crying, lovin' or leavin'

either or, i'm boarding a plane tomorrow. for the first time ever. i'm anxious, nervous and excited.  i will miss my fam jam mega big time. but i am very excited to see Chandra and to watch her get married.  i will try to blog 'from the road'....have a great week everyone!! send me some first time flyer good vibes!!

xo,

melissa

feeling minty....

in preparation for my big trip out west i've been doing a bit of shopping.
who shops before a trip?
considering i'm a hard core ruche fan and it's only available online...that would be me! i don't know how much clothing shopping i will do in an actual mall, so i'll treat myself early.  plus, it's nice to have some new clothes for my trip.  and perfect time to take outfit posts!!
i received more goodies from ruche yesterday and i'm in love with this pairing of top, shorts and ring.
i was secretly hoping that this outfit would force the sun out today, but that didn't happen and i ended up being chilly in my office, but i sure looked cute!

i will have a busy weekend getting ready for my trip (how on earth will i fit everything in one suitcase?)

wish me luck!

xo,

melissa

the boy who lived....

top: ruche; shorts: eclipse; shoes: aldo
**editing pics at 6:30 am means i look like i'm wearing pantyhose when i'm not....

last night i went to see harry potter and the deathly hallows part II
#ah-mazing
#book come to life
#life is now complete


xo,

melissa

busy, busy

busy weekend + family visiting + doc appointments + trying to organize my life before heading on vacation next week makes for some scarce posting.

sorry my loves! i should be back to it tomorrow.

for now i left you the cutest picture ever of avery.

he's so dreamy.

xo,

melissa

you're my one and only...

 alongside my shoe addiction is my floral addiction...three days into the work week and my third day wearing a floral dress....shall i make it 5/5? also, how cute are these threadsence wedges? my first order from threadsence and i am loving it!  another store i will become obsessed with i'm sure.  look, i've already found something else from there i'd like to purchase.  (romper)

what are you obsessed with this summer??

xo,

melissa

for the love of shoes...

Aldo

Aldo

Threadsence

Urbanog

clearly, i have no self control

i bought all of them

:/

xo,

melissa

family day...

i really need to learn how to take more pictures on the weekends...even the few i took here are missing most of the people at our family day! these were all taken at my brother and sister in law's beach property, located about twenty-five minutes south of here.  even though i could walk five minutes down the road and be at the beach, going to their property is like being a million miles away.  especially when you get to hang out with family whom we haven't seen in a while, it was a lot of fun.  

back to taking more pictures....i should really get on that...i get into the moment, forget i have a camera and then get bummed later when i see my lack of pictures.  i remembered to take these shots, but then avery had a melt down because i wouldn't let him climb the boulders, after that i put the camera down to drag him back up to the grassy area.  ps. the boulders make it look like the beach ends there, but the sand continues behind the boulders, he had them placed there to protect the beach from washed away during the freaky storms we get here.  after spending six hours in the sun, we came home sandy and exhausted, but we all can't wait to do it again!

happy things...

 do you know kal? 

in a word, she's rad. a rad mama/designer/photographer/writer...and she's canadian

basically, she's awesome with awesome sauce on top.

sometimes, being so rad comes with a few negatives points and kal experienced that when she found one of her graphic designs being piggy backed around the internet without permission or credit.  

you can read about it here:  kal then went on to establish link with love, which is to raise awareness to those using the internet as a sharing vessel...

if you are wondering about my shirt featured above, it's from guitees.

a company who did right.  they contacted kal for permission to use her graphic on their t-shirts and when she featured them on her blog, i had to snatch one up immediately.  they were having a shipping glitch at the time, so then i received a few personal emails clearing everything right up and then more emails over the process of getting it shipped.  talk about customer service.  high five guitees. 

 living in such a rural area has made me a big online shopper....but sometimes to get what you want, you have to put up with crappy service, so it's awesome when you find companies that do you right, and bloggers who will spread that gold around creating loyal customers.  i guess the whole link with love thing is on it's way to great things.

be true to who you are!!

xo,

melissa

dress swap!!

 dress: c/o jana (from ruche), shoes: aldo

now that i finally lost some chub (har har) i can now fit into jana's clothes so we wasted no time swapping some items. okay, so we swapped two and then jana put two more dresses in my pile so i have three of hers...so lots more swapping to come! i wish i had a picture of jana in this dress so i could show how we each styled it....but i guess, who am i kidding, i didn't even style this outfit.  kept things super simple and just added these awesome sandals and my sparrow necklace. i'm going to have a hard time giving this dress back, i love how stylish and cool it is for warm summer days.

xo, 

melissa

visit w/ auntie

 the rain may have spoiled our beach plans but we still got to have a nice visit with auntie j on wednesday!!

avery enjoyed all of the hugs, kisses, fountains and of course, the doggies!

up//down...

me @ 37 weeks 

anything over 38 weeks is roughly too embarrassing for this blog!

at this moment i was topping the scales at 187 pounds, and yes i gained more before giving birth.

so, where did i start out? i guess it's the same story for anyone else who was a 'skinny teenager', always small during high school (115 lbs) and then steadily staying the same and creeping up as i got older.  i always used to say 'i'll never see the scale hit 130', then one day i got on and i weighed 140 lbs...oops!! 

that was about the year i got married, which was great motivation.  i ordered my wedding dress one size too small so i had no choice but to get my butt in gear and lose some weight.  during the spring and summer before i got married i dropped 15 pounds...140 down to 125.

of course, what else happens afterwards? yep...i crept back up. this time to my heaviest (at that point) to 150 lbs... in april '09 i kicked myself in the ass again, and quickly dropped 5 pounds before i found out that i was pregnant.  i stayed at 145 for six weeks when things went on their way up and nine months later i had baby boy and 46 pounds to my name! thankfully, my weight dropped quickly. 27 lbs in the first few days, then dropped until i plateaued at 160 lbs....over the months that dropped a bit more.  i was in frumpy mom mode, too tired to exercise, too 'fat' to care...luckily breastfeeding helped me drop some more and i stayed at 150 for awhile.  

right now i'm down to 136 lbs...my goal is to get to 130, which i am hoping to get to by the time i go to a wedding at the end of the month.  what kicked me into gear? 

running

i started in november 2010 but took a few breaks here and there until about May 2011....running steadily has really helped me slim out....i was getting a little discouraged having the scale not moving, but my clothes getting looser...now it looks like that scale is and will hopefully continue to move.

as long as i can keep my motivation up there

hopefully by putting this 'out there', it will help me stay on track

i've been running six days a week (trying to run over 6K with each work out) and over the weekend i added weights to my regime.  

i'll keep you updated on how that goes.

for now, i'm just trying my best to say bye bye to frumpy mamaSTYLE!

xo,

melissa