Fall 2012 Fashion Week Favorites//Street Style

So I may be a little late here, but I wanted to post a few of my favorite looks spotted outside Fashion Week in New York and Milan, among others. These are looks I'd wear myself if I had them! :)

365: Day 6

Hi everyone who's reading! Since I'll be busy tomorrow preparing for our Halloween party, I thought I'd post tomorrow's outfit today. Tonight is full of writing catch-up while my hubster takes the boy to get the big sister from her mother's house, a four-hour round trip. The boy insists he go every time. They always get back really late so it's a great time to catch up on work after my girl goes to sleep around 7:30.

My friend Bre is coming over in the morning so we can finish the graves we have been making for the party. Here's a picture:

 In other news, we have to get an affidavit from the state of Texas, notorized, stating we delay or deny some vaccinations so he can remain in his speech preschool class. I knew this would be address sometime, but it was exactly one day after his 4th birthday that the nurse presented me with this information. So my hubs, the paralegal/notary part, is going to work out the legal jargon so we can do that.

Here are a few pictures of us the last few days:

the beginning of our music tree

Stella making some noise

silly pics with the boy

he insisted on silly faces

Cole admiring his new dog Zeus

taking Zeus for a ride

peace!

car pic

leather & lace: dresses & tops

leather & lace: dresses & tops by stacywill featuring michael kors tops

I don't care how worn out Michael Kors thinks lace and leather are, I still love it.  ;)

Texting with Kevin

This week my husband is out of town, which means I am clinically insane for the week with two children under the age of 4. They exhaust me just waking up these days, thinking of all the things we have to get done and all of those that will go left untouched because I wanted to sit down and rest instead of moving so fast it feels like I'm cracked out.

Anyway, we were texting yesterday and since he wasn't replying, I just told him everything that was going on in texts. Here is the randomness.

Me: Zeus has to be kenneled at night. This morning he ate my hat box, a record, my phone charger, and the rug outside Stella's door.
Kev: All part of the fun of a new dog. Did you go alpha and beat him with the hat?
Me: Yes, I smacked his nose with it. Hurry and come home.
Kev: Think he will shape up when I am back with some mean man voice in the house.


Me: Went to the park at 7:30 tonight. Realized Cole has two pairs of jeans so grabbed some at Old Navy. The kid got balloons they beat me with on the way home. The checkout guy said balloons cure insanity.
Kev: LOL


Me: Our garage door won't stay closed. Keeps blowing open. Creepy. I have a stye on my left eye that hurts like fuck.

Me: I am going to get 100 garbage bags and start cleaning out our house. We have too much shit. I'm smothering.

Me: So yesterday your son called me a stupid bitch when I took the strawberries away from him. I asked him to repeat it, smacked his cheek, took him to his room and told him never to say that, ever.
Me: Today he called me a stupid asshole. I don't remember why, but he got another smack. Stella has started punching and kicking me at bedtime. Woot.


Me: Talked to my mom tonight, who said my hair's too short, it makes me look too skinny.
Me: I weighed myself and the scale said **. Depression kicks my appetite's ass. I need you to take care of me, I guess.

Me: I'm not Cole's best friend anymore. This week I've been called a stupid bitch, stupid asshole, fucker, and meanie.
Kev: Yeah time to put a foot down on name calling

Colored Jeans

I have decided that I need at least 10 more pairs of colored jeans. Yes, that might be a large number, but at the rate I wear my pinkish-red ones from Target, that's on the low side. You can pair them with anything - a denim jacket, blazer, tall boots, flats, Toms, dress 'em up, dress 'em down.. they're an instant pop to my favorite black, white and grey tops.

Here are my favorite looks from around the worldwide web. Mostly paired with black, I'm planning on buying those 10 pairs of colored jeans (when payday comes, of course, and maybe not all of them at once..) and rocking these looks through fall and winter.

For the Greater Good

My good friend Brea is the craftiest, most creative person in my life right now, and she is making jewelry for The Greater Good.
Here are some sneak peeks at her work:

Check out the etsy shop here. It benefits some great kids!

Not For the Faint of Heart

Warning: This blog is about miscarriage and may contain graphic sentences you don't want to envision. If that bothers you, please stop reading now.


On Wednesday morning, I woke up and took Cole to school. Since I'd been feeling a little off, I stopped at CVS and ran home to take a pregnancy test before meeting for a play date at the park. I popped those two pee sticks in the car to 'think' and five minutes down the road, this is what I found:

I went into the park, saw the pirate mommas, and eventually spilled my news like I was talking about some stranger... After two miscarriages, you tend to get a little distant from your pregnancies during the early stages in case it doesn't end up resulting in a baby. On Thursday night I had coffee with fellow pirate Emily and came home feeling excited. I started thinking maybe this one will stick, maybe this one is meant to be, maybe Cole and Stella are meant to have a little brother or sister. I already had a name chosen (Everley Mae or Asher Miles from our previous name choices)...

At 3 am Friday morning, I woke up to pee and had some slight bleeding. At 8 am, I woke up covered in blood and immediately freaked out. Shaking and crying hysterically in the bathroom, the miscarriage started as soon as I sat down on the toilet. I cried even harder and tried to wipe the blood off of myself, until finally giving in and moving blindly toward the shower running, where I knew my husband would be. I climbed in the shower and shook, holding him and howling hysterically because we had just lost another baby.
Since then, I have been resting and trying to keep my thoughts in check. Kevin is taking care of the kids and making sure I get enough to eat and drink.

My first miscarriage happened when Cole was 7 months old. It was a blighted ovum, where my body thinks I'm pregnant and a gestational sac grows, but no baby grows inside it. That really made us want to try for another baby, which resulted in Stella being born in December 2010.

My second miscarriage occurred in April 2012, without my knowledge. After missing my period and getting a positive test, I started the next morning and got a negative test. The ultrasound established the pregnancy had been on my left side and had occurred so early on that I wouldn't have even known if I wasn't so aware of my body.

This time, I knew I was pregnant and was hopeful, but it didn't take. Blood tests showed my progesterone levels were low, making the uterus lining unable to carry the pregnancy. Most likely, this was the case in the April miscarriage, too.

So here I sit, on my third miscarriage with two beautiful babies I am able to hold in my arms to get me through this. I am so grateful for their love and the support of my husband and amazing women who have been there, or haven't been there and just want to show their love and support.

Miscarriage is something no one ever talks about; why shouldn't we? Isn't it better to know we're not alone than to suffer through it in silence?

Our Nature Playscape!

Last month I had all of these great ideas for a backyard nature playscape, except bills got in the way and it had to wait. It was kind of a good thing, though, because the temps shot back up to the upper 90s and it was way too hot to do anything. This week, however, is absolutely beautiful outside, so we started on our nature playscape today.

On the way to take Cole to school, I noticed a ton of freshly cut down trees in this farmer's land and left a note on his door to call me if he wanted to get rid of any of the wood. By 2:00 no one had called, so the kids and I got into the car with a mission to find anything from Home Depot that would work for our nature playscape. Just one block over, before we even left the neighborhood, there was a freshly cut down tree sitting on the curb waiting to go to recycling! Eeeeee! I pulled a U-y, popped the trunk and loaded up everything it would hold. Then after we unloaded it, we went back for a second load.

Here is what our playscape looks like after setting the log perimeter. I even found a Cole-sized stump for him to sit on. Tomorrow we add pea gravel and see how far we get.

showing Dad the work we did today

taking a picture for mom - it was really bright outside, haha

Things to do for the playscape:

• Hit up thrift stores for silverware, dishes, pans, etc for kitchen area
• Find a few sets of wind chimes and other musical instruments for the music tree
•  Find a cabinet/table of some sort to put the old sink in for the kitchen area
• Find an old king-sized sheet for the fabric tent and put it up using white rope and old fence posts to hold down the blanket from getting wind-blown

Here are some of the ideas of what Cole and I like:

a music tree

a kitchen complete with spots for silverware, pans, & dishes

Cole wants a slide, too.

And a tent. A tent is a must.

Ink on the Brain

Tonight my hubby is getting his pirate ship piece finished by our good friend Derrick. He brought along his girlfriend Whitney, who is the most adorable tatted, pierced hairstylist. We are watching Project Runway while they tattoo in the very freshly, thoroughly sanitized kitchen area.

He is working on this:

This is his second session and i haven't gotten anything. It's hard to keep from getting tattooed when your friend makes house calls!

Anyway, these are the ideas I have for my future ink..

pirate lantern for the back of my left arm to make a 3/4 sleeve starting from my upper shoulder/back. Vintage compass on top of shoulder will have a chain to wrap down around the anchor on my back to tie into my pirate girl piece... add pirate lantern to blend.

i want a shiny little silver pistol and a different style ribbon. right thigh

i'd love a version of this that is smaller... i already have ink on both shoulders and these keys stretch too far up. they're also too big compared to the lock.

love the ribbons and this look for a chest piece. don't like the look of the lock so much or the ends of the keys.