Hey, This Site Looks Different...

Things look a bit different around here, don't they readers?

Heck, even this font is different, and I didn't even attempt to change that! Whatevs.

Here's the story: I purchased my domain (www.anuncomplicatedlifeblog.com) from Go Daddy in the beginning of March. I futzed around with Blogger and ultimately decided to also purchase some website building/design software to host the site, then simply have Blogger feed into the site to maintain the "blog" atmosphere.


This was great in theory, because I had more design elements to choose from and play with. But the end result meant that I started my posts in Blogger, then had to transfer them over to the design software, essentially publishing/positioning/editing two times for one post. Which is fine enough for now, but no-way-Jose for when this baby gets here. Aint nobody got time fo dat.

Also, the design software kinda blurred my photos, even though they were high res and I had WAY more control of the editing of them. Linking up social media sites and building out pages was super easy in that software, but I lost some of the functionality of a blog (being able to fully participate in link-ups and button publishing, immediate access to commenting, etc) by having an independent website. Also, my analytics tell me the majority of you read my site via your phones and the mobile app STUNK from my site, didn't it?! My pictures were everywhere and I had no control of editing the mobile functionality. So dumb.

So I decided to make the shift fully over to Blogger. I started to alter the design elements in Blogger to more closely resemble my site, and called Go Daddy to have my domain transferred over. The guy I spoke with told me my original site would remain live for 48 hours... So clearly, the original one voided and my new site went live immediately. Ummm, yeah, I wasn't ready for that!

This site isn't quite "there yet" in terms of design and a few functionality issues, but rest assured, I'm working on it! I thought I had a few more days to make it pretty for y'all. Nope! Ah, such is life. Thanks for hanging with me as I get the details worked out and get this website back in good shape.

Mommy Monday: Coed Baby Shower

We had our coed baby shower this past Sunday. It was a blast!

For days, meteorologists threatened severe weather on Sunday. Damaging wind, baseball-sized hail and tornadoes were all on the forecast. I became obsessive about checking the weather to get the latest update. In my personal experience, Dallas-area meteorologists tend to be some of the least talented in the nation, and usually get the weather wrong. I chalk this up to them normally being able to say that it's going to be dry, sunny, and triple-digit-hotter-than-blazes out... So when it veers from that norm, they get confused.

Well wouldn't you know, they also got this forecast wrong! (Unless you live up in Arkansas... Jeez, sorry guys! I hope you all are safe) It rained for about 30 minutes early in the morning, and quickly cleared out. And heated wayyyyyy up, well into the 90's.

Because we're still fairly new to the Dallas area and know mostly couples, we decided to have our shower be coed to be able to see all our friends. I knew that to entice the men to come out for a "baby shower" I had to include beer. And other non-baby man-things, like grilling and corn hole (that's bag toss to you Northerners). No tacky standard baby shower games, no excessive baby/birthing conversations (unless they were funny stories - then I just made sure the guys involved had a beer in hand!), and no crafty baby stuff.

Blue and white hydrangeas on tables and counters

It worked like a charm! We served grilled cheeseburgers, taco dip, apple/onion guacamole, Texas caviar, jalapeno-white cheddar veggie dip, white chocolate dipped rice crispy treat pops (with blue sprinkles!), baby boy-inspired petit fours; and beer, wine, mimosas, sweet tea. It was fantastic! Two of my favorite Dallas yogis offered to co-hostess the event with me, and I attribute our delicious sides and petit fours to them. Thanks Jenny and Brennan!

Some of the delicious food!

For decor, I decided to use the nursery theme of neutrals, blues and greens. So in addition to the blue and green cups and plates, we had blue and white hydrangeas in green pots or mason jars throughout the house, burlap table clothes, and blue and white pompons hanging from our outdoor pergola. My mother in law and I wrapped napkins around the flatware in the shape of bow ties and secured them with blue and white polka dot ribbons. At the last minute, I decided to put our dogs in blue bow ties, too! They looked good and festive for all our guests.

I also bought some fun blue and green "baby boy" confetti to put out, but completely forgot about it. So I'm hoping one of my friends becomes pregnant with a boy soon so we can use it at her shower instead. Take note, friends!! Get to working on it, okay?

Petit fours close-up

I'd say everything turned out great! It was one part DIY rustic, two parts Southern preppy, and one part Texan. Sometimes, I think coed events can be... A bit... Strange. Ever been to a coed or combined bachelorette/bachelor party?! Yeah, that doesn't work for me. Things get strange quickly. But since it takes two to make a baby, I really enjoyed having the dudes around for this party. It was a great compliment to the traditional baby shower my bridesmaids threw for me back in January in Minnesota.

Bow tie napkin/flatware

Thank you to all my friends who have made welcoming this little guy so much fun! Kirk and I are incredibly grateful and we can't wait to share all this love with our son.

High Five for Friday!

Hey Friday, heeyyyyyyyy!!

I, for one, am pretty excited for this weekend. It's our coed baby shower and housewarming party! This is probably our last big event at the house until after baby joins us... And since this is Texas, this might be the last planned outdoor event until October. Ahhhh, Texas summers...

So here are some of the highlights from my week as my mother-in-law and I prepped to co-host (along with my fabulous friends Brennan and Jenny!) the big event:

1) I had the opportunity to do a little crafting... Here is a little taste of what will be at the party this weekend:

Bow ties around silverware!

2) Since we had a visitor in town all week, and she just so happens to be future baby boy's grandma, we did a little shopping... And managed to get another load of baby necessities! After the shower this weekend, we'll take stock of what's left to get and make the final rounds of purchases for baby. He could be here in as little as three weeks and as long as eight! Whoa.

3) I've been wanting to add color in the form of flowers to our backyard since we moved in in late February! Typically this can be done in March, but with our bizarre winter and random temperature swings made me hold off until this week. It now looks like people have made this house a home!

4) I came across what was easily a three to four inch cockroach in our house the other day... I don't do well with cockroaches. In Georgia, they're even bigger and they FLY, so I've dealt with worse than this creepy fella. But wouldn't you know, our dog Baxter LOVES to kill bugs! Any bugs! All bugs! And gross little lizards, too! Better than that, he seemed to sense my distress, came out of nowhere, and jumped in on that nasty situation. Killed that cockroach dead. *Somebody* got an extra treat that night! He's a good guy to have around when your husband-bug-killer is traveling.

5) Did I mention it's our coed baby shower and housewarming party this weekend? Because it is. The classiness of this event is ranging from petit fours and custom cake pops to water balloons and drinking games. 'Nuf said.

Have a fantastic weekend!

All Grow'd Up With a Garden

We've been busy around here!

This week, my mother in law is visiting and has been helping me get some stuff done around the house. We have a great backyard, with an even better patio and pergola. While everything is very green, the space lacked some color. So one of our projects this week has been to venture out to get pots and flowers to decorate our patio space with - especially given our upcoming baby shower/housewarming party this weekend!

Otis Beaufort just has to be in the shot...

My father is a MASTER gardener. Their home in the suburb of Edina in Minnesota is immaculate, and every single thing - including the deck and the inlaid stone steps - was designed and done by him. My mom used to ask me to come over once a week to water her houseplants when she and her husband still had a home in Saint Paul, and were winter snow birds.

I inherited none of my father's amazing talent, and usually killed all of my mom's plants.

Fortunately, mama-in-law is talented in this area and came to help! We went to the nursery and picked out the pots, then were surprised with how few options we had for plants. We needed partial shade plants for where these pots would be located. Everything, and I mean everything, was for full sunlight.

Which I just don't get in Texas! Full sunlight means these flowers need to be able to stand some 120 degree heat for hours on end. What plant can tolerate that nonsense?! 

We ended up finding some begonias and some other type of plant that would do well in partial shade and went with it! She and I are used to northern plants and knew that there were a few more that would look great in the pot, but looks like those delicate little flowers can't take the Texas heat. I don't blame you little flowers, I just don't even blame you.

Behold! Our work. Rather, her work. I'm pretty sure I sat at the table with my feet up and drank sweet tea. In fact, our doggies were more helpful than I was in the planting process. But she seemed to have it under control and since it was so hot out, I was happy to stay the heck out of the way with my pregnant toes propped up!

I don't know what this is, but it's my favorite

Could NOT pass up this color!

The Game Changer

I went to my local Target to restock on my Burt's Bees favorite skin item, which I talked all about here. And I couldn't find it! Whole Foods wasn't carrying it when I did my weekly shopping, either. This was the second time in the past month that this has happened. Ummm, is this some sort of joke?!

I was left a little bewildered in the skin care aisle. What else was there to do but check out some of the other products, right? I had noticed these facial cleansing towelettes before, and my Target was running a sale on them so that they were all of about $5. There were multiple varieties to choose from given your individual skin's needs, so I went with the grapefruit as I have breakout-prone skin.

Kind of funny that they're 99.1% natural, right?! I wonder what that .9% is made of...

Guys. GUYS. These smell ahhhh-maze-zing! They leave your face with a nice tingling clean feeling (and also leaves that fresh scent behind). It removed all my makeup - even stubborn eye makeup - without any scrubbing or harsh rubbing necessary.

I don't know about you, but sometimes getting ready for bed with the whole skincare routine just seems like SO MUCH WORK. Especially if I might have happened to fall asleep on the couch first, then have to force myself into responsibility with personal care. Those are the nights when even taking out contacts seems like a lot of work, nawwhutimean? These wipes will come in so handy for those nights!

I also am going to pick up another pack and keep them in my yoga bag. We're now to the point where it's +/- 90 degrees everyday and starting to get good and sticky. Having these in my gym bag to freshen up after a sweat-session will feel GREAT! They don't leave behind any residue that makes you feel weighed down or perhaps like you're contributing to any future breakouts. They just leave you feeling clean and refreshed, which is exactly what you want after a great yoga class!

I don't know why I can't seem to find my beloved blemish stick anywhere these days, but I'm rather glad I couldn't that day. This was a great accidental find! Don't get too excited, I'm not a walking spokeswoman for Burt's Bees. In fact, the last two products of theirs have left me disappointed... But my faith was restored with this fantastic, compact, travel-friendly and effective product.

Nothin' But Ramblin'

Kirk is going to be away on another one of his full-week territory travels, and after our preterm labor scare and the fact that I'm 33 weeks pregnant, we decided to have his mom come out to stay with me. It's really good timing for both of us, actually, because I have a laundry list of things I need help with (planting flowers before it gets too hot to be outside! Baby shower prep for this weekend!) and she's sick and tired of the horrific North Dakota neverendingwinter. So she gets to enjoy some sunshine and I get an assistant!

That means that I've been spending a lot of time prepping and creating lists, and not as much time blogging. In fact, cleaning ladies are busy doing their magic ALL OVER THE HOUSE right now since her flight lands in a few hours.

I also have a terrible case of pregnancy brain. Like, can't function, forget-what-you're-doing-as-you're-doing it pregnancy brain. It's impressive.

So I'll just take a minute and give some fun updates around here, and promise to be more on the ball and write better/more creative posts with all the great things we accomplish this week! In the interim, you're stuck with these ruminations:

- Don't quote me on this... But... Maybe, just maybe, I've stopped HATING being pregnant. True, I can't move gracefully, can't go for a run in the final weeks of Dallas' not-too-hot-spring weather, don't sleep more than an hour before waking up to pee and am always, always too hot. But, you know, it's really not *that* bad! Maybe it's the fact that I officially had an "Oh, $&*!" moment when I realized he could be here in a month, or maybe it was the stranger I overheard at our Easter brunch say, "OMG, she's soooo pregnant and looks sooooo good! I hope I look that good when I'm pregnant!" But I've turned a corner with my bad attitude on pregnancy. It only took eight months.

- The delivery date on our crib, mattress, and changing table has been moved up to mid-May! (It had been mid-June). So, seriously, we may actually have the nursery done in time. All future mommy's and daddy's take note: order that stuff E-A-R-L-Y. This is the crib we ordered. Pretty excited about it. LOVE that it's not your standard, run of the mill "white crib"!

- I picked up a bunch of parenting books and am getting a head start on the first few months of baby's life. I also picked up Jenny McCarthy's Belly Laughs since I was getting sick of reading factual, advice-driven reads. While I think this woman is completely irresponsible for using her fame to promote a fictional connection between immunizations and Autism, the book is a quick and funny read on how gross pregnancy is. She really lays it all out there, and I love people who tell it like it is! High five for the funny book, Jenny, but you really do lose all your points (and then some) with your anti-immunization cause.

- I seem to be on a massive fashion kick - not maternity, but I'm looking into all the fun things I can wear when I actually have a waist again... And noticed that PLEATS seem to be everywhere. WHAT THE FLYING HECK? Where have I been? Why is this happening? Pleats look good on no one. Pleats, ha! Are you serious? No. Nope.

And finally, since posts are pretty bland without a good photo, here's one more of our maternity shoot! I'm currently trying to figure out which ones to hang in the nursery. This one is a contender for sure!

Mommy Monday: Maternity Splurge

Easter Sunday was just yesterday, and it seems like I know about five of us pregnant ladies who are all having our baby showers within the next three weeks. I mean, is it just me or is there just a massive baby boom going on right now?! Between Hollywood, acquaintances and close friends, I think I could easily name 50 women who are pregnant - and most of us are going to give birth before August. Craziness! 

Anyhow, with all these events comes a reason to dress up a bit. I have NOT gone crazy with the maternity wardrobe. In fact, I've only splurged on two pairs of designer jeans and one pair of designer shorts (I mean, I live in Dallas... It's hot already!) and then have picked up one tank top and three tee shirts. That's it. That's all. Needless to say, I had NOTHING nice to wear to any of these events. No skirts, no dresses, not even a nice top to wear!

I ventured out in what started as a pregnancy/parenting book buying binge, and wouldn't you know, a Pea in the Pod store was right there. So, I went in to see what I could find.

I've been searching for a maxi dress that I could dress up for nicer occasions and still wear out to the grocery store. The thing is, when you're 5'10, maxis just aren't cut out for you. Literally, they're built for someone who is only about 5'6! So they end up just looking a bit... Amish. You know, hitting mid shin and awkwardly hanging on your tall frame? If you're tall, you feel me.

What I love about Pea in the Pod is that they carry brands that dress women of my stature. What I don't love is the high price. Thus, my first look was this awesome grey and neon yellow stripped maxi from Nicole Miller. I loved it on the hanger, and I loved it on! She figured out a way to use darts and rouching creatively to hide any chub you may or may not have developed in your pregnancy. The colors were awesome and a size small was LONG ENOUGH FOR A 5'10 WOMAN! Whoohoo! Not "able to wear heels with it" long enough, but beggars can't be choosy, and I was beggin' for a long enough maxi.

Shot I sent my sister-in-law (mama of three) as I desperately tried to decide if this dress was worth $275... Oh, the things we do for fashion.

While I looooooooved the dress and how comfy it was, I just couldn't swallow THAT price tag. This is the first of what will hopefully be more than one pregnancy; so clearly, if I purchased the dress thinking I could wear it again, all my future babies will be winter babies. I decided to look on.

Except, I wasn't really finding anything. I picked up two shirts I can dress up or down and another pair of shorts (I mean, when you're this pregnant you have to sit with your legs separated a bit to make room... Add living in one of the hottest states in the Union, and shorts are the friggin' bees knees, y'all!). The sales associate must have sensed that I was preparing to leave without spending $2,384,129 so she pulled a few more maxi's for me to try on.

"Uggghhhh, she's so annoying!" I thought. "These dresses are NOT cute and I have to be at my birthing class in an hour. Boo."

And then: I tried this maxi from Tart on. The heavens opened up and angels started to sing, I swear! It is SO comfortable! Because of the print, I never would have chosen it off the rack for myself. But it's insanely flattering on, and will easily be dressed up or down. Also? A size small is LONG ENOUGH FOR A 5'10 WOMAN! Can I get a "hell yeah!" from all my other tall mamas struggling to find tall maternity clothes?! In addition, not seeing a "2" as the first number helped me swallow this price tag much easier than the Nicole Miller dress.

Otis Beaufort and myself on Easter Sunday in my Tart maxi. I kept it casual in sandals and my standard gold jewelry, but nicer shoes and heavier jewels will dress it up in a snap!

I've come to the conclusion that two things are worth a good splurge when you're pregnant: designer jeans and a good quality maxi! If you're not Jolly Green Giant tall like myself, you can get away with not selling an organ to afford one. If you are, trust me: Buy one! Just make your life easier and do it. I pretty much plan on living in this thing until baby comes. What you want to do with the rest of your maternity wardrobe is up to you, but these two items will make a world of difference for you, your self esteem (as you grow... and grow and grow and grow), and are flexible pieces to keep in your closet.