Maternity Wear

Oh Monday you are here again so soon...we had such a busy weekend that before I knew  it was Monday and Jay was off to work again { silent tear } Saturday I treated myself to prenatal yoga in the morning which has kinda become a Saturday morning ritual for me and I am sorta loving it but Ill discuss that more in another post. Following yoga me and my sister went shopping at the mall. I was in need of some new maternity  tops which really means I go to my normal store and buy a large.  I happily found some really cute stuff . Sunday we had breakfast with some of our old friends from Philadelphia who also live in the DC area and just laughed HARD at how much our lives have changed since having kids. Later in the day we got a special visit from my in-laws so by Sunday evening I was EXHAUSTED and very happy to lay in bed and read. I am starting to get pretty large over here WAY faster than I got large with my Kael. While I embrace anything pregnancy brings to me I still kinda want to look somewhat cute for the next couple of months. I always have a hard time dressing in the spring because the weather is so unpredictable but this time around will be even more tricky because maternity wear is involved. I fully intend to pull out any maxi dress that will fit come end of May June when it is warm enough to do so and rock that out for the final month but until then I may need to invest in a couple more pieces to get me thru the next 4 months. We also have a trip to Chicago coming up at the end of March for my sweet Granny's 90th Birthday party so I have been looking for a dress for that also. Feeling motivated after my shopping trip with my sister I sat down and started to browse online for some more cute maternity wear. 

All of these are from Asos which is such a great website for when you are pregnant and even better when you aren't they offer so many different price points and unique styles 

 Thinking about scooping up this adorable pink one for Easter Sunday

Asos also has a really affordable belts in fun colors which is great for trying to create a shape in some of the tenty style dresses you tend to wear during pregnancy

For my jeans for pregnancy I always turn to the Gap they are comfortable and not crazy in price. I didnt pull the trigger on these floral jeans because I wasnt sure my thighs should be covered in floral at this stage of the game but they are super cute and fun 

If you have extra money to burn or looking for something super special during your pregnancy I am in love with the Hatch Maternity collection. How stylish and chic are all these pregnant women??

On My Bedside Table

I thought I would start a fun little series once a month here on my blog called " On My Bedside Table " I am a huge huge book worm and Im always on the hunt for the next good book to read so I thought this would be a perfect place to share some of the great books that I come across. Lately I have been using Pinterest as a the place to find new books. Honestly the person who created that website needs to be blessed because it really is my go to place for everything these days. 

I just finished reading this adorable book called Girls In White Dresses by Jennifer Close which is HYSTERICAL and so dead on, it also happens to be a National Bestseller { NBD}. If you ever have been in a friends wedding or been through the whirlwind of all your girlfriends getting married you will especially get a good kick out if it. It sort of reminded me a little bit of the hit show Girls on HBO which obviously is brilliant 

I am currently reading Maine by J Courtney Sullivan which was a little slow in the start but is picking up and so good! It is about the complicated relationships between women in a family and definitely hits the nail on the head in terms of the things that different generations of women go thru and how the interact and doesnt hurt that the book takes place by the beach, my favorite place on earth!

Lastly Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Drukerman has been on my nightstand for a while which is odd because I normally fly thru books. I have been reading this one off and on between Kaels naps or I will take it with me when I go to the nail salon. I am reading it slowly because it is more of a information stlye book than a plunge thru novel. I started reading it last year when Kael was probably 11 months and put it down because truthfully it just was just too late to start implementing some of these methods on him but BOY do I wish I had read it before he was born. It is one womens take on how French women raise their children and why their children seem to behave some much better than American children. It is truly very interesting and definitely has me thinking about our societies take on " Hovering " parenting.  I just saw on Good Morning America this morning that the author just came out with another book about parenting called Bebe Day by Day that I am going to snatch up and review next month! 

Baby Girl and #ProjectBBR

Hello all! I hope you had a great weekend and were able to relax and enjoy your loved ones. We had a busy one over here in the Rogers household. First I will start off by sharing our exciting news. So remember when I said we wanted to be surprised by the babies gender well turns out I have no patience { not a big shocker } so we were surprised just 20 weeks early! We found out on Friday that we are having a baby GIRL! This in our family is  pretty big because my Husband comes from 5 boys and the running joke is that Rogers men cannot produce girls. On top of having those 4 Uncles I also have three brothers on my side and my sisters Husband so Kael has 8 uncles  needless to say we were very surprised and excited. I didn't really believe the doctor and made him check 20 times Im pretty sure he thinks Im crazy but I just couldn't believe it. So there will be lots of pinks and lavenders coming into the household which will be a fun change.

With the realization that we are half way thru this pregnancy we realized it was really time to get on #projectBBR  make some real decisions you know other than pinning everything I saw.  I decided on the the Benjamin Moore paint Revere Pewter it is supposed to be " the best BM color ever " we shall see

  We also ordered this trundle daybed from Ballard Designs

I picked this one because it is upholstered which is one of my favorite looks when it comes to beds but more importantly because this will eliminate our need to buy and install toddler rails, we can just pull out the trundle part a little bit and if he falls it will be onto another bed. Or he can just start out sleeping on the trundle part which is low to the ground. I also picked out these great book shelves from Land of Nod in the dark wood I loved this because they are sleek and dont take up a lot space like a traditional book shelf would.

For his bedding I picked out his gray striped duvet cover from Restoration Hardware I am hoping to add some color with some fun sheets. I am still having a hard time giving this room a theme. With Kaels nursery I found a lamp at Homegoods that looked like it belonged in a story book that I fell in love with and the whole room came to life from this one lamp I havent found tha one piece yet for this room which I guess is OK just a different way of going about things. 

Those are all the decisions that have been made for now I will keep filling you in as #projectBBR progresses! Hope you all have a Happy Monday!!

Bright Art

Happy Thurday all! One more day till the weekend and tomorrow is an especially fun day because we get to go in for our 20 week scan get some good pictures of the baby and make sure everything is OK in there. Ive been feeling he or she kick away which honestly never ever will get old. So I am super pumped for tomorrow! I read tons and tons of blogs throughout the week in between playing trains and dancing to Im Sexy and I know over and over. Somedays like yesterday I get really inspired and excited to do something I have seen in my own home. Yesterday over on one of my daily stops The Glitter Guide they featured the home of Amelia Eicholz on their series Style at Home and lets just say she made me want to add some bright fun happy art into my house. In our first home in Philly I really decorated the common areas with my Husband in mind, with blues and yellows and oranges  {I know I know..but in my defense I was a new wife and Im still convinced he was slipping me something in my nightly riesling } but those colors were just not me at all and I was always left not feeling at home in my own house so with this house I am totally throwing that out the window because honestly he does not care or notice half of the time. I am in my house pretty my all day everyday aside from play dates and errands so I want to love it and I also want it to be happy and cheerful especially during these winter months that can seem so long and dreary. Here are some of my favorites

 These first two are from a website that I am obsessed with it is called Society 6  I first learned about it last Christmas when I was searching for a great iphone case. I landed at this website and it just keeps getting better and better you can now get  canvases pillows phone cases in some of the greatest prints. These  particular prints are from an artist called Emily Rickard so so fun and bright and both something I would want to look at daily.

This one is my absolute favorite and have already decided to purchase it for me and Husband J for our anniversary in September. I found this artist Minagraphy on Etsy and fell instantly in love with this picture and then to my delight realized that it was called The Jersey Shore and I nearly passed out. The Jersey shore is a place that  my Husband loves so so much he has been going there for a long as he can remember and his family has a home in Avalon so I just think this will be a perfect addition to our home. Not to mention I never ever get sick of looking at the beach it will bring me up when I down on these long cold winter months. Below is a picture of it hung so you can get an idea of how breathtaking it really is on a wall.

Only Child Expiring...

A couple of months ago I took this adorable picture of my sweet little boy and tucked it in all of our Christmas cards to happily announce that we are expanding our family to 4 come the summer time!! SO this is what initially kept me from writing my blog. You need to forgive me, I could barely lift my head off the pillow and I was dealing with a toddler too. It was the hardest two months of my life. 8 Weeks doesn't really sound that long until you are vomitting into the toilet a couple of times a day with a 1 year old pulling at your leg. Needless to say I got thru it as all women before me have and I am feeling much better and so so excited for our new addition to come. My official due date is July 3 however since I will be having another c-section I will being having the baby at the end of June. So I am a week shy of being half way there! Its a good thing I am feeling much better because we have so much to do before our next little one arrives including moving Kael into his big boy room #projectBBR and making sure that the rest of the house feels somewhat like home since I will be holed up half the summer.

As much as I love decorating, it is hard work and so many decisions. Kaels soon to be big boy room was the only room in our new house that had wallpaper, which has to come down. It is bad, really bad blue and yellow floral bad with matching curtains. When we bought this house it was such a easy no brainer thing "there is wallpaper in this room" "no big deal its cosmetic" its easy to fix" but now it its just another expense and frankly annoying { tip to all home buyers  all the things your want to change cost money on TOP of what you paid for the house and until you fix it you just stare at it..hating it more and more everyday }SO this is our first step we are having someone come out and rip down the wallpaper and repaint at the end of the month and I have little by little been picking out furniture. As far as the nursery is concerned we are going to have to wait till July to do anything with that because are going to let the sex be a surprise this time around. Luckily I bought furniture for Kael that would go great with a girl or a boy so the only big changes that I will need to make are accessories.

Now I may just be pregnant and super hormonal but if any of you watched the superbowl last night did you not cry hysterially at this commercial? May it is because I am a horse lover, but NO probably would have cried if I wasn't pregnant I just think this commercial was the sweetest thing..

Feeling Energized

 Hello, remember these faces?? I have been gone for quite some time and while I have many good reasons for you but the truth is I wasn't really sure if I was going to continue to write this blog. I kept wondering if it  was a waste of my time and wasn't really sure who really read it. I also started to get really annoyed with all the social media that is constantly coming at me in so many overwhelmingly different directions and thought the last thing that I wanted was MORE social  media. 

If you know me in real life you know I go back and forth with the whole social media thing sometimes it is just too too much for me. One day as I was logging in for my normal morning check up I realized that nothing really was different from yesterday just more of the same generic " TGIF " " best night ever " " how amazing does this food look " and the always favorite " My life is perfect, are you jealous of me yet " posts and I just got annoyed and realized HEY I sign up for this stuff and it really doesn't make me all that happy def more annoyed lately than happy so I decided  that is was time to make some choices, I can do some of this social media stuff, but just not all, especially with a new one coming out every couple of months { the latest one is Vine and I am so confused by it } so I decided to get rid of Facebook and use the time I normally spent on there and put it towards my blog. Mostly because I missed writing it I always feel so much better after writing a post even IF no one else is reading them and I love love going back and seeing what I wrote about Kael when he was 6 months old it is kinda the only baby book I have been keeping { I need to get better at filling out the baby book }

 It is also a huge way that I stay connected to myself , yea remember  Jen the girl who grew up a huge tomboy playing endless amounts of soccer and dirty from cleaning out her horses stall { a true barn rat } and came out a woman who loves Fashion and Interior Design,  a sucker for reality TV  has a true weakness for wine and can almost always be found up way later than her bedtime reading a good book, are you in there? I am more than just Kael's Mom and Husband J's wife { which is truly a struggle to remember sometimes as a stay at home Mom } and this blog is a good way for me to remember that. So I am back and feeling excited about it. I think if I am going to do this blog I need to start being more honest and more real on it and stop worrying about how I come across because some of my favorite blogs are the ones that are truly honest and make me feel happy that I am not the only one grinding out these long Stay at home Mommy days. So in terms of the reasons I have been gone they are GOOD, so so good, and I will share them all with you tomorrow or Tuesday! Hope you guys are all busy in the kitchen cooking up your favorite Superbowl Sunday recipes!! My eight year old Brother and Dad made  the trip out the New Orleans for the big event and I have been getting pictures all weekend of a dreamy eyed 8 year old in hog heaven and it really sweet to see!