Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!  Wishing you all love and happiness this holiday season!

 

Family Pics!

The best part about blogging is all the awesome people that I've met through here!  Cindi has been a longtime reader of mine (and I followed her back when she had a fashion blog as well!) and when she emailed me to let me know that she had followed her dreams of quitting her day job and starting her own photography business with her husband I was so happy for her!  She and her husband offered to come to my home and shoot my family and I can't thank her enough.  We just love these photos.  Layla was about 2.5 months here and now that she's approaching 4 months, so much has changed, so we love having these photos to capture her at this age!

A little peak at her nursery!  We're not completely done decorating it yet but it's getting there.  All the little trinkets in her nursery are things that have a lot of meaning to my husband and I, the giraffes we bought in Jamaica when we got married, the gray dachshund is from our trip to Hong Kong, the stuffed animals and hello kitty are from her grandparents, and I painted that little panda canvas myself!

Can't even believe they got the doggies and Layla to look at the camera!  You can see the rest of our shoot on their blog here.

If you need a fabulous photographer in the Seattle area (they do weddings too!), I highly recommend Cindi+Chris, they are just the nicest couple and made us feel so comfortable during the entire shoot.   Check out their blog and facebook page for more of their work.

Life Lately

Life has been super crazy lately and so posting on the blog will be sporadic but I'm still here and wanted to say hi!  Just an update and sharing photos from my instagram.  If you don't follow me yet, you can follow me here!

 

Cherishing the moments of being able to take long walks with our dogs.  (I'm almost 23 weeks here but I'm 24 weeks now!).  Wearing a Forever 21 Dress

Last week was a bit tough for me because of the pregnancy.  Even though I still don't look very pregnant (you should see the surprised looks I get all the time when people find out I'm 6 months pregnant).  The weight that I have gained has all gone to my boobs and my belly and all that weight in front is killing my back.  Sleep has been tough, sitting on the couch has been tough, walking has been tough, etc... and I've been a little unhappy about it all.  My super sweet husband has been giving me daily massages and putting up with my sh*t and he also got me a little gift to cheer me up.  I love the bow clutch that he picked out for me.  I just love that he went shopping on his own and picked it out for me as I've never even seen or mentioned this clutch to him before but when I saw it, it was so me, and I love that he knows that about me.  It doubles as a crossbody and has a bow print that you can see on the back.

I had a really great weekend celebrating mother's day with my mom.  Being pregnant has really made me appreciate everything that my mom has done for me and I'm so glad to be so close by and be able to see her whenever I want!

Our business is really taking off, so much so that we got a new office and are in the process of moving!  It's such exciting times to see our little business turn into everything we've envisioned (I mean we are not there quite yet but in less than 2 years, we've had amazing growth.) and having a team of people work for us.  We're also growing so rapidly that we've just hired two more people on our shipping team along with the merchandising intern that my sister is hiring.  Such crazy fun times and I'm loving every minute of it!

Some new bracelets we added to our collection:  Chain Bangle | Pave Bracelet | Enamel Bracelet

We added watches to our designs and I LOVE them!!  The Gold Link & Tortoise watch is my favorite and is selling like crazy.  The colored watches will be on our site in a little bit.  We are still perfecting a few things with the designs on those but get excited because they will be gorgeous!

And then, my husband and I bought a house!  We just closed yesterday and am so in love with our new home.  It's so us and will be perfect for when the baby is here.  So now along with the move for the new office, I have to move our old house into our new house which is quite a daunting task especially because oh yeah, I'm 6 months pregnant and will be 7 months by the time we move everything all in.  Yikes!  So all in all, it's quite an exciting few months for us and I'm sure will be for the next few months and then before I know it the baby will be here.  I'm actually more scared for that part than anything else!  LOL!  I hope you all are having a great week!

My Loves

My husband and I are approaching our 5 year wedding anniversary so I wanted to capture some photos of us together as we haven't had any since we got married!  Our dogs are such a big part of our lives that I wanted to make sure that we got some photos with them too.  Husband is not too fond of being on the blog (he's not an internet guy at all, he doesn't have a facebook or anything even social media related - the exact opposite of me!) but I had to post these pics because I adore him, adore us and adore our little family.  I can't help but just feel so happy and lucky when I see these pictures.

photos by Miguel Marino 

What I'm wearing

First outfit:

Zara Blazer (similar) | J Crew Blouse | Madewell Jeans | Rag & Bone Booties (similar)

Second outfit:

Forever 21 Blazer (similar) | Shop Sosie Blouse (similar) | Juicy Couture dress (worn as a skirt) | DKNY tights | YSL Heels

I wanted photos that captured us but I also wanted to avoid the "engagement" shoot look.  Since my husband and I used to be wedding photographers we've taken more than our fair share of engagement photos and when you're shooting a couple it's easy to kind of fall back into that look and feel .  Our photographer really worked with us to get the kind of shots we wanted.  I'm very happy with the way they turned out.  If you are in Seattle and looking for a photographer, I highly recommend to contact Miguel! (In fact, you might already read his wife's blog, the lovely Carolyn.  I adore them both!) 

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday to the most fabulous mom ever!  My mom inspires me every day and I'm so thankful to live nearby my parents and see them as much as I do.  And if you can't tell, I pretty much get all my style and inspiration from her.  Whenever I see my mom, I want to steal whatever she's wearing!

My sister and her husband came in for the week to celebrate my mom's birthday and I was so happy to see her little guy.  I can't help but have the cheesiest grin around him, he's so darn cute!!   When I'm around him my already high pitched voice gets even higher pitched because all I can do is squeal about how cute he is and pinch his chubby little cheeks! :) 

Go to Jen's blog to see more pictures!

Christmas recap in photos!

 I can hardly believe that Christmas is over and 2012 is almost here!  Since I like to think of my blog as a little online journal for myself, I thought I'd share a little bit of the Christmas pictures I took this year.

Our holiday decor.  I kept the wrapping very simple this year with just some kraft paper and fun ribbon.  I made all the bows myself and the ribbons were all purchased from JoAnn Craft store.  The red tree and the plant were found at a boutique flower shop last year.  I love pulling out our holiday decor but some of it was so buried in our storage that I couldn't get to it and had to order a bunch of new decorations!  (Cleaning that storage is top of my new year's goals!)

(i downloaded and printed off the gift tags from Creature Comforts round up of free holiday gift tags! Thank you to The Sweetest Occasion and Ellinee for the cutest gift tags! ) 

My husband was very thoughtful and spotted these roses for me and I loved that it went with our holiday decor. 

I also keep a little space just for my "girly" holiday decorations. :) 

Just some of the goodies that I made.  I had never had homemade chex mix before but decided to make it and YUM!  So addicting.  I put a bowl out and in an instant it was gone.  I made chex mix 3 mornings in a row!  And white chocolate covered pretzels are so delicious!

The cutie tins that I put the treats in.  They were perfect for gift giving!

I just had to include this picture of me and my super adorable nephew in the sweater we got him.  We love H&M kids where we bought him this sweater.  He just looked so darn cute in his little winter sweater and I was wearing a cozy winter sweater too so I had to get a photo with him!  :)