Wedding planning and my new thrift store find

I have a very sweet sister/friend (she is more of a sister than a friend) who is getting married. She is "that" girl. The one that all the boys fall in love with, want to marry, or are just content to stand in her presents drinking in the perfection that is...well, her.

She has the beauty of an exotic supermodel. She's about has high maintenance as a Maytag washer and dryer (remember the commercials? The repair guy with nothing to do?) She has high moral standards, loves the Lord with her whole heart, has a genuine kindness that you don't find much these days, and, well, you guessed it....I hate her.

Jusssst kidding! I love her with my whole heart. I just wish that she would get an enormous zit on her forehead every once in a while. Is that so wrong??

I have the pleasure of planning this beauty's wedding, and I cant tell you how excited I am! This is my thing! I love decorating, planning, making phone calls, finding good deals...
because $15,000 to $25,000 for a wedding?!?! Are you serious? We're in a recession, people!! Or we just came out of one, or we're heading towards another one... I'm not sure. Either way, that is an insane amount of money to spend on a party. I'm aware its the most important day of your life and blah blah blah, but that's just nuts! Sorry to anyone who spent that on your wedding. I don't mean to offend. I'm just cheap.

I say, spend the money on your honeymoon! I heard someone say, or read somewhere, cant remember, that "the happiest people spend their money on experiences, not things." I love that.
There are definitely things you want to spend money on when it comes to your big day, such as photography, video, etc., but there are also a lot of ways you can cut costs.
My opinion: don't spend $1,000 plus on a huge cake that everyone is simply going to shove in their face, digest, and then....well, you know. I can honestly say, I don't remember what the cakes looked like, or tasted like at the last 2 weddings I went to. Sorry if you're reading this and you're one of those people. I'm sure it was a beautiful cake!

I have planned my share of weddings, two to be exact, and managed to keep the budget below $8,000. My plan is to do it again. Now if I could only get the wedding venue coordinators to stop hanging up on me.

I'm excited to share this project with you over the next 2 months!
Did I mention we're doing this in 2 months?

And now for my new sweater! You may be asking yourselves "what does this have to do with your post?" to which I would say, "nothing, but I didn't have pictures that related to this post, so why not make it a partial outfit post to show off my latest Goodwill find!" Next you might ask, "why is she wearing that thing in the middle of summer in Arizona?" Well, I had a rehearsal and they keep the sanctuary at a comfy 28 degrees, it seems. Hooray for a reason to wear my new sweater!

Anymore questions?

And that's enough of that! It was 107 degrees when we took these!

I'm an idiot.

 

Sweater: Thrifted

Tank: H&M

Cutoff shorts: Thrifted

Belt: Old

 

Happy Monday!!

 

~Mimzi~

Personally, I prefer almonds

 

I started out wanting the hubs to take pictures of my DIY shirt for an outfit post, but when the men in your life are this good looking, the lighting in the parking garage is sweet, and you have a fancy camera that makes the background blurry, you take lots of pictures and post them all!

 

 



  

 

I found my shirt at a thrift store, I liked it, but I didn't know what it meant, and now days you can never be too sure about these things, so I Googled the brand.

Still not sure.

I think its an acorn company.

I do know its a company that dislikes all other nuts.

 

I cut the sleeves off, cut the bottom into strips, and now I have my very own self made, fringy, acorn loving digs!

 

Shirt: Thrifted

Shorts: Ross (old)

Belt: Old

Sandals: DSW

 

Happy photo ops wherever you may be!

 

~Mimzi~







Hippy Hair

Well, I did it! I actually left the house with the headband on my head. Wore it in public and everything. The hubs didn't think I would, but I did (insert obnoxious happy dance here)

My confidence level was about a 5 on a 10 scale, so I'm getting there.

 

Look out world! I may just wear a hat next.

 

And that about does it for today's post.

 



 

 

 

 

 Cut off shorts: Thrifted

Cardigan thingy: Thrifted

Muscle shirt: Old Navy

Sandals: DSW

Headband: Ross

Cuff: Forever 21 (old)

Happy Friday!!

 

~Mimzi~





Religion, politics and parenting

We've all heard people say, the two things you should never talk about, are religion and politics. Recently, 8 months ago to be exact, I learned that parenting falls right in line with those two as far as being a sensitive, sometimes controversial, topic.

There is a lot of emotion and pride involved with parenting. Pride, along with all of those emotions, topped with heavy sleep deprivation, you have what I will refer to as, the perfect storm.

A proud, emotional, sleep deprived mom, carrying around what feels like the weight of the world on her shoulders. And lets be honest, her child is her world, so to her, the weight of the world is on her shoulders, and that can get is incredibly heavy. Is it worth every bit of the weight? Absolutely. Does it make for a very sensitive women? Yes! So at times it means you have to put the kiddy gloves on...
Just ask my brother in law. One little suggestion on his part, and I all but threw my shoe at his face. He was just trying to be helpful, and you know what, his unsolicited advice ended up being the advice that worked.

I realized then and there, when a mom is at her wits end, she is (I am) extremely sensitive. But, for me personally, on most (not all) occasions, I welcome advice, of any kind. Solicited, unsolicited, by all means, lay it on me. I sent my brother in law a text the next day letting him know that I appreciated his advice and that he was right. I'm glad he spoke up.

A women under the pressure of her own expectations of who she should be as a mom, and possibly the expectations of other people in her life as to what she should be as a mom, can be enough to crush her at times. Because of these pressures and the sensitivity it creates, I have found that being in some mom circles can be very difficult.

There is definitely etiquette to be learned. I have learned by watching, and in some cases by personal experience, if the baby is a girl, do not use the words, chunker, bald, husky, or linebacker. If the child is a boy, do not use the word, pretty....so far that seems to be the only one moms don't appreciate when it comes to a boy.

In a way, it makes me sad. I feel at times that, due to the sensitivity that we as moms have, it leaves little to be discussed. Most people (not everyone) try and avoid disagreeable topics... Well, in parenting, there are a plethora (yes, plethora) of things to disagree on! Co-sleeping, not co-sleeping, sleep train, cry it out, don't ever let your baby cry, wake your baby up from naps, never wake a baby up from a nap, start baby on solids at 4 months, wait until 6 months, breast feed until they are two, don't breast feed past six months. "What? You never breast fed your child? Shame on you!" Vaccinate, don't vaccinate, only vaccinate after the age of two. Organic baby food, homemade baby food, whatever the baby will put in his mouth is fine as long as it isn't antifreeze.
Ugh!

If I cant talk about any of those things, what do I talk about? I'm a stay at home mom!
Fine. Laundry. Lets talk about laundry.
What? Organic, non toxic laundry soap? No, I don't use that.
Crap.

My name is Tabitha, and I can be an overly sensitive mom.
But you can call my son pretty, cause dang it, look at that face!!

 

Isn't he gorgeous!?!

;)

 

Yesterday I was "that" mom

Yesterday was one of "those" days. The kind that make you want to crawl back in bed and start over. Not because it was so awful that I couldn't cope emotionally, but because everything I touched, or tried to accomplish, was hindered by something. Not big somethings, mind you, but stupid little nothing somethings.

Example: trying to get ready for the day while B takes his nap. This time is limited, and varies from day to day. Some days I have two hours, some days an hour and a half, some days an hour. Those are bad days. Luckily, they are few. An hour nap means I will most likely have a grumpy baby for the duration of our day, and a grumpy baby makes for a grumpy mommy, which makes for a daddy who wants to turn around and go back to work as soon as he walks in the door of his home at the end of the day.

The short nap may or may not have had something to do with the fact that as I was brushing my teeth, a clump of toothpaste fell on my bottom lip before making it into my mouth, so I did what anyone would do in that situation, I tried to suck it back in. While this seemed like a harmless idea at the time, I soon realized that the force of my sucking would bring the clump of throat burning, puppy hating, devil paste to the back of my throat where it proceeded to burn in such a way that led to a fit of dramatic hacking and coughing, which then led to guzzling water, going to the closet to cough loudly (in hopes of not waking up the baby), scratching the back of my tongue with my toothbrush hoping it would make the burning stop! It didn't.
I cant believe this stuff is approved by four out of five dentists!! That fifth guy was right.

Needless to say, such a stupid incident set the pace for the rest of the day. I felt as though I couldn't do anything without something stupid making my task just a little more difficult than necessary!

You never know where the inspiration for a blog post will come from.

These things (naps) are so darn important! In this case, a bad nap led to an awful lunch date with a friend. I met a sweet girl in Brody's swim class a few months ago. She has an adorable little girl just a few months younger than B. We decided to meet for lunch yesterday, and if you've read my cooking challenge post, you know I LOVE Pita Jungle, so that's where we went. Little did I know, thanks to my deathpaste which led to Brody's short nap,  I was going to be "that" mom at the restaurant.

My child. My sweet, well mannered, easy going, smiles at everything, baby, basically all but grew two heads and shot death rays out of his eyeballs. In his defense, he was also teething. There are just some days when those baby teeth, that are taking their time to push through, give him such a hard time, he can hardly stand it. The problem is, people in the restaurant don't know he's tired and teething, they just know this unruly kid is crying through their lunch break. Before B, I was that person who looked at a mom with my judgment and thought "get that kid under control, lady" or "when I have kids that will never fly". Ha! Oh... me and my naïve, pre baby self. I try and make it a point not to judge moms anymore. There are still times where I will see a mom do something, or not do something and think "I would definitely not handle that situation the same way" and hey, we are all entitled to our own opinion. An opinion doesn't mean judgment, but thats another post altogether.

A little suggestion from an enlightened new mom, if you see a women struggling with her brat child, instead of wishing she would shut her kid up, try and remember that it may not be that she is inconsiderately allowing her child to ruin your lunch with a meltdown. There may be more to the situation than you realize. If you send her a knowing smile, it will make a world of difference in her already stressful day.

I feel like I'm getting off track a lot today. Naps!

Naps have high value in this household. I see so many tired, cranky, babies. They just need a good nap! I wrote a post about sleep training a while back (which, if you have 20 minutes (its a long one) and have any interest in these kind of things, you can find it here), it explains a little about how we handled naps. I will say one thing, naps are tough. Don't stress about them too much. Make sure the baby is eating on schedule, and the morning and night sleep schedule is consistent. The naps eventually fall into place. If he wakes up too early from his nap, I wouldn't feed him right away (like the book says), I would wait until his scheduled eating time.

However, I've learned that there are some things you can do to help the baby learn how to nap well. It takes complete determination on your part. One thing I realized is that babies wake up throughout their naps, and if you go into their room too early, you may be cutting their nap short. There were many times when I would hear B crying 40 minutes, or an hour into his nap, but I knew an hour was not enough, so I let him cry. More times than not he would fall back to sleep within ten to fifteen (sometimes twenty!) minutes. My rule was that an hour wasn't enough, but anything over an hour and a half, was good, so I would get him up, but not before then. Even if that meant he laid in the crib for twenty minutes awake. At least it gave him a chance to rest, and possibly fall back to sleep. If he was still awake 20 to 30 minutes later, the nap was over. I believe this helps him learn that nap time is over when I say its over (because mom knows best, right?!) so if he's awake and still tired, he has learned to go back to sleep. If he's not tired, he's learned to hang out in his crib for a little down time until I come in.
Those are his only options.
It was not a smooth and easy process in the beginning, but now that he's learned "the rules" naps are much easier. We still have our bad days here and there, but 90% of the time, naps are consistent and restorative.
My hope is that we have set the tone for when we eventually put him in a "big boy" bed.
Mom makes the rules, not baby.
...in theory
=)

"I see greatness in you"

Shopping at Hobby Lobby with mom!

 Note to self: Don't let B play with the "harmless"  lotion bottle

(its a miracle it didn't get his eyeball!)

Sweet moments on Grandpas birthday

His favorite way to watch TV

Ready for the 4th of July!

Helping mom cook...which he apparently finds hilarious  

It isn't easy raising a prodigy 

 Nerd

 

Here's to a better nap than yesterday, and new toothpaste!!

Why do they even sell scarves in Arizona?

You know those moments, the ones that leave you feeling humbled? Not the kind of humility where the waitress thinks your 25 year old brother is your son (Clearly that women needs her eyes checked to be fired.) I'm talking about the kind of humility where you were able to make a difference in someone's life. Not because of anything you've done yourself, but because God has blessed you with the opportunity and the means.

 

The hubs and I had one of those moments this week. I was reminded, in this situation, of how incredibly blessed we are, and how much I love my husband and his kind and generous heart.

 

I'm always amazed at how God works.

 

I'm also amazed at the fact that I stupidly chose to wear this scarf when the weather was predicted to reach three digits.

 



 

 

Dress: H&M

Vest: TJ Maxx (old)

Scarf: Ross

Converse: Foot Locker

Watch: Target

 

Happy Monday!!