Weekend Style - Plus Culottes?!

{Me: shirt - Forever 21, skirt - Zara, shoes - Asos

S: dress - South Africa}

Just a quick Saturday look for you friends. S and I in 2 of our fave everyday dresses/tunics. My top used to be a dress but that's what you tend to get from Forever 21, fun clothes at a great price but terrible with wear. And I wear this so much so it's seen better days. 

I'm still really loving the flow-y or oversized tunic/blouse. It just works for me cause it adds a great deal of comfort to my look (no tummy or love handle issues - yay!) and I love the balance of showing some skin or curves with something more relaxed outfitting the other half. It feels really feminine but still allows you to accent your favorite features. 

Example, culottes! Can you believe they're back in business? We had a good laugh about it and then I bit the bullet and made it known that I was on board and would be taking them for a spin. I just love a good 90's revamp. (hello Birks!!) Culottes are a perfect example of the loose/tight combo. They have that wonderfully swishy expanse against the legs (oh they bring back funny memories) and need to be paired with something more form fitting to make much sense. Perhaps that's why we did it wrong before ...  it was baggy bottoms with baggy tops. Bad, bad, bad. 

This is the pair I already bought. I love them with the black tee but white would be just as cool. Not sure if I'd try any color though, just keep it neutral. If you have great abs then this high waisted silhouette would look great with a cropped top. 

 Zara $25.90 

Zara $59.90

Oh, there! And I think this sailor pant style is adorable. 

Asos $68

I could never pull off the crop, just so we're clear. NOT PLANNING ON DOING THIS. However, love the white polka dots culotte. Also, super 90's fabric. 

Asos $40

Love the linen look and this pair is a slimmer, easier to wear cut. Very chic. 

Are you convinced yet? ;)

Shall we all wear culottes together instead? Green Bay will be the most fashion-forward city in the mid-west before you know it. 

Current Obsession {Platforms and Gingham Check}

Currently craving a pair of chic platforms to take me through summer just a few inches taller and all the more leggy in my casual cut offs worn with my favorite oversized, airy blouses. 

Criss crossed platforms 

Panna Wedges 

And obsessed with gingham checks, particularly the bigger, bolder print. I'm thinking I absolutely must have this first blouse in my life. To go with my cut offs and platforms, right? Perfect everyday, busy entertaining 4 kids for 3 months mamas like me. Whew! It's gonna be a long AWESOME summer. Let's all rally together and buy it all at once and then, whenever you see someone in town wearing this shirt, you can wave and know you're tired-as-a-horse (is that a thing?) soulmates. Just like the VW crowd does. It'll be great.  ;)

Checked swing top

Suffolf buttondown

Gingham top

Scarlet's Birthday Bash

And here are all my iPhone pics!

Oh my goodness, you guys, throwing parties for this little lady is one of my favorite things ever. It's the perfect excuse to just go completely moggy with all things fantastically girly. It's the idea of turning my home into a fairytale world, with the greatest infusion of whimsy that I can muster (both creatively and more importantly, financially) that's the best thing!

So for Scarlet's 2nd birthday I really couldn't bring myself to settle on any one theme …. there's just too much goodness to include. But I will say that if there was anything that I hoped to overdose on, it was the flowers. I hot glued flowers onto the party hats, and used this amazing gold glitter tape to put fresh flowers on the wall. I found a sweet paper flower garland back in March that I strung along the window frame.

Then there were the balloons, peach and gold and a giant pink and gold confetti balloon with pink and gold crepe tassel. I'd always wanted to try that! It was beautiful. I really do love adding balloons to the ceiling for these little people parties. They make it instantly festive. This time I thought I'd put them in our summer tent, which we purchased to hang from a tree as an outside oasis for the kids. But it looked pretty perfect in our living room, with a king size quilt and lots of pillows (and will double as a cozy reading nook most of the time I think). We pushed all the balloons inside to fill the top. I purchased these adorable arrows from the party section at Anthropologie and we strung those from the ends of the ribbon.

This was a morning party so I served a strawberry and mango platter and Belgian waffles and whipped cream. Then there were pink frosted donut rings from Willow Street Bakery and strawberry milk. Of course we had to have lots of cake treats from Hey Sugar! There were passion fruit cupcakes with gooey centers and pink fondant bows. There was a lemon meringue cake topped with roses. And the grand finale, a 3 tier naked cake in vanilla with mascarpone icing. Topped with fresh berries and even fresh raspberries crushed into that icing, well, it was so yummy. Definitely a sweet morning!

Before everyone went home we had a dance party, since I'm well acquainted with how these little ladies love to free style (I'm pretty sure every little one there is one of my dance students as well ;).

Scarlet's dress was from Instagram shop @ockidscloset and her Django moccs from Poppy's Closet
Glass milk bottles - Target
Brown paper hats - Target
Flowers for hats - Hobby Lobby
Flower garland - Target
Glitter tape - Target
Cone ball garland - Target
Mini cake banner - Target
Flowers - Costco
Balloons, plates, napkins, and "S" balloon - Shop Sweet Lulu
Tent - Ikea

Ripped White Jeans

{shirt - Urban Outfitters, jeans - Zara, fake birks - Target, sunnies - men's J. Crew Factory}

** Warning! This post is not about ripped white jeans, as I first intended! **

In early May I turned 37, along with my husband who beat me to it 2 weeks before. And since then I've been thinking ... noticing and thinking. It's funny cause my brother-in-law gave the message in church yesterday and it's one that most will not soon forget. They'll talk about nose and ear hairs for weeks, oh, and blessings, cause somehow the two relate. You'd have to hear it to believe it! But anyway, all that to say that he too turned 37 hence the talk about all those weird things that happen to our bodies with age and I'd been considering some of the same things. What's up with 37 anyway? It's giving us all complexes over here. ;)

I mentioned last time that I was pining away for those beautiful baby days. Okay, not pining exactly, but wistful. I think it's because I have to grow up now, now that there are no more babies. Babies keep us young, don't they? I always felt the same age with a baby in my arms or a toddler on my hips. Always 26. Just like the first time. Do you still feel like you're a twenty-something on the inside? I hear people say that fairly often. But now that we're finished having babies, I have to grow with these kids and move on into another phase of life. Sometimes that's just weird, not hard exactly, but a bit weird.

The 20's were lovely, don't get me wrong - newlywed, moved far away from my family, lived in 3 new cities, slept in every morning, suntanned by the apartment pool, went to midnight movies, ate at restaurants way too much, spent lots more time with friends, took art classes, taught dance 4-7 hours a day, went on lots of dates with my husband, took him and our firstborn to South Africa to see if I could give him just a glimpse of my life there, bought our first house, had a second little rolly polly baby. It was a good decade, one full of dramatic life changes. 

My 30's have been way, waaaaay better. My love for my husband changed and grew and became completely new as our kids expanded our family. And then having those children in my life made that life way more beautiful than it was before. Different, sometimes more difficult, but more cherished and beautiful. I traveled much more with my husband, had the chance to have some incredible adventures with him (and sometimes with the whole fam). And life became richer and fuller in every way over this decade.  

So why would I want to feel like I did as a twenty-something when in fact, my thirties have been infinitely lovelier. Maybe it's just cause with age comes worry and that's what we managed to live without then. Without fear and worry. For the most part. 

I wish I could say that I'm really comfortable in my skin as it changes. I wish I was! And I hope that as I eventually go through my 40's and into my 50's, that I'll become confident and comfortable with my body as it is in that stage of my life. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to change anything. The thought of having any cosmetic procedures done is completely unappealing. I love natural women who celebrate their God-given beauty and are confident in their freckled/dimpled/wrinkled/curvy/skinny skin. I think natural beauty is truly exquisite. It's just becoming accustomed to changes and then learning to feel as good about myself again that I'm figuring out.

You're probably thinking I'm crazy ... I am too. What huge changes have really occurred by 37, come on! :) 

It's just the little things, nothing dramatic. But it's still different.

There's those touches of grey hair, though really, grey hair doesn't bother me. It might when it starts to come fast and furious all over my head, but for now I'm cool with it. Sometimes I'll see a spot on my hand that looks an awful lot like my grandma's. An age spot?! It's hard to say cause my hands are covered in freckles plus I've always thought I have grandma hands. Grandma hands I can handle. To be honest sometimes seeing the smile lines on my face deepening kinda freaks me out a bit. I want to love wrinkles ... I'm working on that. :) I recently had to walk around a stinking indoor water park for 2 days straight. Boy is that humbling. That's one way to really feel not so awesome and way too vulnerable. Put on a swimsuit and traipse around in your pasty white skin for all the world to enjoy. I usually love my pale skin rather than a deep tan but gosh, a little color certainly helps improve jiggly thighs. It was AWFUL! 

Why write all of this? I've thought that several times over the course of writing it. Do I have a point other than to tell you how that waterpark ruined me? Ha! I guess it's just been on my mind a little more. 

And I hope to join with all of you beautiful women out there who are ready to move forward celebrating our age and how those years (and babies!) have made an impact on our bodies. Hopefully we can inspire each other to love the skin we're in, as the commercials say ;) and be confident with who we are and how we look. Let's try together, shall we?