Stitch Fix Review - August 2015

Raise your hand if you have a hard time picking out fashion forward clothing! *raises hand*

Raise your hand if you have kids and hate standing in a dressing room with kids running around or screaming while you try on clothes quickly only to realize that they don't fit as well as you thought in the poorly lit store! *raises hand*

Raise your hand if you spend 8 dollars on clothing at the clearance racks in Target just because it's cheap? And then wear it once or twice and the neck stretches or it doesn't wash well or unravels! *raises hand*

OOOO ME FOR ALL THINGS!

I got down to a good post pregnancy weight and had found myself in a rut. I would find a shirt I liked at Target and buy it in 5 colors. I would troll the racks in TJ Maxx and buy things because they were a good deal, not because I liked them, or fit well, or were in "season". I was in a hurry and would grab something to try on, with all my kids with me, and get home and didn't fit as well as I thought. And I'm so lazy, I wouldn't return it.

VOILA! A whole closet of ill fitting, boring, nursing stretched out clothes.

Then, my friend suggested I try Stitch Fix. I'm hooked.

It's amazing.

You fill out a very detailed style profile about your self. BE HONEST. It's all about your sizes, your body type, selecting items and outfits that you like or don't like, and your body proportions (with questions like, "do you think you have broad shoulders, do you have wide hips, would you say that your torso is long, etc).

Then, you pick a date. And you can request certain things from your stylist in a personal note. You can ask for things like, "I'd really like a cardigan for fall that I can wear to work." Or "Can you include a little black dress because I am going to a bachelorette party this month?" I actually did that one and they sent me two dresses :)

They charge you a $20 "styling fee" and someone personally selects 5 items for you. If you keep 1 thing out of your box, the $20 is subtracted from your total. Then a box of goodies arrives on your doorstep. And it's like Christmas. The giddy anxiety of the surprise is amazing. Since I buy pretty basic items, some of the items your stylist sends will be out of your comfort zone. TRY ON EVERYTHING ANYWAY!

You open your box and see this:

Oh the possibilities! This is actually my 4th fix and my first 5/5, meaning I kept all 5 items in the box.

This is the wishbone fringe necklace:

This is my first pair of jeans in 4 fixes and Oh. My. Goodness. They fix amazing. Which is shocking because finding pants for a girl who is pear shaped is NOT easy. They're actually a little long, but since they're skinnies, I plan on tucking them into boots for fall and winter, and then rolling them boyfriend style, for the rest of summer. I also love that they're dark, because I can dress them up with heels.

This is the Pixley Edmund Chevron Print Henley knit top. I am obsessed. This is one of the softest shirts I've ever worn. And I love the detailing with the buttons on the sleeves. I have a long torso too, so this is a great length. With my new jeans (rolled) and a pair of sandals.

This is hands down my favorite thing that came in the box. It's a hoodie. But dressier. So I can wear it of the house and look super put together. In a hoodie. This is the Loveappella Evie Drawstring Funnel Neck Sweatshirt. And those are the same jeans tucked into my favorite grey boots.

I love wearing stripes. And this shirt is so cute. I was hesitant at first, because I refuse to wear a shirts that I can't wear a bra with straps. I put on a nude bra and crossed my fingers. SUCCESS! I can wear a nude bra and you can't see the straps through the lace detailing on the sleeves and across the back. This is the Market and Spruce Gillia Lace Detail knit top. And those are the same pants from this fix with wedges.

Here is a close up of the lace detailing. It's SO pretty.

The other thing I love is that my stylist sends a "styling card." It shows the versatility of different pieces in the box so that you can wear the item in different ways with items you might already have in your closet. Your stylist also writes you a note (top right box of the styling card in the picture) with suggestions and tips for styling your items. Which, for someone like me, who doesn't have a fashionable bone in their body, is a godsend.

So then you decide what you're keeping. If you keep all 5 items, you get a 25% discount on the total cost of the box. Minus the $20 styling fee. If you send it all back, they keep your $20 for shipping. So that sucks. Then you go to the Stitch Fix website and CHECK OUT. You fill out a questionnaire about the fit and style of everything inside so that they can consider that for your next box. Then you put the items you DON'T want into a bag with a prepaid label that came in your box. And drop it off at a UPS, USPS or Fed-Ex. DONE.

You can pick the frequency you receive your boxes. Some people get boxes every 2-3 weeks, every month, every other month or whatever. It's part of your styling profile and can change it at any time.

If you fall into any of the above categories, CLICK HERE and fill out a styling profile and see what you think!

I love my new items and while the prices are more than I would normally pay, I have SO much self control in Target over impulse purchases now. I can walk by and be like, "NOPE!! My box comes in two weeks, I don't need your clearance rack!" I've been able to seriously shut down impulse buying.

If you decide to try it, I'll get a referral credit to use towards an item in my next fix! Try it. Try it.

https://www.stitchfix.com/referral/5323955

Fall 2014 Family Photos

So here we go again. I'm going to try this blogging thing. These are SO outdated...like 6 months old. People who got a Christmas card from us have seen some of these, but it appears that there are a lot of people reading this blog that I wasn't aware of. I will be address this in my next blog...which I am off to write now -

We decided to have some professional photos done the weekend after Caris and Kinley turned one year old. ONE!

We headed out to Floyd Lamb park (it's the peacock park to Avery) and it was a little chillier than we thought it would be, especially with the wind. And the coordinating outfits that I selected weren't super warm/didn't have sweaters or jackets to match, so we just decided to tough it out. "Tough it out" meaning the high that day was like 67 with some wind also. Eek. We have definitely adjusted to the desert weather.

Here is the all girl picture.

Here is one of us sitting on a low bridge thingy.

Sitting on a big tree.

Avery is RIGHT in the middle of saying "cheese" here. Can't you tell?

Caris had JUST started walking when this photo shoot was done. Kinley is still happy to sit and not move. I wish you could have seen me just outside the frame. I would hold Kinley up in standing and let go right when the photographer took the picture. Which is why it looks like Kinley is sloooooowly lowering herself to the ground. Because she's like "eh, I'm good sitting right here."

Family picture with Optimus. He got put in the car right after this. He thought the peacocks were squeaker toys. And he couldn't stay calm. Although, he was only in about 5 shots total so I think technically, he won the "most photogenic award" since all of his pictures were awesome.

The babies took some "One Year" pictures. I just love those little faces.

AHHH! They're so cute. I love them.

Sharing. It's very rare right now. And it was captured in a photo :)

I wish I knew what faces/noises we were making when this picture was taken. I would make it all the time.

So if you live in the Las Vegas area, we had a great experience with Dancing Frog Photography and we will definitely be utilizing Erin Kelly's business again.

Avery Singing "What Does the Fox Say?"

I cannot get enough of this girl. I really can't. She is precious. And possibly tone deaf.

You may remember when I talked about her obsession with Ylvis last year. Well, now she sings the song. The video is kinda dark, but it's about her singing more than the fact that she's sitting on the couch in her Rapunzel dress, playing with stickers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xGx0KpXvGo8

Avery Developing her Fine Motor Skills

I'll be the first person to tell you that I am TERRIBLE about teaching Avery things. I generally have the attitude of "she'll learn it eventually and there's no reason to push her." As a result, Avery didn't learn her colors until about 2 months ago. She said that everything was orange. Not kidding. Troy and I finally were like, "ummmmm, what's her deal?" And then we realized it was because we weren't making a real effort to sit down and teach her.

I'm not above bribing. Every day, after lunch and dinner, Avery sat down at the table with Troy or me and we learned colors. With M&Ms. That's right. She was allowed to eat the candy if she got the color right. We gave her good incentive. And then she was constantly like, "can we do chocolate colors?" It took about 2 weeks of daily effort, but she now knows almost all her colors. The main ones anyways. She has a really hard time with things like gray, teal (or any shade of that kooky teal/green/aquamarine color) and marigold (where there's a fine line between orange and yellow).

She knows about half of her letters, but again, we aren't really pushing it. Like at all.

She recently got SUPER interested in coloring and drawing pictures. I could not be more proud of her tripod grasp on a pen or marker. It's gorgeous. She colors for at least an hour a day. Here are some of her pictures:

Her VERY first smiley face!

Look at that detail:

She colored this whole picture by herself:

I love how she colors the letters at the bottom. She notices the weirdest details to color. Most kids would color the dress and focus on the main part of the picture. Not Avery. She colors the spines of the books and the architecture in the background:

I helped color some of the blocks on the left side, but she colored the rest of this one too:

I just love it. She is actually out of pictures in her coloring book now, so I have to go get another book for her to start on. In addition, I want to get a handwriting book that is similar to Handwriting Without Tears especially since her grasp and control is so good! Here are few free downloadable pages if you are interested in how the program works. The program teaches numbers and letters using basic rules and funny directions for kids to learn the proper way to write. It starts with easy concepts first, like horizontal and vertical lines. So letters like E, F, L, T, and I are first. Once they master certain skills, it goes to other letters that are curved like C and O. Then it combines the 2 concepts for other letters like D, P, B, and G. You get the idea.

So anyways. Hopefully we can get some of those books and some blank lined paper to practice. As a side note, we enrolled Avery in preschool for the fall, starting August 26, 2014. She'll be going on tuesdays and thursday all day. Troy and I were really impressed with the school when we took a tour. The FIRST GRADERS were diagramming sentences and doing basic algebra (4 + X = 7) and Troy almost started crying. We were both like "ummmmm, what?!?!? We didn't diagram sentences until middle or high school." Crazy.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Nursery

So my stepmom was here for almost two weeks and left on friday. One of the MAJOR things she did while she was here was completely finish the nursery. A few weeks ago, I posted a blog about how I wasn't ready for these baby girls for make their entrance. Well, now we are physically ready. She located all the parts of my breast pump, organized ALL of the clothes that we have and labeled everything, put all the pacifiers that were spread about the whole house in one spot, hung our new video monitors (courtesy of fun Aunt Tay-Tay, you're the best), cleaned bottles and made room for them in cabinets, and did TONS of laundry. Troy and I also took inventory of everything we still needed and Elaine went to Babies R Us and bought everything that we needed. We are OFFICIALLY ready for these sweet girls.

Here is the finished product.

This is the view standing in the doorway and looking into the left corner of the room. Yes, my hospital bag is the purple one on the changing table. It is packed with premie clothes...and that's it. The diaper bag is COMPLETELY clean and wiped out...but not packed. The black bag is my pump. Complete with clean parts and in working order. You can see the cameras mounted over the pictures and the wires hanging down out of reaching baby arms.

This is the crib right next to the door when you walk into the room. We decided to buy 2 new cribs a) so they would match and b) because Avery's crib was a drop side and didn't transition to a toddler bed so we had to put her into a twin bed. We used the bumpers my mother in law made on the head and footboards of each bed. Elaine sewed ribbons onto each corner so they could be tied to the posts on the ends. Elaine made crib skirts with the little caterpillars. You can't see them too well, but I assure you, they're adorable. LOVE them.

This is the changing table in between the cribs. It's Avery's changing table from her crib set. Can you see the labels Elaine put on all the drawers? She wanted to make sure I could find everything since I wasn't the one organizing the nursery. Isn't that cute?

And if you couldn't see, here's a close up:

Here is crib #2. All of the wall stickers came from a website called www.funtosee.com and this is the 3rd room that they have been used in. So definitely worth the money, as the stickiness is still intact. I highly recommend wall stickers. Elaine also made the 4 paneled quilt that is hanging on the side of the crib. I love how personalized everything is with the homemade gifts from these grandmas.

This is the wall right next to the door when you walk in. The quilt on the wall was the first thing that I bought when I found out I was pregnant with Avery and we built our nursery theme around that.

Here is the inside of her closet. Blankets stacked on top, with a hanging closet organizer. It holds socks, bibs, burp cloths, swaddle blankets, and extra crib sheets. The left side of the closet contains all their "next size up clothes" in big Rubbermaid bins. The rocking chair is blocking that side since we will only need to get in there every 3 months to change out clothing sizes.

So I *guess* these babies can come now. I'd prefer if they hang out in there for another couple weeks, but I've been having some heavy contractions and taking my max medication dosage. I have an appointment today, so we'll see what my doctor says. Keep you all updated! Thanks for your prayers! They're WORKING.

"What Does the Fox Say?"

First of all, if you haven't watched this video yet, a) you're missing out and b) this post will make NO sense to you. It's Avery's new favorite. She asks to watch it at least once a day. So watch the video.



And here is Avery and her crazy Daddy singing and dancing. Avery is just transfixed.



When you ask her "what does a fox say?" she says "ring a ding ding ding." DYING. So funny.

In different (but related news) I splurged on some treats for Kinley and Caris. At Avery's baby shower, my mom's friend Brenda bought Avery a "JellyCat" teddy bear from some boutique. Well, Avery LOVES him and sleeps with him every night. And his name is Bear-Bear. Real original, right? Meet Bear-Bear tucked into her bed:

He is a pink, corduroy teddy bear. He has been dragged around all of our moves, thrown up on, drug through the dirt, made some road trips, and been washed about 50 times. When we took her pacifier away when she was a year old, she used his nose as a pacifier. He looks pretty good, I think. The fabric is thick and durable enough that if we ever had an accidental amputation or laceration, he could easily be stitched up.

Luckily, we had left Bear-Bear's tags on and I was able to Google the company. And because Amazon is awesome, they sell ALLLLLL kinds of JellyCat corduroy animals. I was ecstatic. Bear-Bear is soft, has held up, is cute, and is a great size. We definitely wanted to buy something for the girls that was "just because" from Mom and Dad. So we sat down and scrolled through all the choices. We wanted them all to be different colors, so there was no confusion, and wanted them to all have different animals. There was an ADORABLE elephant, mouse, horse, alligator, bunny, kangaroo, etc.

We settled on a Rhino (my choice):

And a Fox (Troy's choice):

I. AM. OBSESSED. They are SO soft and cute. They came in the mail and Avery was immediately like "MINE." And we had a sit down talk about how those belong to her sisters. And she has HER Bear-Bear. Which we never make her share. She seemed to understand and handed them over.

So now, here is my poll for you. Troy and I SUCK at naming things. The only reason our dog has a bad ass name is because we didn't name him. The SPCA did. I mean, how original is "Bear-Bear"?

What should we name the Fox and the Rhino? Troy was like, "how about Rhino and Fox?" Negative. Any suggestions for the twins' snuggle friends?

So there is a full blog post about foxes. And a rhino. Suggestions on naming encouraged.

I Got Stuck on the Floor in the Shower

I'm not allowed to take showers unsupervised. Just in case I need help. I have thought this was a stupid rule previously.

Troy promised me that if I could keep it together and keep the babies in until 30 weeks, I could go to the prenatal spa that is attached to my doctor's office for a massage. Last week, I finally went! YAY! It was awesome. But like any paranoid woman who gets a pedicure or massage, you don't want to be the wildabeast/sasquatch who shows up with hairy legs.

Now, any kind of lower body hygiene is becoming a challenge due to the size of this massive belly. I have never been someone who can prop their leg up on the side of tub and shave. I have ALWAYS sat down in the tub. Always. Even in my college dorm. Gross, right?

I hadn't shaved my legs in about 2-3 weeks and it was craaaaaazy gross. So I sit down in my shower. It looks like this:

I got shaved up, all proud of myself, even though it took 20 minutes and some yoga/pretzel positioning. I use conditioner to shave. It works just as well as shaving cream and is cheaper. And keeps the clutter down in my shower. Win-win, right? Except in this situation. When I attempted to stand up, the floor was SOOOO slippery and there was NO way I could stand without assistance. I got stuck here:

I was feeling pretty embarrassed. Like, beached whale embarrassed. So I sat in the bottom of the tub and washed my face and conditioned my hair. And then I sat there for another couple of minutes trying to figure out if there was a way for me to get up without calling out Troy, who was reading in our bed. After conditioning my hair, the tub was even more slippery and now my body felt a little slippery too. There was NO way.

So, I tentatively called out to Troy. He stuck his head in and saw me looking pathetic on the floor. I didn't even tell him what happened...he already knew. He just opened the shower door and said, "Honey, do you need help getting up?" "Yeah."

So he helped me up and stood there watching me dry off and get dressed...judging me.

The next day, he and Avery went to Walmart because he needed a Duck Dynasty beard for church. Seriously. I'll put up pictures tomorrow of THAT. For sure. He came home with his beard and a shower chair.

I still shower with supervision and now I am sitting for all my showers. Not just to shave. You'd think I'd be cool with using an adaptive device, seeing as how I'm an Occupational Therapist and that's kind of my job. Buuuuuuuuuuut, I just feel like an invalid. APPARENTLY, it's safer. And not going to lie, my shower last night with the chair with pretty relaxing. And my feet didn't turn into sausages. And my feet and legs don't feel like they're going to explode after standing for 10 minutes. Because a shower is the longest period of time I stand for all day. Yep.

I'll be 32 weeks on monday! YAY!

Shaving the Couch

So, in case you didn't hear, I'm on strict bed rest. I basically wake up, take a shower, get dressed, and head to couch for the rest of the day. Only to get up to get water and food and go to the bathroom. It pretty much sucks because the state of my house is out of my control, which drives me nutso.

We bought a sectional a few months ago and I'm not sure what the material is, but Optimus's feet are making it pill up like a bad Christmas sweater. It used to get on my nerves, but now that I am spending 12+ hours a day lounging, eating, and sleeping on the couch, I cannot STAND it.

Do you see that? The little balls of fabric all over the place? It's our own fault for allowing our dog on the couch, but he's a member of our family and Avery (and Troy) like to use him as a pillow, so he stays on the couch for snuggles. But, oh LORD his rough paws are trashing the fabric.

I got on Amazon and bought a sweater shaver. I figured, I'm sitting here all day, reading and watching TV. SURELY I can make time to "shave the couch." It arrived in 2 days. THANK YOU AMAZON PRIME! And now my cushions look like this!

Here is a picture of the couch with the far cushion cleaned up and the close cushion ready to be shaved.

This is after about 20 dumps of the little container of pilled fabric. Gross huh? But the couch looks gorgeous again. I'd say that was worth the $8.50! Thanks Amazon! It took about 3 hours, but eh, I wasn't doing anything else.

Another Reason My Doctor Rocks

1. Here

2. He listens to Transformers during surgery

3. He gave me his cell phone number and accepts calls at all hours of the night. And talked to me on his day off for 30 minutes. Even though I was in trouble...

4. He texts me and makes me LOL

We are SO Late Jumping on the Netflix Bandwagon

Seriously...I've known what Netflix was for foreva. I did. But we never bought into it because we have cable and DVR. Who needs both? That just seems like overkill. Troy's Aunt was visiting last week and convinced us that we just HAD to get it. Especially since the first month is free. You guys know I can't resist free. Or a good deal. And $7.99 a month is a great deal. Especially for this new couch potato.

We decided not to get the actual DVD to the mail box, just the instant Netflix in the house, which we currently have wired through the Wii. Our Wii has gotten more action in the past week than it has in the past 2 years. Seriously.

So far, we have watched a few movies, a few kid movies (for Avery of course...but who doesn't enjoy Disney classics?), and some series.

We are currently watching "Orange is the New Black," with is a Netflix original series. It's a little risque, but we are really enjoying it. I told my mom and she recommended another Netflix original series called, "House of Cards." I had NO idea that Netflix even HAD original series and apparently, they are starting to compete with networks like HBO and Showtime. So that's been a nice surprise.

Who else has Netflix? How long have you had it? Do you still have cable? And MOST IMPORTANTLY: What are you watching? Recommendations?

Now that I'm not working, Avery's nap time and early bedtime (7pm muahahaha) have been Netflix exploring time. Move over DVR...you're getting put on hold for the rest of the summer. Until Parenthood starts up. And New Girl. And Big Bang Theory. When does the fall line up start again?

Thank God for Her Puddle Jumper

Troy's schedule is going to be weird the next few weeks. His hours are scheduled from 12noon to 8pm. He leaves for work around 11 so that doesn't give us much family time in the morning.

On Troy's first day of his crazy schedule (and me on my own for the first time since the cerclage), I decided to take Avery to the pool. I thought this was a good idea. Avery can get in/out of the car/car seat by herself, in and out of the pool, and walks in and out of the facility. And we spend some time in the sun and Avery burns off energy. And it makes my hips feel good. Win win all the way around, right? WRONG!

We get to the pool when it opens and everything is going fine. Avery wears a puddle jumper floaty (which is Coast Guard approved...and cute) and spends MOST of the time at the kiddie pool climbing out of the pool (which is about 2.5 feet deep) and jumping back in. Over and over. There is a beach walk in area on one side and it gets to about 2.5 to 3 feet on the other side. The kiddie pool has 3 lifeguards and is about 20 feet from the deep end of the big pool with the diving boards. When I take her alone, we just hang out in the kiddie pool. When Troy comes with us, he takes her to the big pool to swim and they watch the people jump off the diving board. She likes being in the pool with HIM, I think, more than being in the big pool where she can't touch the bottom, but floats great with her floaty (which we call her "Shark").

Here is Avery and Shark:

I was sitting with my back against the deep end of the kiddie pool and Avery 2-3 feet from me, jumping in and out of the pool. I would count to 3 and she would jump. Over and over.

Well, this time, she climbed out and took about 3 steps towards the big pool and pointed and said, "daddy over there?" And I said, "no, daddy's at work." And she took off RUNNING at full speed towards the big pool. I immediately stood up and tried to haul my pregnant ass out of the pool, with no ladder, 3 feet deep and started yelling her name.

Avery jumped RIGHT into the 12 foot deep end of the pool. She went down about 3 feet and floated right back to the top.

I was only halfway out of the kiddie pool when the lifeguard pulled her out. The lifeguard only had to stand on the edge and pulled her out of the deep end using the straps of her puddle jumper and another hand under butt. I got over to her and I said, "AVERY, you CANNOT swim over here alone. Are you ok?"

She looks up at me with a BIG smile and says, "that was FUN!"

Seriously? Child, I almost had a heart attack.

I felt so judged by the lifeguards. I mean, I was right there watching the whole time! It wasn't like I was sitting on a lounge chair, scrolling my Facebook newsfeed. I'm hugely pregnant and she's fast. And she had on a life jacket. I'm just not as physically able as I normally am.

I guess I have a water baby on my hands and will definitely make sure to put her in swim lessons. Like ASAP. She has no fear. None. She gets that from you, Troy...

And seriously...thank God for the puddle jumper. I recommend them to ANYONE with a child from 30-50 pounds. She loves hers and asks to put it on, even at home in the plastic baby pool. It doesn't inhibit her movement, but it's Coast Guard approved. Go buy it.

UPDATE*** Here's Troy's response when he found out. Such a dad...

FatBooth

So Troy found this app on his phone called "Fatbooth." You take a picture of yourself, line up some lines/dots with identifying features (like your nose and bottom of your chin), press enter and it pops out an image of what you would look like if you were fat.

We definitely were able to entertain ourselves for about an hour.

And since we were so entertained, I decided to share our masterpieces with you all. Lucky lucky you!

Here is me looking SO hot:



And of course, we couldn't leave Avery out of the fun:



BAHAHAHAHAHAHA - I'm dying. SO funny.

And here's Troy:



And because he coudn't just stop at one:



We were all having so much fun, we went ahead and let Optimus in on the fun...OH YES WE DID! It didn't work so well for him, in terms of "fatting" him up, but funny all the same:



I hope today's post made you smile!!