Men are babies

Look I have a very serious question I need answered. What is it about men that when they get sick they act like big p-u-s-s-y-s (if I spell it instead of saying it its not that bad right?) 


Every time Shawn feels a sniffle, a headache or body ache he's all "Baby...I don't feel goooooooood" 


He's probably going to be pissed I'm putting all of his business out for the world to see, but that's what happens when you're married to a writer blogger.


Last night was one of those nights. Every minute I saw him all he could ask about was Therflu (which he completely overdoses on) and Tylenol. 


 I pushed an 8 pound baby out of the place I pee from. No drugs. 21 hours. Then after I recovered from being ripped into a million places I then put this beautiful boy onto my nipple and for the next 8 months it felt like someone was taking a lighter and running it across my nipples.


Not to mention 28 days out of a month my uterus falls out for 4-5 days, all to be able to bore him more babies.


So what it is it? Have you women out there figured out what makes our strong sexy husbands wither and whine when they have a sinus headache?


And on the off chance I have any male (oh my I actually typed that out as "mail".loser.) readers....what's the deal?


And honey. Even though I just put you out there I still love you much! OVOVOVOV ;-)


Go enter into the giveaway if you haven't!

CLOSED -Mom's Day Giveaway!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED! CLICK HERE TO SEE IF YOU WON


EDIT: Error with end dates. Has been updated.


Here I was just bopping along on my merry way when I realized that Mothers Day was fast approaching and I wasn't even done my "Approved-Gift List" for my husband. I have since narrowed it down to a sewing machine and a necklace with name charms for my guys.


Plus I've narrowed down a few zillion pairs of shoes I might treat myself too.


But what I have for you today is a Mommy Day's giveaway for all you lovely lovely mommys, moms-to-be, or a gift to give another mom, or moms to fur babies and shoes (yes shoes are babies too!)


During the hours I spend searching Etsy a week I bumped into Anne from Handmade by Anne Potter.


Anne's a SAHM to 5 (this includes a teenager! Blessings to you Anne!!!) kiddos and loves to use recycled and interesting material in her work.


Anne's shop includes beautiful home decor, jewelry, accessories, and holiday pieces.


Everything in Anne's shop is inspired by travel and her shop donates 50% of all profits to missions! Gotta love that! 


Check just some of the great things from her shop!

My favorite!!!!!

Anne has graciously offered to give one of our readers this adorable Cape Cod Linen Market Bag. Love, love, love this bag and I wish I could win it, but sadly I'm not eligible (or I am I? hehehe)

To enter all you have to do is leave a comment telling me what's on your Mom's Day wish list with your email address.


If you would like additional entries (not required to win) here are some other ways. 

All require you to leave a comment with your email address.

• Become a new follower of BTBW
• Twitter about the contest (please leave link to Tweet in comment)
• Blog about the contest (please leave perma-link in comment)
• Follow me on Twitter
• Head over to Anne's shop and tell me your favorite item

Giveaway closes on May 11th and winner will be announced on the 12th and chosen by Random.org.


Good luck!!!!!!!




P.S. I did not receive any type of kickback for this giveaway.

So this is what I wore: Embellished Shoulder Pads

I hope you all got a chance to check out my embellished shoulder pads DIY last week. And hopefully you don't think I'm too loony.  

But if you're in fact thinking of taking on this same project below is a few snapshots of how I plan on wearing this top. 


I haven't actually worn it yet because each time I think of wearing it its a bit to cold out and I don't think a coat would work well over the shirt.

So here's how I wore it-

Leggings- From Express which happen to be my FAVORITE!

Wedges - Bakers (no longer available) click here for similar looks 

Turquoise Flats- Jeffrey Campbell from Nordstrom Rack. Can't find online, but these are a good match, and so are these from Endless.com .

Jeans- Boyfriend from Aeropostale. 

Cute toddler- From me. But NOT for sale.

 
I think the leggings and wedges are a great date night look, but I really love the jeans with the top too. I like taking really dressy pieces and "dumbing" them down. 

So this is how I plan on wearing my new fashion accessory I hope you try it too!

P.S. I recently ran across a new fashion blog and realized that I retitled the Fashion Roulette to So this is what I wore and this blog happens to be titled almost the same thing. I swear, I swear I had NO IDEA and now I'm wondering if I have to change it back. What do you think?

Silent Sunday-Anyone want to hire an Ewok Maid?

Octo-Mom vs Oprah

I've mentioned before how much I love watching Oprah. It's truly one of my favorite guilty pleasures of being a SAHM (along with All My Children {Totally want to see the JR/Annie thing pan out} and General Hospital {I loooooove Dante/Dominic}). 


So when I heard that Oprah was going to have the infamous Octo-Mom on her show I jumped at the chance to view her self-inflicted train wreck.


But I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at how she handled dealing with 14 kids and even thrown back a little bit by Oprah's questions.

Yikes! Those stretch marks!!!!!

I guess on one hand I did see that she is was clearly delusional when it came to her decision reasoning to having more kids. I come from a big family. The oldest of 8 with the youngest being 8 so I have a soft spot in my heart for large families. I don't even completely knock her for wanting to have more kids when she was a single mother. But her reason of wanting to create this "village" as she put it made her sound like that 16 year old teen mom that wants a baby so she can have "someone to love her". 


Clearly Nadya has some emotional hurts from her parents that she needs to work on.

And despite all the negative criticism that seems to be hurled her way constantly she had a very clear view on how messed up she was, but how much she wanted to just be a good mother and provide for her kids.


But the thing I was most disappointed about was Oprah's questions.


1. Oprah asked Nadya if she had ever thought about giving any of the children up for adoption or turning them over to foster care.

-How are you supposed to decide which of your kids you want to give away? How can you even fathom that? How does that benefit your child? Doesn't it make that child's life even harder having to wrestle with the fact that he lived with his mom for 6 years and that at 6 she sent him and 4 other siblings to live with someone else....and kept 7 others. Can you imagine the amount of rejection he/she would feel? Someone on Twitter responded to me that only someone without kids could ask that question....


2. The second question and or statement made by both Oprah and Nadya was that with 14 kids (even with 2 parents) you can't possibly give them all of the love and attention that they need and that they would grow up lacking. I can't even begin to tell you how annoyed this statement makes me (I've also heard it said about the Duggars). Both my husband and I come from big families and I think its certainly fair to say that neither of us felt slighted by any love or attention from our parents.


1 Corinthians 10:13 says that God will not give you more then you can handle and if you believe children are from God why would he give my parents, Nadya Suleman, or even the Gosselins tribes of kids that they wouldn't be able to love properly?


Nadya was an only child and she expressed how she didn't get enough love from her parents. 


But I have a hard time believing that if you have more then 2.5 kids or even 4 kids that you won't be able to give them everything they needed. Maybe not financially, but look at celebrity kids who are completely messed up, yet have been handed everything on a silver platter.


And last but not least I'd like to address the fact that Nadya wouldn't do a porn if they offered her a $100 million. I would just like to say to that company....How dare you? Give me a call and I'll do it for 25 million.....and dinner at the Geisha house.

(Gosh and how jealous are you of Jenna Lyons- Executive Creative Designer at JCrew (Featured on Wednesday's Oprah? Ahhhhhhh I want her job! And those fantastic sequence pants she had on)

Embellished Shoulder Pads

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon my new favorite fashion DIY site P.S.-I made this and fell in love with these embellished shoulder pads.  


Now I'll admit that as much as I loved them my husband, sisters, brother-in-law, mom, brothers, and the dog all thought I was crazy.


But I really saw potential in it and wanted to go for it.


After $100 and 3 craft stores later this is what I ended up with.


So if you are brave enough to try this here's how you do it.


Need:


Shoulder pads- (The original DIY seems to use like big full pads, I used half pads)


Feathers - Peacock and Black is what I used.


Metallic Fabric Paint (I used Lumiere by Jacquard in Pearl Turquoise- and I LOVE this color.Any other ideas what I can use it for?)


Gems


Rosette Trim (optional) I had a very hard time finding anything similar in stores that the original had, so I bought wedding floral picks and had intended to cut off the stem and glue the base down. But I ended 
up not using them because they didn't look right.


Safety Pins


Glue Gun


Simple tee shirt- Walmart


This is a pretty simply DIY so I won't walk you through it. But here are the pictures of the steps.

The trickiest part was securing the shoulder pads. I initially wanted to velcro the pads to the shirt so they would be easier to remove to wash the shirt but they wouldn't stick right. So I used safety pins. This is a step you'll have to mess around with on your own to make it easiest and most comfortable for you.


I also didn't make them sit right on top of my shoulders for two reasons. 1. The pads weren't really flexible enough to sit on the shoulder and 2. I'm only 5 ft tall so I thought it might be to much on me.


So there you have the completed project. If you follow me on Twitter you saw that when I started the project I let all my naysers get in my ear and I wondered if it was fashion roadkill, but honestly I'm pretty surprised how they turned out and I love love love love them.


So how did I wear these you ask? I'll show you that tomorrow (Here's how I wore these) so make sure you come back.....patience makes the heart grow founder.


Any questions just let me know?


What do you think? Have any other cool fashion DIY (that don't require a sewing machine) I should try?

Becoming Mommy

Do you remember when you first meet your husband/significant other and how it felt when he called you by a pet name? I used to get butterflies (and still do) whenever Shawn would call me by some lovey name, even as simple as "Baby" would make me swoon. It wasn't until someone started calling me Ma and then Mama, and now Mommy that I feel positively tickled all the way to the bottom of my toes. Phoenix started off calling me "Ma!" (always with an exclamation point at the end I'm sure) and then that quickly turned into "Mama". For awhile that's what I was to him (and every once in awhile I would be "Alex").....I never thought it would get sweeter than "Mama" but out of the blue last week he started calling me "Mommy" and when I heard it I started crying. Who knew that that one word would make me feel so good? Of course its not so cute when he's calling me and I'm not answering and so its a long string of whiny "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" until I jump up and down and say "Phoenix! Phoenix! Phoenix! What do you want now!?" 


No wonder my mom changed her name that one time and wouldn't tell us what it was.....

French - Mere  * German - Mutter * Hindi - Maji * Urdu - Ammee * 

English - Mom, Mummy, Mother Italian - Madre * Portuguese - Mãe * Albanian - Mëmë; Nënë; Burim; Kryemurgeshë Belarusan - Matka * Cebuano - Inahan; Nanay * Serbian - Majka * Czech - Abatyse Dutch - Moeder; Moer * Estonian - Ema * Frisian - Emo, Emä, Kantaäiti, Äiti * Greek - Màna Hawaiian - Makuahine * Hungarian - Anya, Fu * Ilongo - Iloy; Nanay; Nay * Indonesian - Induk, Ibu, Biang, Nyokap

No matter how you choose to say it, being called Mommy, Mom, or Mama is truly one of the sweetest sounds ever. Last week during bath I was able to grab him on video saying Mommy. You'll also get about a minute worth of conversation with his Yaya (Greek for Grandmother) and me in 2nd video whispering "Mommy" to him and him whispering back to me. Oh yeah, that's a new trick of his. Telling you secrets in your ear. 

Silent Sunday-Come fly with me

Fashion Mourning

Edit: Just stumbled on a new flash sale website. Check it out.




I'm wondering if there was anyone else out there who reads my blog who was poised and ready to spend a buck on fantastic clothing this morning? 


You'll remember that last week I introduced you to my favorite Flash Sale websites. The best one being The OutNet who in celebration of their one year anniversary was offering their shoppers Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Phillip Lim and best of all Christian Louboutin's for one dollar. The only catch was you could only only purchase one thing and the start of the sale was a secret until the moment it started.


When I heard about the sale I immediately determined I would not sleep at all and would stay up and constantly check my email to be ready to go. But in the excitement of my husband coming home and being able to catch up on 4 episodes of Lost (I think I've figured it out by the way) I completely forgot about the sale until about midnight. I popped open my laptop and logged on to Gmail, put my phone on vibrate and kept my phone and credit card in my hand waiting for the buzz of the phone alerting me to new email. 


(Unbeknownst to me my husband snapped a picture of me when he came back to the room. Of course the bright like sun flash woke me up.)

So there I am laying in bed in my cute polka dot jammies dreaming and hoping and praying that this sale wasn't a farce and that all the rumors we're true.


I think I got up once an hour to check my email. Finally at 7:45 AM I popped up checked my email and saw that it had started. With shaking legs and blurry vision I rolled onto the floor pulled my laptop up and logged on.


It was there and then  at 7:48 AM that all my hopes and dreams we're shattered like a light bulb when I begin to pursue the page only to find big huge pink circles that spelled out those horrific words....Sold Out.


I was positively bummed out and couldn't believe my bad luck. 


But like I said on Twitter "We'll always have full price Christians, Phillip Lims & Stella. Time to pick myself up & get to My Gym "cwass" on time. #outnet :-("


Is there anyone out there that was luck enough to score anything or are we all mourning and sitting Shiva today?




P.S. If you haven't already click the designer flash sale post, click on it and sign up. They have really great sales and if you sign up and buy I'll get a nice credit towards more fun things.

10 sanity saving tips you need NOW

As moms we often find ourselves frustrated and flustered with overwhelming amounts of To-Do list, classes, meetings, practices, dinners, laundry, and husbands. Can I get a "Amen!" or a " I hear ya girlfriend!" no? How bout a "Yeehaw!" or a "Preach preacher!" ?????


One of my goals in starting this blog (other then selling my movie rights to my blog and life) was to help other women achieve the perfection and sanity I have as a mother and wife


Below are 10 sanity saving tips that will change your life drastically!

1.  Invest in reversible clothing.  1 outfit = Two days. How much easier can it get? .... Well.....


2. Purchase only "lounge wear" clothing. Cute enough to wear out, comfortable enough to sleep in. Kids go to bed already dressed for school. Bonus? Less cranky because they can sleep in.


3. Febreze- Spray your kids as they are walking out to school to help cut down on laundry.

4. Don't allow your kids any extra curricular activities. Period. Nada. None. Unless they can walk to and from.


5. Invest in a signature stamp and allow your kids to sign there own necessary school documents. 

6. Make Christmas shopping easy by giving your kids the same toys they already own that they've "forgotten about" 


7. Keep all kids who don't go to school in diapers and sleepers all day. No need to wash 15 outfits a day and saves time when changing at bed time.


8. Don't allow anything other then a bed and 2 books in the bedrooms. Nothing to clean up.


9. Say no to everything. 
"Mom can I have a birthday party?" "No!"  
 "Mrs. Smith can you bake 10 dozen cupcakes for the PTA bake sale?" "No"
"Honey, can we have sex? "No" (And this is two fold. No sex means no need to fight kids to go to bed early and duh, if you're not having sex you won't run the risk of producing more time suckers, er, uh, kids.)


10. And if all else fails,produce tons of kids who can do all the work for you a la The Duggars.

Disclosure: Because I know these fantastic sanity saver tips will change the life of ever woman I have decided to link up for a blogging contest from the TwitterMoms community. There is a chance this post could be randomly selected to win a $50 Target GiftCard, so wish me luck (Ha! Like I'm actually going to need it)! For more details, you can view the contest page here (http://icomp.ly/IconApps).