All dressed in white...

Miss Molly asked me for some help in choosing a fun white dress to wear to her upcoming couples' shower, and being flattered to have been asked, since I generally dress in some variety of muu-muu these days, I got right down to it.  I really tried to keep budget in mind, but I couldn't help posting some lusties as well, because hey, if you return it after one teensy little wear....we won't tell. Although booze + white generally equals disaster (just ask my wedding dress).

So- here are my options- from lusties to musties...

Nanette Lepore lace dress, $328

Shoshanna summer beaded dress, $395

James Perse v neck dress, $165
Rachel Pally empire waist dress, $167
Sophia Eyelet Dress, $248 

Banana Republic crochet tank dress, $48
Zara linen tunic, $50

Loft Sleeveless twist tank dress, $59.50

Under Cover

The fam is headed to Santa Monica and then Palm Desert for some R&R next week, and it's officially time for me to debut my super-sized self in a swimsuit this summer. Luckily, there's more to looking good at the pool or on the beach than swimwear- so I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite looks for having fun in the sun.... from head-to-towel. Enjoy!

1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8

1/2/3/4/5/6/7

Connect the Dots

I have a confession to make:

I am considering having an affair....

on my beloved stripes...

with Polka Dots. 

They're not just for 6 year-olds any more and they're kind of the new stripes. 

But not really, I still heart stripes the most (exhibit A)

They are fun and exciting, maybe a little impractical even.

Kind of like a younger woman. 

Check out these floozies: 

1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8

Tempted?

IT'S A.....

BOY. 

Well, it's official. God wants me to grow old alone and spend my days judging other peoples' daughters who will think they are good enough for one of my THREE flipping sons. If it's not already a little evident, I'll admit it- I'm a teensy, or maybe just a substantial amount more than teensy, bit bummed. Despite making it very clear that I've always wanted a daughter, I struggled with the idea of sharing my real feelings with you all tonight. I could have, and maybe, should have, announced it here with smiley faces and exclamation marks and thanked the lord for blessing me with another healthy little bundle of joy- and then gone on to remark on  how close the three of them will be and how lucky they'll be to have one another, and believe me, I WANT to feel this way, and to a certain extent, honestly, I promise, I do.

I would be remiss not to thank God, or the universe, or past life me, or whomever, for the fact that all of the necessary limbs and other important bits and pieces were just as they should be and that my little guy was bouncing around in there, waving his little fetus-y hand at us and impressing the boys with full on body revolutions for the ultrasound technician. I tried desperately to put those thoughts of "maybe it was a mistake" or "maybe it's a small, surgically removable tail," out of my clouded head so that I could fully appreciate the little miracle that was showing off for his new family, but, they were still there, whether I wanted them to be or not, and so, I thought, in the end, it's only fair to you all that I be honest, because, these days, everyone is so PC, "I just want it to be healthy" phony bologna, that I thought I would speak out for all of us mothers-of-three-or-more-of-the-same, and say: 

IT'S OK. It's OK to be a little bummed out for a short while. It doesn't make you a bad person and it does NOT, by any means what-so-ever, mean that you will not L-O-V-E this little person with every molecule in your body and thank God for it every single night, as it lays there peacefully sleeping amidst the wreckage of blocks, and super hero action figures and disgustingly detailed insect books.

So, that's it. Part of me keeps rationalizing and wanting to be super practical by convincing the rest of myself that this boy will be so much less expensive than a girl. After all, the walls are blue, I've still got all of my nursery bedding and rugs, and....who am I kidding???? This kid, if he ever gets a hold of this post, will need sufficient evidence that I loved him every bit as much as his dastardly brothers, so naturally, he'll need all new stuff. Right? Right??? And I am already planning his manly little nursery- that means I'm excited. Right??

OK- so it may be a total, fantasy, never-going-to-happen nursery, because it involves things like this super cool, super expensive, wood-stained Ouef Sparrow Crib: 

Sparrow Crib, $730

So, that one may not be happening, buuuuuuut, if I can convince the hubs that wallpaper is not the devil, I may just get away with one wall covered in this:

source

What do you think?? Ridiculous? Whatever, I don't care. I earned myself a little bit of ridiculous this week. Oh yeah, did I mention that I poured searing hot liquid on my chest and I have nasty, fleshy, second degree burns on both my giant, ugly maternity boobs and will have to refrain from exposing my chest pretty much for the rest of the summer? Not that anyone wanted to see what I've got going on right now, in a swim suit anyways, but, yeah, moral of the story: I deserve the freakin' whales.

YES.

I won SOMETHING.

Something fun. I never win things, and this is a particularly awesome something that I probably would have otherwise shelled out my own cash for, so this makes me extra happy because now - I can use that cash and finally get that pedicure.You know, the one that will replace my missing toenail that I have been brazenly exposing my co-workers and the general populous to in my skimpy sandals.

And it's all thanks to the incredible Lauren, the blogger behind one of my favorite daily reads:

She has lots of good eye candy on her site, and dreams up cute nurseries like this one for her daughter Violet:

Help me thank Lauren for her awesome give away by checking out her site- and finding out that I won this, right here!

SUPER party.

Today, my little Huddy bear turned three. I remember when I was 9 months pregnant with him, snuggling with Max in his newly appointed big boy bed, and wondering how I could every possibly love another little one the way that I loved him... but I do. My heart totally just grew a size bigger when he came, Grinch-style, and made room for who is now, one of the wildest, most hilarious little people you will ever meet.

Befitting to his love of karate kicking and "blasting" things, Huddy has had an intrinsic love for all things super hero from the time he could say "Batman". So, naturally, a super hero theme was chosen to celebrate our Super Hud. Hud spotted some Spiderman party supplies at Target and almost crapped his pants, so I could have very easily just swooped up the whole set for about 20 bucks and called it a day, but heaven forbid I make something so easy on myself. Instead, I opted for the vintage comic book super hero theme, because admittedly, Spiderman and his ugly plastic banner just didn't jive with my dream of Martha stumbling upon my party pics, (because, hey it could happen) and then insisting I come be one of her contributing editors, or scoop poop for her french bulldog, or, you know, whatever. 

So, inspired by some Etsy and google searching, I dusted off my glue gun and my scissors, enlisted the assistance of some slaves volunteers and got to crafting.

Cupcake toppers were a quick and easy project. Windows 7 has some cool little auto-shapes that made for perfect exclamation borders and I downloaded a boat-load of comic book fonts from dafont.com, which is a serious obsession of mine. Adhere those bad boys onto a little piece of foam board and jam  some Wilton cake pop sticks in the foam with a touch of hot glue and you're good to go.The finished product:

Not bad, eh?

Then, I got it in my mind that I was going to make 16 felt super hero masks. How difficult could it be to cut 16 masks out of felt and sew elastic on? Well, let's just say we'll splurge on the $3.50 a pop masks from Etsy next time because felt now makes me want to jump off a cliff. 

 

At least they looked cute in the goody bags. 

The Spiderman plates ultimately made it in the mix, along with these other guys and some awesome polka dot napkins I scored at Target. 

And of course, what would a party be without a banner that you pay way too much to have printed up at Kinkos? Next time I'm there I'm going to have them print me up some 50 dollar bills and tell them to just keep those as payment because don't they know I want a little cash left over to get a freaking pedicure? There was no pedicure for me, but Super Hud had his sign: 

 

Then there was my masterpiece. My super-legit, made from real old comic books that I had to travel into the dreaded depths of Castro Valley to procure, pennant banner. Behold: 

And, because the hubs thought it was blasphemous when I unveiled the books from the bag only for him to discover that they would be snipped apart for cosmetic purposes, I made certain not to waste their precious contents, and whipped up this little piece of modge podge fun for cupcake presentation: 

My assistant, Max, clearly needs a haircut even worse than I need a pedicure.

Hud was pretty psyched about his decor, but truth be told, he would have been just as happy with wall-to-wall plastic Spiderman, a bounce house and a container full of frosting.

A satisfied customer. 

Also, in another effort to save some bucks, we skimped on the bounce house and borrowed one from a friend. Due to the size, capacities were limited and this thing was like Dorsia on a Saturday night in '83. 

Clearly, someone was much too busy to blow dry their hair before guests arrived. Yikes. 

Also, bonus points if you noticed a small red scavenging butt under the table.

Thanks to Auntie Dana for her dutiful picture taking. I was too busy hauling my fetus around and resisting the urge to guzzle white wine. 

Happy Birthday Hud, you are my whole world.

Random Musings from a Pretend Housewife (or, A Play Structure and Some Cauliflower)

I worked from home on Monday because Mr. Max had his little last day of preschool thing mid-morning, and then the fetus and I had a check-up in the afternoon, so I spared myself the nonsense of running back and forth from my office and instead, spent the day working in my bed, tidying up, and making a pretty freaking delicious-if- I-do-say-so-myself dinner for the fam. Meanwhile the hubs slaved away in the rain and fog and drizzle for the third consecutive day on our new play-structure and the boys ran around the yard like wild dogs, oblivious to the miserable weather.

I love days like this; feeling like a contented housewife who has some control over the state of her house-hold, whilst  watching my handsome hubs laboring outside and my kids soaking up the fresh air. I know it's not a very feminine ideal, but whatever, I like bras and I hate my cubicle.

Anyways, I thought I would share with you all the fruits of our (ok, the hub's) labor. Behold:

This is probably shortly before somebody started to lose their mind...

but he survived long enough to deliver the finished product: 

                                                  

Ta-Dah.

Somebody luuuhves it....

His brother was busy inside nerdin' out with some insect books and a robotic cockroach, but he's pretty stoked on the swings when it's time to take a break from learning about the various species of beetles.

I was working on a masterpiece myself. I didn't snap any pics, but as I said, my meal was pretty delish and I had my new and so super easy roasted cauliflower dish to thank for it- mostly. I found it on one of my newest food blog obsessions, Budget Bytes. I love this site, because none of the recipes are overwhelming and she gives you all sorts of nifty tricks on how to make the most out of your ingredients, whether it be by re-using them or preserving them correctly. So, anyways, back to the cauliflower..... ah-may-zing (read that in an annoying sing-songy voice to get an actual idea of just how amazing, or, you know, cook it yourself). OK- here it is- make it. Tonight.

Garlic Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower= mind blowing

Happy Weekend!

Ulla for Urban

For those of you with kids, have you ever noticed that when you're pregnant, regular clothes seem cuter than usual and you seem to be able to find a zillion clothing items you would buy, you know, if you didn't feel like such a bloaty, giant-breasted mutant? That seems to be my dilemma right now. Tia has been plaguing me via G-chat all day at work with links to cute things that she wants to buy for her miniature body, and it's had me browsing around at things that I have no business wearing right now.

As a result, however, I stumbled upon an exciting discovery. My girl Ulla Johnson, who makes clothing that upon owning, I'm quite certain would make all of my dreams come true, is serving up some affordable style by way of her line Vasia at Urban Outfitters. It may not be as delectable (did I just write that?) as her signature line of Lusties, but some of these pieces are definite Musties in my book. Have a peek:

Vasia by Ulla Johnson Silky Embroidered Blouse, $39.99

It doesn't get any more essential than this silky white blouse- AND it's on sale.

Vasia by Ulla Johnson Gemma Dress, $79

Yup.

Vasia by Ulla Johnson Chloe Dress, $89

Mmmm, hmmmm.