Coordination

I love planning. Just cannot get enough of it. Sadly enough, the majority of my plans never go off without a hitch, and rarely stay according to my OCD organization or in line with my expectations.

But! I love to plan. I get very excited when B decides it's that time to plan for another family portrait session. We've agreed to do them twice a year so that we can keep cataloging Cole's ever-changing growth and personality, especially while he's so little still and it seems to change daily.

I'm getting side-tracked. The plan is to write about outfit coordination and how much I love planning them and look at me? Not going according to plan yet. See what I mean?

Anyhow. We planned a photo adventure for late May and you can see the results here. I picked out B and C's outfits first and myself. When my little sister arrived, we went off to Kohl's where we found a dress I loved much more than the one I ordered online (the fit looked terrible on me!) and we also put together her outfit.

Here's a picture of all the outfits vividly together:
The boys are in collared polo shirts, both by Tony Hawk. The greens do not match, but they coordinate well together. The boys are also both in jeans, similar in color but once again, not a perfect match. Cole wanted to wear his boots this day and I figured since the idea behind the pictures was to capture his personality, we should do it. B chose to wear the tennis shoes that he wears almost daily as well. (We've successfully captured B's personality here as well!! Go us!)

My dress has white which ties into B's white striped shirt. My dress has bright pink which reflects my personal personality and very few green leaves which do not match the boys' green but do look good with it. Lastly, my dress has black spots and I'm in white wedge shoes.

Katie chose a black shirt that coordinates well with my black spots and a gorgeous white skirt with black flowered lace and wedges. Katie's outfit perfectly coordinates with mine which was a must for the pictures she and I would be taking with only each other. In addition, her black not only draws on my spots but also the boys' dark pants.

I think the photos came out cute. We all coordinate well together without looking matchy-matchy with the possible slim exception of the boys. But I'm positive when we get more photos back, people will clearly see the huge differences in the boys' outfits.

I love planning. I love putting together pretty things. I love dressing up and having an excuse to! I love buying dresses and cute clothes for my men.

Life is good.

Photo Teaser

In May, we decided to get one of our twice-a-year-family-portrait sessions done. I wanted to get a professional photographer outside of a studio to have something other than sit-down-and-pose photography. I also wanted a pretty backdrop.

I ended up contacting a photographer who happens to be a friend of B's family. We found out my baby sister was visiting on leave from Spain (Naval officer) in late May and went for it.

Here are the teasers from the awesome: Trizza Grantham

Facelift & Signature

The blog has been under construction all day, getting a facelift.

In addition to the banner I customized, I got the background from www.thecutestblogontheblock.com.

This pretty new signature (for signing off my posts!) came from www.mylivesignature.com.
I'm very excited about the changes and will continue updating the look of the blog until I'm satisfied. It's amazing how many cool things you can do online now. :)

Craft Hope

I stumbled on a blog called "Craft Hope." The blog is more like an organization that comes up with craft friendly ways to improve the world. The ways you can help extend to hurricane/natural disaster victims and the most recent: the oil spill and animals affected by it.

Each challenge includes a deadline and an address that you can send your craft to, where it will be moved to the appropriate hands.

I'm so touched by this. I'm a crafter and love animals even more. This organization allows for me to flex my creative muscles while also contributing to a cause much bigger than I can ever hope to be.

In addition, let's be honest: Giving makes people feel good. I can go to Wal-Mart and buy a pack of 20 washcloths for $4. I can cut up old towels into wash-cloth sized pieces. I can buy 2-3 bottles of Dawn soap. These things seem insubstantial to me, so small, but when you look at the bigger picture (Craft Hope is counting 803 washcloths to date with half a month to go!), it really does make a difference.

If my 20 washcloths get used three times each before being trashed, that is 60 uses on multiple animals. That is life saving power. That I've contributed to.


You can get involved too. The link to Challenge 8: Project Oil Cleanup.