Must Have {Ikea NÄPEN Clothes Stand}

 

{White Clothes Stand}

 

Last week I took Layla and Mariam to Ikea during the day to look around and it actually went really well. I was even able to let Mariam out of the Babyhawk and Layla out of her stroller and they behaved like civilized human beings. Even lunch there went without a hitch! While I was there, I spotted a clothes stand in the children's section. They only had the display and weren't going to have anymore in stock till this week, so I decided to take my chance again and made another trip there yesterday with Layla and Mariam. I was able to get the stand, but sweet mother of God did the girls give me a hard time! Halfway through the store I practically had to carry Layla out of the store and through the parking lot screeching and even Mariam gave me a hard time. I swear by the time I got behind the steering wheel my heart was pounding from the adrenaline of being so worked up.

 

That is the last time I'm taking them on my own. Just so we're clear.

 

Oi Vey, anyways let's talk about this ridiculously cute and cheap clothes stand. For only $14.99 it's absolutely fabulous for hanging your favorite dress, a children's tutu, or any outfit really. I specifically bought it for the nursery, but now I want one for my room. I know Serena is going to want one too. This my friends is where having girls....and being a girl can get expensive.

 

 

The stand comes with instructions and it's so easy and adjustable. I believe the tallest it gets is around 4.8" tall.

 

 

Have a great Wednesday!

 

 



Our gold hearts

 

 

 

{Gold Heart Top} {Sparkle Heart Bib} {Polka Dot Heart Top}

 

 

I'm so excited to tell you guys that the popular sparkle heart bib from my shop is currently on sale over at Style Lately! The sale ends in 4 days and you can get it for only $9.99 so hurry on over and snag one up. The girls and I (ok mainly me) love hearts and I've been using them in my designs since I first started my business. You can also get the adorable peach gold heart top that I'm wearing from Style Lately. It's so comfortable!

 

Have a great Monday!

 

 



Mustard & Plaid

 

That's about as creative with a title I can come up with on a Monday morning. I tend to exhaust myself on my product descriptions for the Shop.

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Mine was alright. The one thing that did break up this groundhog day of a week was the baptism of my friend's baby. That was nice. Oh and I had a good hair day as well so yay for that. I will now shamelessly post my outfit from Saturday because I hardly get to wear dresses and heels these days so there you have it.

 

 

 



Birthday Outfit

Saturday was a nice day. In the morning H made a hearty breakfast for us and the rest of the day was pretty much spent just lounging around the house till about late afternoon, when I took a shower and got ready for the evening. My mother came over around 6pm to watch the girls and we left to meet a few friends for dinner at Straits restaurant located in the City Center in Houston and then walked to a bakery for sweets and conversation. It was really nice to get away and be on a date with no kids!

Fuzzy i-phone pics, and I'm terrible about getting photos of when we do get out, or when I'm with friends. I don't know how some bloggers do it. I feel sheepish busting out the camera all the time to take pics of myself when people are around. Lol. If it's of something else or my girls, totally different matter!

The striped maxi: postpartum

So remember this post, where I talked about how by mid-may I wanted to have gained 5-6 lbs and get toned. Welllll...I should have given myself a longer time frame because I didn't count on catching a cold like I did, or having dental work which affected me being able to eat solid meals for a couple days. Nevertheless, I have put on some weight. Hurrah! The last time I checked at my in-laws house. (my scale is broken), I had gained 2 pounds. Hey! I'll take it. I haven't been exercising much to work on my toning. I've just been so busy and believe me I know that all it takes is at least 15-30 minutes of the day, but I guess I just haven't made it a priority. I will again though. 

The dress is much longer without a 32 week baby bump. It's also a tad too big. I bought it pregnant and it's a medium so I'm going to have to alter it or else I'll be stuck constantly hiking it up on the bust.

Ps. I think I'm going to have to turn my moderate comments on. I keep getting all these spam comments. So annoying! I also don't want to turn on captcha because that can be aggravating for a person trying to leave a comment. I know sometimes I don't want to leave a comment on other people's blog posts, because it takes me at least 3 times for me to get the captcha right on my phone due to auto correct or it just not reading it. 

Have a great Wednesday!

It's a new year..

I keep telling H we need to write down our goals that we want to accomplish for the family this year, whether it's doing certain things with the kids, or starting projects around the house etc....Alas we still haven't done it, but I have thought about my individual goals. These are some of the things I hope to accomplish or work on this year:

* Potty train Layla

* Spend more time with Serena (the littlest ones require so much that it's often hard to focus on playing games that Serena wants to play. I'd like us to be able to spend more time one on one.)

* Bring the keyboard out and play more. Resume lessons with Serena and introduce it to Layla

*Work on my arabic. It's a shame that H and I have been married for awhile and I still only know a few words. Adding onto that, speak to the girls more in spanish and arabic.

* Stop being so OCD about the house being clean. I'm bad about that, but I feel calm and more relaxed when the house is tidy. Of course with 5 people in the house it's a constant battle to keep it clean.

* Work out more. With almost back to back pregnancies, I haven't been able to have my body the way I want it. I'm lucky in that I'm naturally thin, but I'd like to sculpt it better. It's been an incubator and a feeding machine for quite some time now.

*Let the little things go, don't get so annoyed.

* Take the wall paper off the kitchen. This should be a family goal, but if I don't get it started, I don't see anyone else starting it. ::Ahem:: ::cough::.

* Continue to work on my business. Get into more boutiques.

To help me achieve some of these goals I bought this cute planner from Target the other day. I love cute planners. ;)

Last but not least, a quick outfit post. With the cold weather, I haven't gone out much--thus staying in my lounge pants and tops a lot. I haven't been getting ready for the days early in the mornings like I used to. Then again it's hard with a newborn and a toddler that wake up around the same time, and taking Serena to school. Nothing special, but I thought I'd share anyways so you can see where I'm at about 2 months postpartum. I will do a more detailed postpartum update at about 4 months. Yesterday I worked out and danced for about 45 minutes and I plan on staying at it at least 5 days a week.

Firmoo Glasses Review

 A few weeks ago an online eyeglasses store Firmoo contacted me about reviewing a pair of their glasses. I was more than happy to oblige, being a glasses/contact lens wearer myself. I normally wear contact lenses during the day and at night in home, I switch to my eyeglasses. Sometimes I'll wear my eyeglasses all day if I'm not going anywhere. The email could not have come at a better time because the eyeglasses I wear are a little cracked and over 4 years old. Even though I get a yearly eye exam and my prescription fluctuates, I always just order contacts with my benefits and haven't changed my eyeglasses.

When I placed my order for the Firmoo eyeglasses, they arrived quickly and I was impressed with everything it came with and the glasses themselves. I couldn't wait to try them on! In the package was an eyeglass case with the glasses inside, another soft case, a cleaning cloth, some screws, and a mini screwdriver for the glasses. I liked them immediately. They are lightweight but sturdy and sit nicely on my nose. I love how sleek they look and the design gave me much better peripheral vision than my other ones. I find them very comfortable and have been putting them to good use.

Ordering from Firmoo was super easy. I found the website user friendly and the customer service was great. Firmoo offers very affordable stylish eyeglasses and sunglasses and I highly recommend them. I definitely see myself ordering from them in the future.


This is a sponsored review from Firmoo however all opinions are my own.

Movie date & outfit

On Friday, I dropped the girls off at my parent's house and  H and I went to go see The Hobbit with another couple and it was AWESOME! I loved the movie but then again, The Lord of The Rings movies have always been my favorite. I found the movie humorous and endearing. I'll gladly watch it again when it comes out on DVD.

 

I do love this coat I bought from Forever21 a couple years ago.

 

Getting ready that day also taught me that I can easily give my hair body with no teasing by blow drying my hair and then putting it in a half messy ponytail and leaving it in for at least an hour. I really just put it up so I can go about the day tending to the girls and I was going to fix my hair later so it was by accident I stumbled across this trick. To start, you can't just do the ponytail by standing up straight, you have to flip your hair upside down and put your hair up in a ponytail that way. When you look in the mirror the sides of your hair should be poofy. Sort of like how the hair of a geisha would look. I'll see about photographing the steps soon and posting. I did create some waves with my curling iron once I let my hair down but the half ponytail really helped me cut the time I would normally spend in half.

 

 



Birthday outfit..

Friday June 1st was my birthday and I had such a great evening with H. He really made me feel special and it was a memorable night. Earlier in the morning he told me that he wanted to take me out to eat for dinner so be ready and have the girls ready by 4pm because he was going to get off work early.

Of course I tried on a dozen outfits before I finally found something suitable for this bump. I didn't have alot of options and wished I had gone to the mall and bought something new, but I settled on an old Forever 21 top and my trusty Heidi Klum maternity pants. H got home by 5:00 pm with a beautiful orchid and my mom showed up 30 minutes later. I thought she was going with us, but she was here to watch the girls. It was just going to be me and H. Yay!

First went to an art gallery and we were going to do some shopping at the Galleria but we ran out of time. Traffic had been really bad. So we went to dinner at an amazing steakhouse (so delicious), and it felt just like old times when we used to eat at nice restaurants with no kids. Two men (one who looked like he had juusstt a little two much wine) came over, shook H's hand and congratulated him on my pregnancy lol. There was also a nice girl who stopped me and we talked babies. It was fun.

I only got one picture of H and I dining because it was so dim inside and that one came out super dark, so here are some pics of my outfit I took in the restaurant bathroom.

The long and short of it..

I was originally going to wear this maxi dress to Serena's recital this past Saturday but I changed my  mind at the last minute. Of course changing an outfit last minute is always disasterous when you are going somewhere because you have no idea what to wear!

I wasn't feeling to comfortable with the dress or the hair...at least not for the recital, plus I remembered we were going to a friend's BBQ afterwards so this certainly wasn't going to work. The concept seemed nice at first, but it just bugged me for some reason. You know what maybe because I wasn't used to the hair. This was the first time I've actually succeeded at wearing the messy side bun. I'm used to leaving my hair down.

 

Weekend Recap..

I feel like it's been awhile since I've written though it's only been a few days. This past week was busy! First off, H was so sick that he stayed quarantined to the room. It was pretty rough managing both girls on my own especially since little miss Layla has been extra clingly.

My friend's wedding was also this past Saturday. It turned out beautifully and I'm so happy for her and her husband. I just love weddings. Starting that chapter in your life is so exciting. Marriage is a beautiful thing. I didn't have time to snap that many pics, but I got two. The bridesmaid dress by Alfred Sung was very comfortable.



Let's see what else happened? Oh yes. Layla got her first walker. My mom bought it for her. It took her about 2 days to learn how to move forward in it, but she's got the hang of it now. Unfortunately, she doesn't like being in it for very long.

In pregnancy news, I'm 9 weeks and 2 days, My nausea really subsided last Wednesday and while I was happy at the same time I was like "hmmm". The first trimester is always nerve wrecking because you don't know what's going on with your body. Looks like I spoke too soon because my nausea came back the day before yesterday. I'm typing right now feeling blahhh, and now it sounds like somebody has woken up from their nap so I better run.

Ps. Thank you all who took the time to email me about my blog sale. Alot of the items are still up for sale, I also plan on doing another one next week with tops and skirts.

8 Weeks!

Yesterday my friend Monica had her bachelorette party and I managed to make it through fine with only a few dry heaves. Yay! We all met up at another friend's house and from there went to a restaurant. I ended up leaving with my best friend who is also pregnant after dinner while the rest of the girls went club hopping. One of my friends was like "you're already showing." I felt a little self-conscious because it's mainly bloat but at least I don't have to worry about sucking it in. Lol

How far along? 8w 1d.

Total weight gain: 1 lb

Maternity clothes? Not anytime soon I hope.

Stretch marks? None new. I didn't get any on my stomach with Serena, but I got one with Layla right above my belly button. It's pretty clear though and not noticeable. With pregnancy, my behind has the tendency to grow so with both of them I got stretchmarks on the sides of my butt. They have faded greatly though.

Sleep: It's ok besides having to get up to go pee sometimes.

Best moment this/last week: Seeing and hearing the heartbeat.

Miss Anything? I miss feeling good lol. The fatigue and nausea can be rough.

Movement: No. way too early.

Food cravings: During my 6th week all I could think about was food, but last week the nausea started so  nothing really sounds good.

Food aversions: See above.

Gender: Not sure yet.

Labor Signs: Nope.

Symptoms: Constant off and on nausea, upset stomach, gas.

Belly Button in or out? In. It never popped out with my girls.

Wedding rings on or off? On.

Looking forward to: My good friend's wedding this coming Saturday.