Stella & Dot: A Giveaway!

Oh you guys, I am SO excited about this one, because c'mon, who doesn't love a good piece of jewelry?

I have to admit to you, I didn't really care all that much about jewelry until I had this pack of kids.

Let me tell you why:  It takes time to put on makeup.  Even more time to shower.  I don't remember the last time I've used an actual hairdryer instead of the air to dry my hair.  It's a good day when I pull out my flat iron instead of grabbing yet another binder and throwing my hair up in a ponytail.  And I'll put on my perfectly-fitting designer jeans in the morning but no promises that they won't be covered in baby spitup and smeared with peanut butter by noon.

Time is not on my side.  But a frump I will not become.  I have standards, people.

Enter jewelry.  It takes only seconds to find and put on and it instantly says to the world, "I still care about the appearance I'm putting forth."

I think every woman has their own little jewelry fetish and for me, hands down, it's earrings.  Oh how I love a good dangle.

It's gotten to the point where I feel actual nakedness if I'm not wearing earrings.  Even when I'm working out I've been known to wear the diamond stud earrings Brian got me so long ago for one of our anniversaries.

So you can imagine my excitement when my sister-in-law, Nicole, became a Stella & Dot consultant.

I know what you're thinking.  Another house party where they're trying to sell you something.  But I think this is different.  For one, it's just good, fashionable jewelry.  No gimmicks.  And two, Nicole is just another mom of four trying to make her way in the world.  And I think we all, me especially, can applaud and support that.

So back to the jewelry.  Shall we?

 

I already own these earrings in green but now I think I might need them in blue. 

If you're a necklace person, don't you love the simplicity of this rope necklace?

And how about wearing this brightly-colored bangle instead of a watch?

I seriously love them all!

A Giveaway!
Nicole has graciously offered a $40 Stella & Dot credit to one of my readers!  To enter, simply head on over to Nicole's Stella & Dot site and have a look around.  Then come back to this post and leave a comment telling me what you would buy if you won.  That site is also where you can make purchases if you see anything you like.  Or, if you happen to live nearby, I would love it if you stopped by on May 30 to see all the jewelry pieces in person and have a glass of wine (or two?) with yours truly.

The contest will end at noon on Wednesday, May 29 at which point I will randomly pick one commenter.  Remember to include a way for me to contact you if you win: email, website, Twitter handle, Facebook page, etc.  Please, only one entry per person.

*Nicole is providing one of my readers with a $40 credit toward a purchase at Stella & Dot.  I was given no product or monetary compensation for this post.  I simply love Stella & Dot...and my sister-in-law.

Update:
This contest is now closed. The winner was commenter #12.  Congrats, Shelley!

Spring To-Dos

So we've been outside.  A lot!  And now it's raining.  A lot.  But that's OK.  Lucy is sick for the third day in a row.  Just our semi-annual bout with croup which is really no biggie.  No biggie because when you've been cleaning up puke for two and a half months, a cough is really like a day at the park around here.

Last week as the temperatures were rising I started to get overwhelmed with all the spring cleaning items that needed to get checked off my list.  It's always a bad idea to start making a list in your head when the baby is crying to be fed, the toddler is climbing on top of the dining room table and your preschooler is somewhere outside but you're not really sure where because you can no longer see her from the kitchen window.

Ah, Summer, how conflicted I am with you.

I didn't know where to start.  Brian always says, "paralysis by analysis."  And I didn't want to fall into that trap.  So I just started.

The porch was my first target.  I cleaned the inside and outside of all 13 windows (including the front door), reinstalled all 13 screens, organized and tossed toys, vacuumed the floor and window seat and scrubbed the floor on my hands and knees...because winter was long and a mop just couldn't get it all done.

Where were the kids, you might wonder.  Well, here's where I'm willing to make compromises.  William, of course, was at school.  I got lucky with Katherine as she napped the entire time.  I handed the Kindle Fire off to Lucy and she was engaged for a good while.  And Bobby, at such the wonderful age of being happy to watch his surroundings yet not old enough to move around, sat and smiled his toothless grin at me from his perch in his bouncy chair which I moved around from time to time as my cleaning progressed.

When I was done I remembered, again, just how awesome it is to have a front porch.  It's like getting an instant house addition, which, as you can imagine with our ever-growing family, is oh so welcome.

That night Brian and I made a pitcher of margaritas and sat on the window seat in the glistening clean porch with the iPad making a list of our other to-dos.  Because don't you just feel so much more capable after starting somewhere, anywhere?  And then even more capable when it's all written down for you?  I do.

The rest of the week I was able to cross off the buying of the flowers (not planted yet), changing out both of the girls' closets and fertilizing the lawn.

The start of summer is upon us and I'm so excited!  I mean, I think I am.  I'm not sure.  Mostly excited, I think.

Life in the Backyard

So Purdy!

Welcome to the new and improved Mama Nash!

Breathe in. Breathe out. So fresh. So clean. So me!

Take a minute to look around. Make sure you check out the About and Family links above which have both been updated.

Ok, that is all. Carry on. And have a wonderful weekend!

7 Quick Takes [5.10.13]

1.  I'm currently letting the big kids play some Throw The Ball and Catch It game on the back staircase.  Probably pretty dangerous, right?  But they're leaving me alone on a day when William is off of school so I'm rolling with it until someone chips a tooth or breaks a limb.  Survival of the fittest here.

2.  I ran again this morning and discovered this new phenomenon where two minutes of peace and quiet is WAAAAAAAY shorter than the two minutes left in a 25-minute workout.

3.  When my run was finished and I re-inflated my collapsed lungs, the next 30 minutes looked like this: Change a diaper.  Make the bed.  Put away folded laundry.  Remind the kids to get dressed.  Find someone's shorts that were absolutely positively no where to be found.  Get in the shower.  Listen to the remainder of Brian's morning conference call on speaker while and shampooing and he brushes his teeth.  Shoo away a baby girl who thinks it's funny to keep opening the shower curtain and letting water spray her face.  Shave my legs.  I think I have time.  Bobby's crying again.  Brian moves him to the swing.  Katherine's watching some puppies on TV.  William's outside.  Lucy's crying because William just accidentally hit her with his bat.  Goodbyes and I love yous to Brian.  Slather conditioner in my hair.  Quick rinse.  Done.

Livin' the dream, baby.

4.  Brian's brother and his wife are remodeling their kitchen and they offered us their old refrigerator.  We decided it was about time we replaced the mini frig we had in the basement that helped store extra milk and beer.  Lotsa beer.  A few days after the new frig was in place I made a trip to Costco and it was lovely to stock up on all these items I normally have to ration because we don't have the freezer or frig space.  Of course I was more than $300 the poorer but at least I won't have to make a major grocery trip in at least three weeks.

Now the frig has plenty to offer in the ways of chicken, steak, brats, eggs, juice, butter, milk, fish, broccoli and frozen berries.

But I mean, really, it's still going to be a beer frig for the most part because we're cool like that.  And we need it.

5.  While I was at Costco I bought a new pair of barefoot shoes.  Have you heard of these?  I got this style in the grey.  But I got them for a third of the price than they are listed here.  They are like heaven for my feet!  They are a perfect option when you want something lighter than a running shoe but with more comfort than a flipflop.  Think short walks to the park with the kids or running errands.  Love!

6. Because I am sometimes behind the fashion trends and also because I have ZERO time to shop for myself, I signed up for Stitch Fix.  Have you heard of it?  I received my shipment on Saturday and I have to say, it was a lot of fun! I only kept one of the five pieces they sent me but it was still fun to play dress-up and to see some options for expanding my wardrobe horizons.  I would absolutely do it again.  And no one paid me a cent to say that.  I might have four kids but a frump I will not become.

7.  Another popular brand in the Get-Cool-Stuff-in-the-Mail trend is Birchbox.  I think I'm late to the party on this one but it's a program where you pay $10 a month to have upscale beauty samples sent to your door.  Lotion, makeup, perfume, anti-aging, hair care, etc.  I signed up and should receive my first box later this month.  I'm not completely sold on this because I tend to spend less than $10 a month on my beauty routine as it is.  But I'm creeping closer to my mid-30s (wait, am I already there?!) and I figure it might be worth it to see if there's anything worthwhile out there to help keep this old broad lookin' young.

Just Write

I don't have a prepared post to write today but I have a few moments of quiet so I'm just going to write about what comes to mind.

It's a dreary day but my heart is still happy.  No one is sick.  Not one complaint.  Not even a sniffle.  I feel about 100 pounds lighter than I have in the past two months.  Which just goes to show how sick we've really been.  Until now we hadn't gone a full week without someone being down and out.  So today, dreary or not, we've got our health and that counts for a lot.

This morning I attended a Mother's Day program put on by all the little Kinders at our school.  As a special treat to William, I came all by myself without the distraction of his little siblings.  He was so excited.

It was a nice culmination after a rough week between the two of us.  The low was a few days ago when he left for school after getting a tongue lashing from me when I found something that included our couch, some suckers and some gum.  Not. Cool.

Later that day he and I sat on the front steps in the May sunshine and had ourselves a talk about expectations and consequences.  We also talked about how neither of us had a very nice morning after saying our angry goodbyes.

But today he stood next to me among the rest of his classmates and sang in his big bold voice how he was a "miracle from Jesus."  And then all I could think about was how, yes, he indeed was a miracle.  It is still so easy for my mind to conjure up the image of his tiny newborn body mixed in with tubes and wires in his little NICU isolette only just six and half years ago.

He really is such a good kid.  I just need a few reminders here and there.

Brian flew to Philadelphia on Tuesday for a client dinner and was home again on Wednesday evening.  Two things here.  First, in my next life I want to be my husband.  How cool is it that he flew halfway across the country just to have dinner?

Second, I want to say what a rockstar my husband is at his job.  Most days I want to do his job just so that I don't have to hear screaming or wipe someone's feces for eight straight hours.  But that makes it sound like anyone could do his job.  And that isn't the truth.

Whenever we need to buy something or obtain someone's services, I am reminded of just how amazing his people and negotiation skills are.  Every other Friday these deposits just appear in our bank account.  But I know it's not magic.  I'm running the risk of sounding like I'm bragging here when really all I want to do is honor my man.

So anyway, back to Tuesday night when Brian is in Philly.  We were all a little nervous about his absence because the night before Bobby and Katherine tag teamed waking up thus giving us both a whopping two hours of sleep.

"OK," Brian said anxiously when he arrived home at 10:30 the next morning, "How did it go?"

"You're going to be so mad," I told him.  He who went to bed at 2:00 am and woke a few hours later to catch a 7:30 flight.

 

All the kids slept clean through the night with Bobby waking only once to eat.

When you have one or two kids you're so desperate to get your eight interrupted hours of sleep back.  When you have four, you realize even just three uninterrupted hours is quite the anomaly.  It's a domino effect and there's just never enough bedrooms or sound machines in the world to drown it all out.

My life is hilarious. Had you read that last paragraph to me ten years ago there is no way I would have signed up for this business.

When hunting for a photo to accompany this post, because all posts are just prettier with a photo, I found this.

Two babies on a countertop.  Inches from an open window because you can't have this many kids without having a little danger around every corner.  Katherine is checking her Blackberry messages and wondering why in the world her father still owns a Blackberry in this day and age.  And Bobby is just happy someone is remembering to take a picture of him to prove his existence.

That's all for today.  Over and out.

Emerging

Hello, Reader!

I am just now emerging from the other side of a very steep mountain followed by a very deep and dark hole.  The first was a week without Brian who was traveling for work.  The latter was the following week full of lousy weather and sick kids.  Not terribly sick.  Just sick enough to leave us homebound.

I can do sick kids with nice weather.  (You sleep, I'll be in the backyard.)  I can do crappy weather with healthy kids. (Let's do a Target run!)  But I cannot do both.  I become moody, depressed, incapable and short with everyone.

I am back down to my pre-babies weight.  It's the fastest I've ever lost my pregnancy weight.

"Yes," Brian told me, "But you didn't do it the right way."

He's right.

It's the I'm-thin-because-I'm-run-ragged look.  I hate that.  I want to be strong, fit, and healthy.  (Isn't it funny how once you're out of your 20s you could care less what size you are and instead just strive for overall health.  I love that!)

After quite the hiatus due to illness and weather I resumed my Couch to 5K program on Monday morning.  And because that felt so good, I got up and did another set again this morning.

When choosing my running route I used to avoid a certain busy street that is about three blocks from our house.  Even though that car-packed road provided the perfect running terrain (not too flat, not too hilly) I didn't want passersby to judge me.  Was I running to slow?  Did I look funny?  Did they think I was a wuss during the walking portions of my interval training?

It was like I could feel them all laughing at me.

Now I don't care.  I run that road for blocks and blocks!  I've grown four babies in my body in six years.  What else do I really need to prove?  I'm not a runner.  But I run anyway.  And then sometimes I walk.

I missed Lucy's birthday on the ol' blog and I feel bad about that.  As much as this is a place for me to write it's also a great memory keeper and now I feel guilty about having a big gap on either side of her fourth birthday.

The morning of her birthday she picked this blue gingham dress.  And then she asked me to curl her hair.  After I took this picture of her I gasped at her beauty.  It will end up being one of her better assets in life, I think.  Hopefully it will distract people from her otherwise stubborn and defiant tendencies.

I kid, only a little.  I'm still bitter about her disappearing on me at the grocery store when we went to order her birthday cake.  That should have been a whole post by itself because she was later found wandering in and out of cars in the parking lot by a cart boy.

But look how pretty!  She says cute things too.

And finally, the installation of my new blog design has been delayed.  Again.  It's out of my control so I just have to sit back and wait like everyone else.  Until then things might start to look a little shabby around here. It's one of the reasons I've been waiting so long to write a post.

I kept thinking that I wanted to start fresh.  I would write when everything is shiny and new again.

But regardless of design, it turns out that the part where I press buttons and words appear on the screen still works perfectly.  And that's the most important part anyway.

So I write.  With gaps of time in between.  But still, I will write.  Now and always.