Well the interesting thing about being 9 months pregnant is that you can’t really shop for much! You don’t want to buy more maternity clothes, but clearly you don’t fit into your old size, and have no idea when, if ever, you will again. And shoes don’t fit either because your feet are either swollen or have gotten bigger, or both! So you can’t even shoe shop really! So today as I was bored sitting around waiting on baby girl to start the process of showing up, I remembered how I had seen this website where you basically make an outfit board. (Like the mood boards for rooms on the Young House Love blog, for any of you who read that) The site is called Polyvore and you kinda shop and group items together. Here is my first one, and I think it is all super cute! I am really glad ruffles are so in fashion right now, I am a big fan! So go make yourself an outfit and post it and leave me a comment. I want to see what you pick out! (You can sort by price too, so this stuff all ended up being within a reasonable price.) You can click the picture to go to the site and see what items I put in and how much they cost. And then you can make your own!

Fun outfit by teresita23 featuring Jessica Bennett shoes

I was perusing baby items on Etsy and here are some cute finds. Click the picture or link to go to the website.

Valentine Diaper Bag by saffronbags

Pink Flower Crystals Diaper to go Bag by mariasfavorites

Medium Wet Bag (for diapers or wet swim clothes or whatever) by monkeyfootdesigns

Beautiful Damask All-in-one Travel  Baby Wipes Case with Diaper Strap by Lilbopeepsshop

GPS or Camera Quilted Case by grusselldesignes01

Etsy is so fun! Do any of you have shops on there that I don’t know about? Some of my friends’ shops are listed in my sidebar.

Before I was pregnant, I bought this skirt from Target:

It is kinda hard to tell, but it is just a jersey skirt, with a fold down top. It has turned out to be great, because it is a good maternity skirt too since it is so stretchy!  I also have a pair of these jersey gauchos in brown:

and the same is true of them since they are all stretch. Really anything that is stretchy at the top could potentially make the transition into maternity gear. I have this blue skirt that I have had for about 4 years

and it still works great because the entire top is elastic. So I would recommend buying these type items if you are pregnant, or not yet but maybe soon to be, because you will get a lot of use out of them!

Have you heard of these?

This is a Tervis Tumbler. It is a really fun cup that keeps things cold or hot and doesn’t sweat. They are very durable and have a lifetime guarantee. They are made in the USA (Florida) and are dishwasher, microwave, and freezer safe. Some friends of mine had them and liked them so my amazing husband got me this one (but in red) for Valentine’s day with a lid. I have used it to take to work every day since. There are various lid/straw combinations that you can buy, so you can drink hot things like coffee from them or cool things like ice water. They have lots of them at Bed, Bath and Beyond, but other places carry them too, or you can order online. I just ordered this for the sweet hubby.

You can barely see it, but its logo is this:

which can be hard to find! But they have TONS of designs and also various sizes. I don’t know if the Tervis Tumbler people might find this blog and want to send me a free one or something, but if they do, I would be up for that.

April has been a nice month at work.

No, I did not get “Teacher of the Month”. But, the two ladies who were awarded that honor did not want to park in the designated spot. So our sweet copy lady Judy came by my room to see if I wanted to use it since I am preggo. Isn’t that sweet!? So of course I said yes! I normally don’t get to school that early, ok really even on time, so I usually have to park really far out. It has been so nice to get to park right by the door! Too bad it is May now and that is over!

And I have enjoyed parking in spaces like these too…

For any of you last minute shoppers out there, here is a fun gift idea. (Although I must say, if you order it today online, I don’t think you can get it by tomorrow morning…) I went to Nutcracker Market this year and found this company: Sarah Jane’s

Here is the website: http://www.sarah-janes.com

They have super cute oilcloth stuff so it is very handy because you just wipe it clean. This picture is of a travel bag that I like. The fabrics have cute prints and they do monogramming.

A few weeks ago I hosted a Swap Party, and it was so great! A Swap Party is where people come together and bring things they don’t want/need anymore, and trade with each other. You go home with some new stuff for free! Here is how I hosted it:

• Decide what you want to have as a theme. We swapped: clothes, shoes, accessories, books, movies, and housewares. You could be more specific and do toys or anything really.
• Pick a date
• Send an e-vite
• Set up lots of space to spread out things. I made my dining room a clothing area for clothes with number sizes, and hung various pieces of paper around the room so that people could lay out their items. I made the kitchen an area for clothes that were marked small, medium, large. The fireplace hosted shoes, and the bar hosted purses and accessories. The couch held books and movies, and a folding table hosted housewares.
• Set aside a place for things that ARE NOT up for swapping! (purses, shoes, jackets etc) I used a guest room and closed the door.
• Have some mirrors for trying things on.
• Have some folks bring snacks and drinks or set them up yourself. We ate some before we started and after we finished.
• Have everyone arrive at a set time, and start the swapping at a set time about 30 minutes later. This allows everyone time to set out their stuff and for late arrivals.
• You can decide how to do the actual swapping. I looked up several websites, many of which advocated a ticket system. Bring 10 items, get 10 tickets for 10 things to take home. Some even said you could draw names to decide the order of who got to pick first. This might be important if you think people are going to be competitive for things, or if you don’t know the people coming. But we are all friends and pretty polite at that, so I didn’t figure there would be much battle over stuff, so we didn’t do this.
• Everyone needs a bag to put their stuff in as they go, so you can tell when something is taken.

So when the actual swap started, here is what we did… We took one category at a time.

First the purses. We all stood around the purse selection and everyone took one.  Then when all were satisfied, everyone who saw one they wanted took a second. And so on until we were all done. I ended up with that lovely giraffe print one that I had been eying at stores for MONTHS unable to fork over the cash for one, and a zebra one too! Thanks Kasey!

Then we moved on to clothes. We just basically started wandering around, holding up stuff, and trying it on. I had a “fitting room” set up in my bedroom, but we just all ended up trying stuff on right there in the living room where the clothes were, it was easier that way. We would try stuff and others would offer their opinion. If something didn’t fit, we would put it back in the pile, or maybe give it to someone else that we thought it might fit.

After clothes, we moved on to jewelry/accessories, shoes, then books/movies, then housewares. (As you can see we didn’t have a lot of home decor, but I think everyone mostly had focused on clothes to bring.) Then everyone made a last wander around to see if there was anything else they wanted.At the end, we had another snack and watched some TV. Then we went around and showed all that we got and you had to claim it if you brought it, so we could see whose stuff we got. That was really fun because it was nice to see someone else using the stuff that you didn’t use anymore.

Now that I think about it, I think it just goes to show how sweet all these friends of mine are…there was so much encouraging going on! People would be unsure if what they tried on looked good, and lots of encouragement was given! People would ask what you should wear with a certain item, and fashion suggestions were given! People even ended up with whole outfits! I think it helped that we all have pretty similar tastes. I think we all like each other’s styles pretty well so it was easy to give each other suggestions about what went together or how something looked. I think we all like the same stores too, as there was a lot of stuff from GAP, Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, Old Navy, etc there.  It was really super fun! Sometimes you would have to persuade someone to take something, as they worried that someone else wanted it to. I think everyone ended up pretty satisfied with their haul. We all got at least one big shopping bag full if not more. And a good variety too. I got several pairs of jeans, some shirts, a couple of books, and a couple of purses. Look at my bag of stuff!

Needless to say, it was REALLY fun and we look forward to doing another one of these in a few months. Click here and here to read other accounts about our party. Here and here are some good links that gave me some ideas.  So if you didn’t get to come this time, maybe you can next time! And if you don’t live around here…well, host your own!