It's all happening!

Oh man, you guys, I'm so excited.  April is going to be a pretty exciting month around here - no fooling!  First off, I've decided to join in on a Pinterest challenge for the month.  Heather from Style Journey (who is sadly no longer blogging but still posts outfits on Instagram) and some other gals are hosting this challenge and when I saw their calendar, I realized I could totally do it.  Check out #PinnedItSpinnedIt on both Instagram and Pinterest for more information.  I may not hit every day with this, but it will be fun way to try and remix my wardrobe as we march into spring! Here is the calendar (screenshot off my iPhone).

And here is the outfit for day one - very nice neutral outfit with browns and camel tones.  I don't think I could handle heels quite that tall though!

I made a little collage for my Instagram showing the pieces I chose to put this look together.  I actually pulled a shirt out of my giveaway pile - guess this is helping me re-think some of my clothing!

So here you have it - my Anthro pants, vintage black top, fun shoes that are a little more sensible than the ones in the pin and a Stella and Dot necklace.  I like how this turned out.  I'm really looking forward to the rest of this challenge too!  If I don't blog an outfit I hope to still add it to Instagram - so follow me there if you aren't - @BethieTheBoo.

Shirt - two birds vintage via b (a resale shop)

Pants - Anthropologie, thrifted

Shoes - Etienne Aigner, thrifted

Necklace - Stella and Dot 

What else is exciting in April?  I have a couple of fun reviews coming up for the blog, I am trying out a Stitch Fix box for the first time (yeah it's a splurge, we'll see how it goes), Oliver turns 4 months old this week, and spring should be springing soon!  We had a taste of it over the weekend and yesterday - but now we're plunged back into winter.  Nice April Fools joke from Mother Nature.  Oh well.  Anyway, it's going to be a fun month around here, so stay tuned!

Inspiration Monday - A wonderful weekend

Hello everyone!  Welcome to another fun filled week!  Did you all have good weekends?  I had a much better weekend than last weekend!  I'll get to all of that in a minute, but first up, Inspiration Monday with two birds.  The model this week is Poppy DeLavigne, who has been an IM model before, but I still don't know who she is....I'm so out of touch with life.  Anyway, here is her look.

I'm totally coveting those pants - I have never tried snake print though!  Anyway, here's my total blink if you look outfit - I tried.  I wanted to keep it work appropriate and had a hard time finding just the right thing, so yeah, not my greatest attempt, but here it is!

Sweater - Mossimo, Target, swap

Pants - Style&Co, Macy's (old)

Shoes you can't see well due to my extra long pants - Steve Madden, thrifted 

So the weekend was fantastic.  Oliver is getting over his cold.  He went to bed nice for us on Friday night and we streamed a grown up movie off of Amazon that is actually recent!  That is a big deal people! We watched American Hustle.  It was really good!  I was impressed with how well the costuming reflected the time period and the acting was good too.  I highly recommend it!

Saturday I actually got to go out for a little bit sans baby in the morning to go shop with my mom, she wanted to get a new dress for Easter and a wedding we have in the family later this spring, so The Pants Monkey hung out with Ollie and I went with her.  It's rare to get out and do something like that these days!  After I got home we were going to go somewhere for lunch with Ollie but he was a little on the cranky side so we opted to stay home.  He was really sleepy on Saturday - maybe still recovering a bit - so we just let him nap as much as he wanted.  We did go out on a nice family walk since the weather was good.  We ended up renting a movie that evening too - a movie called Drinking Buddies that was pretty cute.  We also grilled for dinner - yum!

Sunday was my favorite - we took Oliver for his very first visit to our local zoo!  I adore this zoo we have nestled in the middle of the city.  I've been itching to bring him there and since the weather was finally decent it was just the day to go.  He loved it!  I have to share a couple of pictures.

He wasn't too into a lot of the animals which I kind of expected - though he did show some interest in the penguins seen above here and also the giraffes and kudu - I think because we could get him nice and close to those.  He also loved the indoor Conservatory - tons of plants and greenery, I think he liked all the color.

When he gets a little older we'll come back and take a picture of him sitting on this turtle, but for now I figured a picture next to the turtle would work!  There were lots of other folks out enjoying the nice day there - we got there plenty early though and were able to get a good parking spot and were more or less done before it got super crowded.  We stopped at one of our favorite delis to get sandwiches for lunch on the way home.  Then Ollie took a nice long nap and mama got a haircut.  It was even warmer when he woke up so we went on one more walk.  The weather isn't going to be as nice the rest of this week so we figured, better soak it up while we can!  

Overall it was just a lovely weekend, we had some really nice quality family time.  I'm so ready for spring to be here to stay, I hope it will be soon.

For more Inspiration Monday outfits - hit up two birds over here!

Still standing

Well we've made it to Friday my friends!  It has been a week.  Sorry for my radio silence yesterday but I ended up staying home with my kiddo - teething plus catching his daddy's cold did not make for a happy baby.  We did not get any sleep on Wednesday night, so I was pretty much a zombie yesterday, there was just no way I was going to function at work.  We rested yesterday and at least got some sleep last night, so I'm back at it today.

Given the challenging week and the fact that it snowed a bit yesterday, I just needed to pull out something springy and fun to perk things up a bit, so I chose this new to me tank top that I got from Court's Crazy Closet on Instagram at the same time as the bird shirt I wore last week.  Add a sweater and boots and you're still set for winter weather, but at least I feel like it's pulling a bit towards spring.  The big news is it should get up to about 60 degrees here on Sunday - that's going to be cause for celebration around here I think!

Sweater - Mossimo, Target

Tank top - Daytripper from Court's Crazy Closet on IG

Jeans - Levi's, thrifted

Bag - Lulu's

Boots - Mossimo, Target

Necklace - gift from friend

So anyway, it was a week of all weeks, but I'm here and still standing and looking forward to a weekend to rest and relax with my baby and my hubby and hope that it's better than last weekend!  We just go one day at a time!  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Mini-Ollie Update - 16 weeks

I haven't done an Oliver post in awhile so felt compelled to do so today.  His four month birthday isn't until next week, so we'll still do an update post then too, but I can still share a little bit now!  16 weeks old yesterday.

He's become quite a chatterbug as of late, I just adore listening to him babble.  He's definitely a morning person - he's at his best between about 8:00 am and noon or so.  If he gets good afternoon naps we can get some pleasantness in the early evening before bedtime too, but it depends on the day.

We've started adding a book to our nighttime routine and I love that he actually looks at the pictures.  He cuddles in and even seems to be listening to us.  It's one of my favorite times of the day.  Our nighttime routine has been go for a walk on the evenings it's been warm enough and if it's not, we play a bit, then pajamas, storytime, nurse a bit, swaddle, lullaby, bop to bed.  Yep, bop to bed.  He likes to be bounced more than rocked or swayed.  We learned that trick from the book The Happiest Baby on the Block and it seems to work well for now. I don't take it for granted though that we have a routine that works right now - it could always change!

I've been having fun with the A Beautiful Mess app for pictures I've taken.  I have to thank Lori for telling me about it!  It's pretty easy to use which is pretty much a requirement for me.  It's getting harder to get good pictures of my little guy too, he moves around quite a bit whether he's doing tummy time, floor mat time or jumping in his jumperoo.  This boy loves to move and I fear a bit the day he starts crawling - and especially walking. I don't know that we'll be able to keep up!

I could watch him sleep for hours.  He had a difficult evening the other night and just didn't want to go to bed on his own right away, so I cuddled him while we watched TV and I remembered how much I love watching him sleep.  I don't ever want to forget these moments.

The teething fairy is still hanging around and doesn't look like she'll be leaving anytime soon.  We are using both Naturals Baby Orajel and sometimes Tylenol if it's bad enough and it does seem to take the edge off. Other than those issues though he's really coming into his own as a sweet little person and I could not love him more!  I'll share more in next week's monthly update, but I just couldn't resist taking time for Ollie this week too since he's changing by the day!

Fresh new day

Hello!  Thanks to all of you who read my vent yesterday and left such sweet comments!  The day got a little better and ended with Tylenol for baby, Nyquil for daddy and a beer for mommy, so it could have been worse!  We all got a little more sleep last night at least!  Today seems a little better so far!

So even though I am a little more rested I still was having a hard time deciding what to wear today - so I decided to let Pinterest dress me again!  I have a bunch of outfit ideas pinned right now that I can very easily put together and it so helps me some mornings when I'm in a fog!

It would be nice if I could start wearing items I've pinned that are more spring like, but since winter is holding on here, I chose a "winter to spring" type look with my mint jeans, boots and a scarf.  It would be very easy to do this look again later in spring by removing the scarf like the gal above did in one picture and maybe even wearing flats instead of boots!

Sweater - Decree, JcPenney, thrifted

Tank top - Liz Lange nursing top, from friend

Jeans - JCP, JcPenney 

Boots and scarf - Target

I always feel so fresh when I wear these jeans - I suppose part of that is because they are mint and mint equals freshness!  I just love that I can cheat and wear jeans to work as long as they are colored!  I should get a few other pairs in various colors - the only other pair I have is red.

So anyway, today just feels better overall so it seemed like a good day to wear a "fresh" look for a "fresh" new day.  Hope you are all having a wonderful Tuesday as well!

Inspiration Monday - Thanks, Universe

I'm going to put this disclaimer out here right now - I didn't have a great weekend.  So I am going to whine a little bit about that.  But before I do and in case you don't want to hear my sob story, I'll first talk about this week's Inspiration Monday with two birds and my take on the look they chose.  This week's look is from Olivia Palermo. 

I did my best to make it work appropriate and my take is far less fun than hers as I do not have any fun colorful shoes like that, but I did my best.  Here we go.

Sweater - H&M, thrifted

White blouse - via swap

Pants - Simply Vera, Kohls

Shoes - Mossimo, consignment

Necklace - gift

And now on to my sob story.  Basically it boils down to this - having a sick husband and a teething child at the same time is simply not fair.  And that is what I was dealing with this weekend.  The Pants Monkey has a bad cold and Mr. Oliver is still teething - I swear these teeth must be coming in from Rome, they sure are taking their sweet time.  So between those two things, I felt like the Universe was kind of having it's way with me. I need a vacation.

On top of that, I got a rejection letter for something I applied for - not work related, but it doesn't really matter what - and it just kind of made me go "what am I doing here?" (and then my head goes "with Fatty and Spotty and Fatty and Spotty" because apparently I live in an episode of Black Books - if you've never watched that show, it's on Hulu right now, go watch now.  You won't regret it).  I'm over it now, but it is no fun getting that kind of news when the world is already pushing you down.

The bright spots of my weekend were going to a baby/kid consignment sale (the same sale I went to when I was still pregnant) and finding lots of new clothes that will fit for Oliver and then getting a ton of stuff washed in my awesome new washer and dryer.  The new washer and dryer are so awesome!  And they play music when they finish which is just too adorable.

Anyway, the TL;DR version of this post is, I had kind of a crummy weekend, but it's Monday, it's a new day and we're moving on!  For more Inspiration Monday looks, hit up two birds over here.  Back to your regularly scheduled happy Bethie tomorrow.  I hope!

Fun with Math

I hated math in school.  It was not my best subject.  But sometimes math and numbers can be fun. Tomorrow is my dating anniversary with the Pants Monkey and yes, we've been married a long time now, but I can't help but always recognize this date too.  And this year is not a significant number - not like last year anyway - but it's still a fun one involving some math.  Here we go class - fun with math!

We're 32 years old right now.  Tomorrow we will be together 16 years.  That is half of our entire lives.  But wait - it gets better.  This May we will have been married for 8 years.  That will be half of the entire time we've been together and a quarter of our lives!  It's the year of the halves I guess!  See - math can be fun!

Sweater - Free People, consignment

Cami - Christopher and Banks, from cousin

Jeans - American Eagle, thrifted

Shoes - Steve Madden, thrifted

Bag - Lulu's 

Necklace - S&D

I'm kind of a "Rain Man" about dates and tomorrow is also the anniversary of something else rather significant, but I won't go into too much detail as maybe it's TMI - but if you do the math, maybe you'll figure it out. Class dismissed!  Have a great weekend!