10 THINGS

Hey friends! How's your summer going? Can you believe we're halfway through July already? I guess I have to say that I'm glad. I'm in no way ready to rush the summer by after the epic winter we just had in upstate NY, but I am absolutely ready to get settled again here in Germany. We've been in the hotel for two weeks now, and- God willing- we have another three and half weeks to go before we move into a house. But the good news is we're making progress. We have our cell phones up and running again, we've passed our driving tests and have our German licenses, and we have a house being reserved for us in the neighborhood we like most. And oh! We even found what seems like an amazing new church! So praise God for those things. We're still working on buying new vehicles, getting the boys registered for a little pre-school style care on post, getting Finn's in-country passport, looking into German kindergartens for Asher, and a thousand other little things like that. But we're so thankful to the Lord that things are falling into place, one step at a time.

With life being all-over-the-place I feel like I'm behind on everything. Especially the blog. But there's always time to surf the internet, right? Hahaha. I've been wanting to share a few great sites I've stumbled on for a while now {plus some other stuff that's just for fun}, so here goes;

1. Ruth, at Gracelaced, has a beautiful blog, creates beautiful scripture art, and is a mom of six boys! She has such a great perspective on God's sovereignty in her life- including her all-boy family- and I love this post about it.

2. Another quick and very encouraging post for mothers from Jen, who writes one of my all time favorite blogs.

3. This purse. If I could decide which color I liked best, I might actually buy it!

4. Have you guys heard of Illustrated Faith? Beautiful! It's so inspiring to see women of God who are passionate and expressive in their love for the bible.

5. Orla Kiely has the funnest prints. It's taken every ounce of self control I have to not spend $40 on these muslin swaddle blankets.

6. Seeing the before and after of fully renovated homes is one of my favorite ways to waste time (hahaha). But seriously, I really admire people who have the vision to transform something old an and unloved into something extraordinary, like this home in upstate NY. And what do you know, it's for sale!

7. This Graco Ready2Go Click Connect double stroller has made this trip overseas so much easier. It was a life saver at the airport, and it makes getting around Germany on foot so much easier {until we get a car, we have to walk everywhere!}. We bought it two days before leaving the states and are so glad we did. 

8. She Reads Truth is still in the middle of their current "Women in the Word" series, and it's great.

9. So I don't get too many chances to "pamper" my kids, being an all-boy mom. But I do love using this Shea Moisture Raw Shea Chamomile and Argon Oil baby wash/shampoo for their baths. They smell so, so good afterwards.

10. For those of you who are local to Grafenwoehr, this church! I already linked to it above, but just wanted to mention it one more time. We've only been once so far, but our first impression was great and I honestly can't wait to go back again.

Have a great weekend, friends!

MY SUMMER WARDROBE WISHLIST

STRIPED BUTTON-DOWN / DENIM OVERALLS / DAMASK TOP / SNAKE PRINT FLAT / LINEN MUSCLE TEE / PULL-ON SHORTS / CROPPED TANK / DENIM BOY-SHORTS / SCOOP TEE / STUD EARRINGS / LEATHER TOTE / DENIM FLIGHT PANTS

Two things- summer is here, and I am no longer pregnant. Oh, happy day! As beautiful as the North Country snow can be and as grateful as I am to have our little Finn, I'm so glad that the last few months are a thing of the past. And after a long, long winter of wearing nothing but sweats and my old maternity clothes, I am ready to shop! {Be afraid, Thane. Be very afraid.}

To be honest, I'm definitely a window shopper and I get more enjoyment out of browsing than I get from buying. But my last shopping/browsing attempt ended with American Eagle's security alarm going off when Silas opened their emergency-only exit. Hahaha, whoops! They were very gracious about it and the boys were having a grand old time, but- needless to say- it wasn't too relaxing for me...

Which leads me to the next topic- online shopping. Just a few short years ago I almost never ordered anything online. But I learned to appreciate it a lot once I became a mom, and even without the kid factor, you can't beat the convenience of getting to see literally everything that's out there all from the comfort of your own home. Not to mention what's what's on sale and when, and all of the Tall sizing options that aren't available in stores.

So lately I've had a lot of fun browsing around online and picking out some favorites. Obviously I can't afford to buy it all {and even if I could, it probably wouldn't be very wise- always keeping Luke 12:15 in mind}, but it's nice to have an organized list to keep my eye on. The items above are all from Madewell, and they have a great little feature on their site where you can save your favorites and come back to them later. Making these "wishlists" are my favorite way to shop these days because it gives me time to come back to what I've saved, think about how much I really like something before buying it, and see whether it's on sale or not. I almost always don't buy anything full price.

Anybody else excited about dressing for the summer?

P.S. I stuck to the goal I made of not buying any extra maternity clothes this past pregnancy! There were definitely times that I was tempted, but looking back, I'm so glad I didn't. Especially since I spent 90% of the winter wearing Thane's old over-sized sweats anyway, haha.

ASHER'S ROOM

Getting Silas' nursery tidied up inspired me to do the same for Asher's room. It's very orange. Even the paint has a peachy tinge to it. But orange seems to fit his happy, energetic personality so well, so it works for now! Just like Silas' nursery, there's no real theme in this room. But some of my favorite details are the plain white bedding, the vintage animal-print pillows, the white-washed pine crates stacked next to the bed {they're a very easy DIY project}, the globe, the {$20!} graphic rug from IKEA, and the orange piggy bank. A lot of this was either in his original nursery, thrifted, or items we already owned. So I really never put a whole lot of effort towards this room, but you know what? Kids wreck their rooms! Constantly. And if there's any doubt in your mind about that, just come over and see what it looks like right now, hahaha. Anyway, I would have loved to put up real curtains over the thermal liners and add some vintage maps and some burlap accents to play off of the cork boards hanging over the bed {don't ask me where I get these ideas}. But with another move around the corner and the fact that Asher and Silas will most likely share a room in whatever house we live in next, I'm going to wait. Window sizes will change, so why worry about the curtains...and we're pretty sure we're going to trade out Asher's queen sized bed for two stacking twin beds. So there will be a lot of changes. Not to mention that I have no clue how things are going to work when the new baby comes and Silas is still little enough to be his crib...but eventually the two bigger boys will get their own twin beds. And I'm excited for that! I love the idea of them sharing a room so much that I'm almost tempted to move them in together now. Probably shouldn't do that for a variety of obvious reasons, ha! But I can't wait to see how their shared big-boy room comes together wherever we land next. In the meantime, I'm trying to enjoy every ounce of this beautiful old spacious Victorian home. We'll probably never live in a house quite like this again, and that's okay, I'm ready to downsize. But what a blessing this house has been!

WHAT'S IN MY MAKEUP BAG

Let's talk about makeup!

It probably has a lot to do with being a busy mom, but my makeup routine has gotten pretty darn simple over the past couple of years. There are definitely days when I don't put any on at all, but I try not to make a habit out of that because I feel SO much better when I do. Maybe because it's the fastest, simplest way to be at least a little bit put-together while the fast-approaching-third-trimester-belly and frigid winter has me wearing bulky layers and sweats most days. And on another note, I finally started investing in some higher quality products a few years back. Gone are those days of wondering down the Walmart makeup aisle trying to figure out which shade of foundation to buy, only to have it be the wrong one and find myself right back at the store spending twice as much and still not getting a great product. I'm certainly no beauty expert, but I've learned that when it comes to things like foundation, concealer, lipstick, and even eyeliner, spending a little more results in products that work so much better and last so much longer. It's absolutely worth it to walk into a nice cosmetics department and have a professional match your color. Then you know exactly what you need and can stick with it over the years.

Anyway, for around the house, running errands, play dates, etc, I like these four products:

EVERYDAY WEAR

1. Lancome's Effacernes Waterproof Under-Eye Concealor. If there's only one thing I put on, it's this! It's so good at brightening up my eyes and it also covers other spots that have gotten darker from pregnancy.

2. Bonnie Bell's Glimmer Bronze Highlighting Dust. I don't use blush, but this is great for getting a hint of that sun kissed look no matter what time of the year it is. And at under $5 it's super affordable, I usually find it at Target.

3. Target brand Kabuki brush. For the bronzer.

4. Urban Decay's Glide On Eye Pencil in "Oil Slick". 

Then, for church or fun events or on days I'm feeling a little fancier {haha}, I put these on as well:

SPECIAL OCCASION

5. Urban Decay's Eyeshadow, Asphyxia. Nothing beats purple eyeshadow. Not in my book, anyway.

6. Eyeshadow brush.

7. Lancome's Definiciles Mascara. This is my favorite, but I'll admit that I haven't been back to the store to get more since I ran out last. So in the meantime, I've been using a basic Cover Girl variety. Here's a neat tip that a good friend of mine in the cosmetics business told me- some makeup is worth splurging on, and some isn't- like mascara. The cheap stuff can be just as good as the expensive stuff!

8. Lancome's Color Design Lipstick in "Wine Party". This isn't included above because it's much more rare that I wear it, but every once in a while I love a little lipstick!

Best of all, all of this fits into one small cosmetics bag that I can very easily carry from house to diaper bag to car. I do a lot of in-the-car-makeup-application {yep, that's me trying to hide behind the rear-view mirror while applying mascara and looking totally awkward in the church parking lot}. So it's really convenient to have everything I need in one tiny bag.

So what about you guys? I love swapping notes on beauty products, be sure to leave a comment with your personal favorites!

P.S. It wasn't really on purpose, but a simple makeup routine fits right into my goal to simplify everything for 2015, so amen to that!

SIMPLIFYING OUR TOY COLLECTION

About six months ago I came to this conclusion; we have too much stuff. The culprit that first brought it to my attention was our toy collection. It seemed like we had toys all over the place, in every room, totally disorganized and in thousands of pieces. I pretty much go crazy if my house stays cluttered, so I was constantly picking them up only to have them dumped back out again multiple times a day. And I noticed that rather than actually playing with the toys, the boys really just liked the "dumping" process. So I wised up on them and did a few things to get our toy collection under control:

1) I started loading up boxes of toys to donate to charity. The toys that qualified for donation were a) consistently "dumped" but never played with, b) of little to no educational value and/or didn't encourage imagination c) so full of noise-making buttons that they were an over-stimulating nuisance, d) duplicates of nicer toys we already owned.

2) I went to Target and loaded up on about a dozen clear plastic totes in varying sizes as well as labels for each tote. Each kind of toy got it's own labeled tote.

3) All of the totes are being stored high up in a closet where only I can reach them. One or two gets brought down at a time, and this keeps the mess under control and also keeps things fresh since the boys don't have access to everything all the time.

Oh my goodness, what a difference this made! Controlling the kid clutter around the house is so much easier now. Of course it requires a little upkeep. About once every week or two I have to round up lost pieces and re-organize the bins. But it's totally worth it and my sanity is just a little more intact now!

Just for the fun of it, here are my boys' current favorites: 

one.  |  two.  |  three.  |  four.  |  five.  |  six.  |  seven.  |  eight.  |  nine.

What toys are your kids into these days? Also, Christmas is right around the corner! As much as I'm committed to keeping our toy supply to a happy minimum, I'd love to hear your gift ideas for the kids!

J.CREW, HERE I COME

Ok. I'm putting my foot down. I have one more year until I'm 30 and it's time to start dressing like it. No more trendy clothes from the junior department, and no more jackets or shirts or pants that don't quite fit but I buy anyway because "they were on sale!"  

In other words, J.Crew, here I come.

One/ J.Crew's Classic Chambray Popover  | Two/ J.Crew's Leggings | Three/ J.Crew's Keeper Chambray Shirt  | Four/ J.Crew's Stretch Perfect Shirt (in TALL sizing!) | Five/ Madewell's Skinny Calf Hair Belt  | Six/ American Eagle's Embroidered Stripe Scarf | Seven/ Sam Edelman's Petty Booty (via Nordstrom) | Eight/ J.Crew's Toothpick Cord (in TALL sizing!)

I started a new Wardrobe Wishlist board on Pinterest to keep track of what I'd like to invest in.

Honestly, I've been telling myself to make this change for years. But I haven't because 1) I've been between three different pregnancies/weight fluctuations in the past three years {which makes clothes shopping a little difficult}. 2) We haven't lived close to many nice clothing stores in a while, and I've always been shy about shopping online. 3) I tend to be "thrifty" {to put it nicely}, and most importantly, I didn't know if this would be God-honoring leap to make. Verses like these made me hesitant- "Now godliness with contentment is great gain" {1 Timothy 6:6} and "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of things he possesses." {Luke 12:15} These are certainly, certainly true and the last thing I want to do is depart from good biblical wisdom. And praise God for His good graces toward me, because I'm no stranger to rushing into folly. But I have to have a balanced biblical approach to all things...Scripture by no means gives a dollar amount for what is or is not appropriate to spend on clothing, and we can't forget the Virtuous Wife who wears"fine linen and purple" {Proverbs 31:22b}.  

In my case, I'm starting to think that it's better to invest $80 on one good quality shirt that I'll wear for years versus $80 on four cheap shirts that I'll wear a handful of times before they're relegated to unworn closet clutter. I find myself missing the things my Grandmother Mary Alice used to make for me by hand. There is a lot to be said about good, quality tailoring! So, my goal is to make this change to my clothes buying habits in a faithful, moderate, and God-honoring way. {Let's hope I'm not kidding myself on this point.}

And to do that, I'm imposing some new rules onto myself; no clothes shopping at Target, Ross, T.J. Max, Old Navy, or the like, for an indefinite amount of time. I'm going to stick with J.Crew, Madewell, and maybe Gap. {Plus, J.Crew and Gap sell Tall sizing! Another thing I really need.} And after starting with a handful of purchases with the help of some birthday money and a very doting husband, I'm going to restrict myself to one new clothes item a month.

Wish me luck, folks, and hold me accountable!

Baby Boy Wishlist

1. Mustache Baby Blanket  /  2. Best Bottoms Diaper Shell in "Hedgehog"  /  3. Scripture prints

I'm finding that one of many great perks of having a second little boy on the way is the fact that there's not a single thing we need to buy for him! {Well, almost...a second crib or at least a big boy bed for Asher may be in order, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.} But as far as the little things like socks, onsies, outfits, and even nursery decor, we're set! So with the essentials taken care of, I have a little bit of room to "dream" about a few fun non-essentials- hence the quirky mustache blanket from Etsy, the hedgehog print diaper cover, and the sweet bible prints. 

Anyone else come across any particularly fun new baby items lately?

P.S. We're planning on cloth diapering again with absolutely no reservations!  

WOOL DIAPER COVERS FOR HEAVY WETTERS

I like to affectionately call  these Asher's "woolly knickers" {not that I know what a "knicker" is}. Anyway, he's just shy of two years old and was consistently leaking through an overnight disposable diaper {we use cloth during the day}. So, I'd heard about these wool diaper covers and finally decided to try one.

After about two weeks of use, I give this cover a 10/10! This is Ecoposh's Wool Diaper Cover, size 2 {for toddlers 15-35 pounds}. The base price is $34.95, but if you need size 2 there's an extra $5 added. If you're like me, you'll consider this a little pricey. But for the heavy overnight wetter, it's worth every penny.

Here's the amazing thing- you really only need one per child, since it's 100% wool and the lanolin in wool naturally reacts with urine to create soap. {Who knew?!} So technically, no matter how much pee soaks into this thing, it's never dirty. Even after a little over a week's worth of use, it was smelling as clean as the day I got it. 

A hand washing is recommended every one-two weeks, using either wool-safe detergent or baby shampoo. I used baby shampoo and did a very gentle wash in the bathroom sink, then rinsed it out and laid it flat to dry on a towel. {The tag says not to wring it out, but to lay a second towel on top and soak the excess water that way}. I followed those directions and drying time was about 24 hours {had to go one night without them}.

So, all in all a worthwhile purchase!

ORGANIC STRETCH MARK REPELLENT

At 18 weeks pregnant I finally picked up another container of Spectrum's Organic Virgin Coconut Oil. You can buy this at your local grocery store in the cooking-oil aisle. I used an entire jar during my first pregnancy based on the recommendation of my mother-in-law. The results? Not one single stretch mark! {Sound the chorus: haaaaaallelujah!} The best thing about it is that it's totally, 100% organic- so organic that it's edible! And it smells heavenly, just like coconut flakes. I rub it on once at night before bed, once I have an old t-shirt on that I don't worry about staining with oil. My fingers are crossed that this will do the trick once again... I'll wish good luck to all of us expectant mammas. Do any of you know any other good products or tricks?

One more thing- this is also a great product to try on your child's dry skin...again, it's 100% organic and healthy with no unnatural chemicals to worry about.

P.S. Not getting stretch marks is not a genetic thing that runs in my family {like I hear it is in some}.