i dressed up & threw a baby shower

another monday!  hope you had a good weekend.  ours was full of sunshine & all kinds of time spent with my homies.  me & two of my bestest girlfriends threw one of our closest friends a welcome baby party... and for this?  i did my hair, i wore some wedges & a frilly shirt.  obviously this had to be documented.

oh & you know what?  i have a newfound respect for fashion bloggers.  because put me in front of a camera & i turn into allll kinds of awkward.  where do you put your hands?  how do you not trip over your feet?  it gets real messy.

a few party details.  we were going with a mint & yellow theme & can i just say i ate my weight in bagels & honey/walnut cream cheese?  because i did.  nothing like a good party with tasty party treats.

and here's the man of the hour... little max kimble!  this kid is all kinds of adorable newborn perfection.  already love him so much.  congrats corinne.

pretty sure i have the best girlfriends ever.  so much love for these girls.

steppin' out & blogger partyin' it up.

two posts in one day?  new record.

i wanted to hurry it up & get this out there before i passed out of exhaustion.  actually, that's probably exactly what i'll do as soon as i hit "publish."  friday night was a blast.  i was really on the fence about going to the pnw blogger's meet up right up to the last minute... until mandy & jill told me they were coming to get me regardless of what i decided.  sometimes it's just easier to stay at home & get a good night's sleep, ya know?

in the end i'm super excited i made it.  i got to see some of the faces i know & love from the bloggy world, some for the first time & some for the 20th time.  so many of these girls have become some of my closest friends & good times are ALWAYS had when we get together.

first things first?  as soon as we rolled into portland & got out of the car, steppin' out pictures were taken.

{linking up with my girl mandy, over at harper's happenings.  

don't worry, she appears in this post later.}

apparently i'm still shoving this 30 weeks-prego-body into a whole slew of non-maternity american eagle stuff.  this outfit was all about comfort... jeans, t-shirt & flats.  and comfortable i was.

the party was bumpin.  and by that i mean there were like 10 of us pregnant girls among the fifty bloggers at the party.  that's a crazy ratio, yo.  we hung out & ate some food & mingled & lots of laughs & hugs & snorts were had.  actually, that was mostly just me snort-sniffing mandy's face {bottom left}... i don't know either.

we somehow managed to fit six of us into one hotel room.  two double beds & a queen air mattress & four out of six of us were impregnated.  that's gotta be some kinda record, right?

first thing in the morning it was all about finding a legit breakfast... and mother's bistro in downtown portland did NOT disappoint.

{pictured bottom right:  jill, chelsey, me, melissa, mandy & emily.  also, lauren, pictured top left, was there too!}

mmmm, breakfast food.

and that was our adventure.  i'm so happy to have met so many amazing girls through this little internet world of blogging.  i have spent countless hours im-ing, texting, & hanging out with the ladies sam calls my "internet friends."  there is never a lack of things to talk about as we all have a million things to say about our kiddos, our husbands & our lives away from those things.  no one judges when you carry on your conversation while facebook-status-updating, instagramming, or tweeting & in fact, that's usually what we're all doing when we're together.  because we're bloggers.

{all photos in the post are courtesy of mandy... thanks for letting me be lazy with the camera for once & allowing me to steal all yours!}

an easter walk in the park & stuff i actually wear.

did you all have an awesome easter weekend?  despite the lack of any family get-together-ing here {i always wish we lived closer to family on holidays!} we had a pretty sweet weekend.  a whole lotta quality sam-amy-and-parker time.

and to heck with the traditional easter ham & strawberry shortcake dessert.  at our house easter was all about bbq steak & brownies.  and i liked it.

after dinner & family naps, we got out to enjoy the rare seventy-degree day with a walk down at our state's capitol which is pretty freaking gorgeous right now.  like seriously?  the blossoms are unreal.  pictures don't do justice but i tried anyway.

see those cute two little dudes in the lower left?  they're with me.

and this is pretty much my mom uniform.  flip flops, jeans, t-shirt, hoodie.  let's be real, yes?  i'm all about comfort.  {linking up with mandy's "steppin' out saturday!}

p-ray's little "first-day-of-school" grin kills me.  actually, almost everything this kid does just kills me.

this is what you get when you ask parker to smile.  i hope it never changes!

and that was our day.

a day at the market & a quick steppin' out.

my mom is visiting for a couple weeks so saturday was officially designated as "seattle day."  after fighting traffic just to get in to the city for over an hour, we snagged a 30-minute loading zone spot right in the middle of pike place market & called it good.  these pictures are the result of a 30-minute jaunt through the ginormous market just to get our fill of flowers, produce & fish smell.  totally worth it.

but i have for reals gotta get me back there with some time on my hands to just snap pictures til my finger falls off.  pretty sure i could be there all day & never run out of things to shoot.

and then sunday was just a laid back laze-around-the-house-after-church kinda day.  there was a walk to the park, movie watching, popcorn eating & cereal-for-dinner having.  pretty standard around here.

here's what p-ray & i wore to church.

hope everyone had a great weekend!  happy monday.

{linking up with mandy for steppin' out saturday.}

steppin' out & the freakin' weekend.

i feel like i blinked & the weekend was over.  seriously, we jam-packed so much into these last couple days & i am so not ready for a monday.

saturday i fit in a friend's baby shower, a maternity photo session & a date night with my family.  it was one of those days where you have about fifteen minutes to catch your breath between activities & then when it's all over you realize boom.  you just had a rad day.

our family date nights are pretty romantic... sam & i split a burger & ate our weight in steak fries.  parker barely touched anything in his meal besides ketchup-dipped apples.  and then this time?  we took it up a notch.  we went to cabela's to buy trigger locks for sam's guns.  that's how we do it.

parker was way more excited about all the taxidermy-stuffed animals than we expected.  the rest of the night all we heard was "elephant!  zebra!  fish!  deer!  more deer??"

looks like more trips to the world's most expensive outdoorsman's store will be in our future.

and sunday was lazy.  there were naps, leftovers & movies.  we watched "being elmo" & i may have cried some serious pregnancy-induced-hormonal tears because it was such an amazing story.  it's on netflix instant queue, so watch it tonight.

and lastly?  i blow-dried my hair & put on some heels for church-going.

here's a steppin' out fun fact for ya:  this dress/boots combo is the same outfit i wore on my very first steppin' out post back in october 2010.  but back then it didn't serve as a comfy maternity dress.  and i was blonde... ish.

and parker?  he's still pretty dang cute.  only now with a little more hair.

and then there's these two.  i like them.

happy monday friends!

{linking up for steppin' out saturday with mandy at harper's happenings.  it's fun, so do it.}

steppin' out: it was ladies night.

i warned you guys there would be a post about my blogger meet up, what i didn't warn you about was the bazillion pictures that would be forthcoming.  but c'mon, we're bloggers.  it's what we do.

and by "what" i mean get together, talk & laugh loudly in a restaurant, mill in a mass to the yogurt shop, gather in the middle of the mall & laugh & eat yogurt like little girls {where are all the cute boys at??}, take pictures of each other doing weird & random things all while tweeting/facebooking/instagram-ing every second of it & then making our way across the mall to F21 to try on hats & clothes & eventually get yelled at for taking pictures.  i guess F21 is against a whole lotta free advertising from about 14 blogger-girls.  whatevs.

needless to say, fun was had.  many laughs {to tears!} were had & i was reminded how much it hurts to wear four inch heels from one end of a mall to the other but also how fun it can be to act like a crazy person in a herd of like-minded mamas.  the girls i'd met before became even closer friends & the ones i met for the first time have now been upgraded to "real life" friends as opposed to "internet" friends.  so that's something.

here's the rundown on the night & of course some pictures for a "steppin' out" post with harper's happenings which i haven't done in AGES.  hopefully this is the beginning of a resurrection of those posts.

i don't know how NOT to stand like mary katherine gallagher in front of a camera.  it's so awkward!

{yes i was really enjoying touching mandy's belly that much}

here's everyone, from left to right:

amanda, jill, chelsey, chelsea, fiona, melissa, mandy, me, ashley, mandy, emily, stephanie & kiara.

oh what F21?  i guess we got a few shots in before we were scolded.  winning.

can't wait to do it all again with this group of crazy fun ladies!

steppin' out: colour ess-plosion.

whattup party people.

i hope you all had a terrific weekend because i sure did.  i had two photog-sessions & a whole lotta quality time with my two main men.  our weekend involved some around-the-house-DIY, some fro-yo, some of sam's tasty cooking & a whole lotta time in our sweats.  wins all around.

saturday morning we got the crazy idea to make a toybox/bench thing for the living room & after about half an hour of plans-drawing & designing, we were off to home depot for supplies.  our creation involves wainscoting on the sides, trim all around the edges, white paint on the outside & bright blue paint on the inside & chalkboard-painted-panels on the front.  it all sounds good in my head, we'll see how it pans out.

i did manage to get out of my sweats long enough to dress up for a few hours at church.  looking at this outfit in retrospect, i'm thinking i shoulda gone with my brown boots since the whole ensemble was loud enough without introducing the red ones, but whattyado?

ya live, ya learn.

{linkin' up with mandy at harper's happenings.  you should too!}

i'm also kinda excited because i just purchased another big-girl camera lens.  i took the plunge & got myself the 50mm f/1.4.  it won't come for a week or so, so i probably won't get any sleep between now & then.  you can expect a lot of loopy posts on account of the no sleep.  this girl is excited.

and last but not least, a giveaway winner!  congrats to:

nicole!  yay!  let's get in touch & figure out how to get you your teepee.  congrats friend!

you can feel like a winner by clicking twice to vote.  it works, try it.

it's monday, here's what we wore on sunday.

happy monday yo's.

i hope you all had a beautiful weekend.  mine was kind of a blur... i worked a lot & sam & parker did a lot of hanging out.  big ups to sam this weekend you guys.  he totally covered for me lots & lots while i was out shootin' it up at my sessions.  not lying, every time i came home to a clean house & another load of laundry folded.  he planned our sunday dinner & even marinated our pork roast overnight.  yeah, i scored big time in the marriage department... be jealous.

so here's a what-we-wore-steppin'-out-sunday post because i haven't done one in a long time.  and today i was reminded why... sam hates taking these pictures {minus one, sam} & telling him "just one more" is like pulling teeth.  plus, i am so awkward in front of the camera.

can you say mary katherine gallagher here?  ah well, here's what we wore to church yesterday.

{linkin' up with "steppin' out saturday" over at the haps!}

so i think we're gonna get parker a hair cut some time this week.  yup, even stringy-haired male-pattern-baldness-looking boys need haircuts.  it'll be his first & we're just gonna have the uneven wispies trimmed. not sure it'll make much of a difference but it makes my heart sink a little thinking about it... and i thought for sure i wasn't one of those "i don't wanna cut my boy's hair" moms.  at all.  but i'm also not too huge on the skullet which, i don't wanna lie, he kinda has going on.  so there's that.

also i gave in to a major craving i was experiencing, as i do every fall, & finally made a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies this weekend.  it's everything that's awesome about fall crammed into cookie form, i promise.  so look forward to me sharing those with you this week... in picture & recipe form, of course.  you get to enjoy them vicariously through me!  lucky you.  but you should probably make some for yourself.  you'll thank me.

have a good week!

i'll thank you if you click a couple times to vote.  thank you!

steppin' out {sunday} - baby wrangler.

the days of our super cute mom-&-son pictures are temporarily suspended.

to hold parker on my hip & tell him to look at the camera & smile is like trying to cuddle a rabid raccoon.  i swear the kid has perfected how to make himself go limp & become dead weight the second i pick him up.  i say "temporarily" suspended because you better believe this boy will be posing with his mama on his wedding day.

but for now?  he'd much rather be on the ground running around doing this:

see how happy he is now?  whatever.

we had an awesome weekend.  sam & i got out friday night & dressed up like big kids & went to a fancy pants party downtown seattle for his work.  ya know, the kind where you rsvp & pick your food selection in advance.  i had the prime rib, thanks for asking.  it was the first time we had a sitter stay at our house & put parker to bed while we stayed out past eight.  it went great & i think this is totally going to become a regular thing

oh my gosh, the possibilites!  we almost got giddy at the idea of going to movies, fancy restaurants, & mariner's games sans p-ray.  don't get me wrong, we love toting him around & missed him & thought about him constantly while we were out.  but ya know?  sometimes you just gotta feel like an adult.

plus, it makes the heart grow fonder.  i had to keep myself from texting the sitter every 30 minutes for updates & kept it to hourly.  you do that too, right?

then sunday we got all dressed up & went to church.  here's what p-ray & i wore:

{linking up with mandy... like i usually do.}

ok so yeah, that's actually the top that is actually a dress.  {confused?  check out "thursday" in my last post}.  i love it as a top, but it's pretty dang cute as a dress too, so i'm sure it'll be making an appearance soon.  i know, you can't wait right?  me either.

so i hope everyone had a great weekend & has an awesome week ahead of them.  we're looking forward to a couple playdates & some rain.  no seriously, i'm pretty sure our summer has come & gone.  remember that one post about summer?  yup, that was it.

oh well, bring on the hoodies & sweaters & boots & football.  heck yeah fall!

i'm also ready for a couple clicks?  cuz that'd be cool.