I took of Evan in the hospital the day we left. He's so cute!

I got out my magnifying filters for my lens to get up-close pictures of him. Love the one of his toes. His brother and sisters had to get in on the pictures too. They can't get enough of him!

(Oh, and I'm totally using flowers on my baby boy's scrapbook pages, too! Love it!)

And here are some shoes that I've been drooling over, but even on sale they're too much for me ($50). And the rope sole totally does not look comfy.

So I found these shoes at Forever 21 and bought scrapbooking flowers and viola:

Total cost: about $20 (13 for the shoes and 4 each for two packs of flowers- plus I have more colors of flowers to interchange.)

Dream Outfit

I can't wait to wear "regular" clothes again! This outfit has been in my head for a while, so we'll see when I actually get a waist back! Belt from Ruche- maybe I could make this myself.

I think I'm in love with this skirt from DownEast.

Shoes from Ruche. I can't wait to have ankles back and my feet are their regular size again so I can wear heels!

I know it's missing a shirt, but I have one that I think would work perfectly. A short sleeve button-up in the palest pink that I got from Anthropologie for $10 last year. But I need a pale pink undershirt to go with it still.

Thanks for indulging me in my preggo fantasy dress-up!

Quick Update

Photos of Rylee- taken yesterday. I can't believe how grown up she looks!

I'm taking a photography class online right now and the week's lesson was about aperture. She was my very willing subject yesterday to pose for me out in our orchard. (Cade was my subject the week before for shutter speed- jumping on the trampoline). Anyway, these were her favorites that she picked out and she wanted me to put them on the computer just like this.

Me, at 17 weeks pregnant.

Me at 37 weeks pregnant. I honestly didn't think I'd take any more belly shots this late in the game. Guess I was feeling good that day. And I thought it would be pretty with the lilacs behind me. BTW, have I told you about all of the lilacs at our house? We have a whole row of them on the edge of our driveway and they smell heavenly in the spring. Or, like this year, for two weeks before the flowers fall off. I'm glad I got these pictures when I did.

And here's Cade. Have I ever mentioned that he likes to get into things? A lot? Like everytime my back is turned? Well, this day in March I went to feed our animals (pigs and chickens) in the morning and I came back to this. He had found the hair clippers I bought to trim Molly, our dog, and he did a stripe right across the top of his head. Nice. So then I had to fix it. Poor guy looked like a cancer patient for a few weeks. I was entertained by thinking of all the retorts to potential comments about his haircut, like:

We're conserving shampoo at out house.

He tried out the reverse Mohawk look.

Going for the cancer patient 'do.

He wanted to look like Grandpa. (Cole's dad has very little on top)

We wanted to be ready for summer early this year.

And here's Telena on her 3rd birthday. One of the things my kids loved doing, Rylee especially, was go to the Disney Store at the Mall. Well, just after Rylee's birthday, we realized it had closed. When we went there to go shopping with her birthday money. We did find the Build-a-Bear store though, and so far Cade and Telena have made their own bears. Telena got one for her birthday and we went and got it stuffed and dressed as her present. She loves it and calls it "Rapunzel Bear" because it wears the dress from Tangled. (BTW, I was shocked at the prices at Build-a-Bear the first time I went, but if you sign up for emails you can get a heads-up on sales and get coupons. I even got a bear for free from this. It's waiting for Rylee.)

30 for 30 challenge

One of the blogs I read regularly is this one: http://kendieveryday.blogspot.com/
She does a challenge each season called the 30 for 30. You pick out 30 articles of clothing from your closet- from shirts to shoes- and that's all you get to wear for 30 days. I wanted to do it this time around, just to get to know what is in my closet better and to learn how to wear things in more than one way. And because I went on a clothes shopping binge just before this. (Also included in the challenge is no shopping during the 30 days.) Here are the outfits I came up with:

So maternity style isn't dead. The kicker is a lot of these tops are non-maternity. The pants are though-- I like my belly to be comfy. I'll post later on what specific items I included. Maybe.

(Please excuse the pictures- some are blurry. My photographers are 4 and 7 years old. The photo prop is my 2 year old. She's not even allowed to touch the camera.)