Messymom – Page 37 – Making the Best of What Looks Like a Mess

American Eagle Gets it Right… Almost

***Edited*** I would consider this a family friendly blog. And I like to think that my readers could have young children looking over their shoulders without having to worry about seeing a close up of some gal’s rear end in a bikini. So I have edited this post to include this disclaimer just in case anyone would like a heads up. I never post graphic content, but due to the nature of this post there are a few photos of some scantily clad women. So there’s that. ****

It’s swimsuit season! Yay!!! *excuse my sarcasm* So I was checking out suits online at Aerie (American Eagle lingerie and apparel) and this model caught my eye today.

I’ve never known American Eagle to feature plus size girls, but this swimsuit model looks a tiny bit closer to what the average woman’s body looks like. I know this shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but I have seen a lot swimsuit ads over the years and rarely do I see a woman that has any curves except sometimes in the chest, which is the opposite of what I see at the beach. I wanted to give a standing ovation for diversity. Way to go American Eagle for showing how there are gorgeous models that aren’t a size zero.

Except, the way it works on this particular website is when you hold the cursor over an image it shows the back of the garment. I am scrolling through the online catalogue and I see the front side of the model and the back. Front. Back. Front. Back. There are dozens of swimsuits. Then I stop at one image in particular because I see the front and then where did she go?

Um. Either that’s a different girl, or they photoshopped the crap out of her. In their defense they did have a shot of her back on a different swimsuit.

I hate to be picky, but this was the only model whose size drastically changed from one photo to another. Why? Maybe it was an honest mistake and all the photos of her in that swimsuit from the back were underexposed or something? I doubt it.

On the one hand I am happy to see a model that isn’t rail thin. On the other hand why is she represented so differently than all the other models? It makes me sad. It’s like they want to encourage women of different body types, but they are only willing to go so far.

I’m too old for American Eagle’s target demographic anyway, but on behalf of girls of all sizes thanks for featuring a curvy model. I think we would all like to see even more of that. Now how about taking it a step further and having her model the front AND back of the swimsuit?

By Natalie|2016-06-13T17:31:16+00:00June 13, 2016|Uncategorized|2 Comments

Postpartum Haircut

It’s common to loose hair after pregnancy and I am not exempt from this hormonal misfortune.

When I am in those first postpartum months I shed more hair than a Chow on a hot day. I can’t stand it. I decided after my second pregnancy that I would just cut my hair off to make it more tolerable. So that’s what I have done with each baby since then.

I am normally sporting a lengthy mane through pregnancy, but then I have it all chopped off by the time my newborn has cracked their first smile. This method has worked well for me.

So after Elle came I went short with bangs, which was a new look I have never tried before.

I said I wanted the Taylor Swift bob, and the second stylist I went to really nailed it.

Friends and strangers alike were lavishing me with compliments. One woman at church froze in her tracks, grabbed me, and sternly told me to never change my new hair style. It was the most threatening compliment I’ve ever received. Between that and all the people talking about how much younger I look I feel pressure to keep this style. Now hear me out. I like the style, but there are some things I don’t like.

I have naturally wavy hair and in order to maintain the right look for this bob I have to wash, blow dry, and straighten my hair every single day. I don’t though, which means most of the time I look like Dora the Explorer without conditioner.

I can’t let it air dry. I can’t just pull it back into a pony tail. I can’t sleep on it and get up and go. This is really annoying because I am a no fuss kind of gal. I don’t mind getting gussied up every now and then, but for the day to day I like a low maintenance cut. Still, I had committed to trying this for a year. So that means I am half way there.

It’s funny how most of my friends commit to growing their hair out, but then cave. I have the opposite problem. Long hair is my fall back. One day while hiking and getting all sweaty my hair started curling up and my husband mentioned how much he loved and missed seeing my wavy hair.

AH HAH! I exclaimed, pointing at him with an accusing finger as if he had just been convicted of a crime. I knew it! You like my hair long. You haven’t said anything, but I could tell!

He is very sweet and gracious. He says he likes it either way and just wants me to like it. Fast forward a few days later when I was getting ready and complaining about my hair for the umpteenth time and he talked about how he doesn’t like his hair either. He said he wants to grow his hair out, but that’s not really an option (he’s going bald and recently shaved his head). That’s when it occurred to me that I can grow my hair out. The only thing stopping me is the pressure I put on myself. So I am going to cancel my next hair appointment and just let it grow, let it grow. I can’t hold it back anymore…

Go figure. I finally updated my blog profile picture and now I plan to change my look. At this moment it is current though. I’ll give myself a pat on the back for that.

By Natalie|2016-06-10T15:02:57+00:00June 10, 2016|Pregnancy & Birth, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Look Back and Laugh 005 {Quirky bag boy}

Last Friday I shared this photo and update on the Messy Mom Facebook page.

Great news! I always grocery shop on Friday nights (it’s a glamorous life). Tonight J is busy and we needed groceries. I am proud to say I went grocery shopping with all four kids and I didn’t loose any children or steal any products (that I know of, I probably should have given the kids a pat down). We may have come home with a little more junk food than usual, but all in all it was a success!

By the way I usually use reusable bags and prefer it because they hold more…

Talking about the reusable bags reminded me of a recent look back and laugh with a quirky outspoken bag boy.

I usually get as many freebie bags as I can. Most of them aren’t cutesy, but who cares. I rarely pay attention to what’s on the front. Not so for my bag boy on this particular day. He had an ongoing commentary for every bag that he filled.

employee: Oh Minnie Mouse! Did you go to Disney world?

me: Uh, no that was a bag my daughter got a present in for Christmas last year.

employee: I see you have a Meijer’s bag. That’s our competitor. Their prices are not as low I can tell you that.

employee: Is this your Doctor? Grabs a pink bag that has “Women’s health specialists” with Doctors names on it

me: Um, yeah (it was technically an ObGyn thank you very much. I never had anyone ask about it before, but at this point I am starting to feel self conscious).

He truly did go on and on until the bags were full and loaded into the cart. I quickly paid and he asked if I needed help getting them to the car. I declined. I felt like he already knew too much about me just by examining my reusable bags who knows what a trip to the car would entail.

In all seriousness though, he gave me a good laugh as I thought about it on the way home. He was an interesting character, but he was friendly. We need more friendly people in the world so more power to him.

By Natalie|2016-06-08T13:30:30+00:00June 8, 2016|Laughter|1 Comment

New Server!!!

Whew. It’s been a crazy month you guys. I’ve been blogging since 2008 and the longest I have ever gone without blogging is one week. One week! This whole time! So the fact that my site has been down for a month has been really discouraging. I feel like I need to skip sleeping for the unforeseeable future in order to get caught up on here. But don’t worry I am going to sleep. There are few things I love more than blogging. God for sure. Family is definitely one of them and sleep is probably the other.

If you follow Messy Mom on Facebook (which I highly recommend) then you know most of this already, but my site was crashing nonstop and J eventually decided we had to start all over. We moved the whole site to a new server. Things may look the same, but this a completely new virtual property that we just broke ground on.

A couple updates.

First of all, even though I am back to blogging we are not finished tweaking the site. So you may see some changes popping up here and there. Things like my About Me page which is sorely outdated and working out some final kinks.

I also plan to start a new series called “Inspiring Moms”. It’s going to be a once a month feature of different moms that have unique stories to tell. Please let me know if you are interested in being featured.

I want to shed light on all different stories of motherhood so maybe you have been through a divorce, or maybe you have a special needs child and you could share about that. It could be about parenting in another country or homeschool. I really want this to be something that we can learn from each other and build community. So that’s the vision behind Inspiring Moms, it’s not about the heroic mother that rescued her baby from a pack of wolves it’s about all mothers. And by the way it’s an interview so you don’t have to be a writer to participate.

Speaking of sharing stories. The Messy Mom (that’s me) is going to be doing a public speaking appearance at a bar in Cincinnati! Ack!? Can you believe it? It’s scheduled for the beginning of August and I will be sharing a humorous version of Elle’s birth story. I really look forward to what I consider a ministry opportunity. It’s going to be recorded too so if it works out I will share the video on here.

On a more personal note here is a micro-update of what is happening at home.

J is still doing a co-op at the same job. Even though he hasn’t taken classes since last year he technically graduates this August. This means we are going to rock this little rental property for at least one more year. It’s not my dream home, but it is a dream compared to the apartment.

My latest news is that I have been fitted for a hearing aid and will be getting it in one week. Most of you are probably really confused by this, I’ll explain it all when everything is finalized.

Z recently graduated 2nd grade and completed his final year in the building he has gone to since Kindergarten.

They tore the old building down immediately after school ended and now there is just a bunch of rubble that needs to be moved out of the way to give access to the new building that the students will go to in the fall.

SJ graduated Kindergarten and is currently in summer school. Some of you from Facebook were praying that she would qualify for funding and miraculously she did. So thank you all for the prayers.

Not much is new with Ezie. I think he is enjoying having the siblings around more now that school is out.

Elle is about to turn 7 months!

She is eating, sitting, and partially crawling!!! She just got her second tooth on Saturday. Oh my goodness she has changed so much. Cuter than ever though.

I think that’s pretty gets us pretty close to caught up. I will go ahead and sign off for now, but the good news is just like the Terminator “I’ll be back”.

By Natalie|2016-06-07T11:36:39+00:00June 7, 2016|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Look Back and Laugh 004 {throwing up over a cliff}
Gallery
Look Back and Laugh 004 {throwing up over a cliff}

Laughter

Look Back and Laugh 004 {throwing up over a cliff}

In 2005 I went on a missions trip to Acapulco Mexico to partner with some of our church’s missionaries that head up an orphanage there.

We kept busy the entire time with various projects, but one evening we had the opportunity to go to watch some cliff divers. These incredible athletes would climb up 100 feet onto a tiny ledge and then plunge into the Pacific Ocean with style and finesse.

I really wanted to see the performance, but I didn’t feel all that great at the time. Yet I talked myself into going. We had been working so hard and this was our chance to see some of the sites the locals had been raving about.

The place was packed with hundreds of tourist all gathered around hoping to catch a glimpse of the acrobatic stunts. However, just before the show began my stomach started doing some acrobatic stunts of it’s own. I felt really queasy and despite doing everything I could to resist the urge to vomit, my body began to launch projectile chunks over the edge of the rocks. I distinctly remember looking over at the strangers beside me and muttering “I’m sick”. I guess I thought I needed to explain myself? But there was no way out and the show must go on and so did I.

On the way back down the rocky hillside I continued to make “deposits” every few steps. My biggest fear in that moment was that it would start coming out the other end if ya know what I mean. I expressed this concern to my husband and his response was “it’s okay, we will still love you.”

Luckily that didn’t happen (at least not until I reached a bathroom.) I did however have a lot of tourist accuse me of having too much tequila. In the end our whole team came down with montezuma’s revenge because we had tostadas with lettuce that was rinsed in local water. That’s all it took to knock us out.

It’s been 11 years since that trip and I still can’t eat Tostados to this day. Despite all that it was still a really successful trip. One that I will never forget and neither will the strangers next to me on the cliff that night.

By Natalie|2016-05-02T22:25:14+00:00May 3, 2016|Laughter|1 Comment

Baby Elle 5 Months

Here we are on the tippy tail end of Aril and Elle is closer to 6 months than she is to 5, but I haven’t posted an update yet.

At 5 months she weighed 17 pounds. She is in the top 25th percentile for weight. Maybe that’s why she isn’t very mobile yet.

The day she turned 5 months (April 10th) it snowed, which is crazy, but as soon as the weather cleared up a little I took her outside. I wanted to get a picture of her in some winter clothes that she wouldn’t be able to fit in next year.

Unfortunately Elle was captivated by all the sights, textures, and sounds of the outdoors and she didn’t give me and my camera the slightest glance. I eventually gave up. The perk of being a photographer is that when she woke up from her nap with a big smile on her face I grabbed the camera again and started shooting.

She rolls over now. Mostly back to tummy and she can push herself up a lot more than what you see her doing in this photo.

She still has blue eyes although I can already see some pigment coming in. The jury is still out on whether they will be brown or green though.

Elle continues to do well in occupational therapy and speech therapy. She is also still exclusively breast fed and obviously not missing any meals (I hear that comment a lot). So everything is going great with baby Elle. She could not be loved anymore than we all love her, that’s for sure. She is precious and I am beyond blessed to be her mom.

By Natalie|2023-06-12T06:34:08+00:00April 29, 2016|My Life, Speech Therapy|1 Comment

Mail Organization Tips for Small Spaces

As someone who has a large family in a small space I know how challenging it is to find ways to have good mail organization without an office. However it’s even more imperative that we do keep papers and files under control because we don’t have any room for error.

I am currently reading The 8 Minute Organizer by Regina Leeds and it’s been such a game changer. While the book is not about small space living, I have adapted it and combined Leeds organizational style with methods that I’ve already had in place.

Here are 5 mail organization tips that we use to keep incoming mail from overtaking our limited living quarters.

Keep Your Mail in the Mail Box until you are ready to sort it

In the book The 8 Minute Organizer, Leeds recommends having a basket, but a basket of mail would take up too much valuable flat-space-real-estate (i.e. counter or table top). So in our case I consider the mail box the basket. This means keeping all the mail out of the home until you are ready to sort it. It’s one way to maximize exterior space as storage.

2. Sort and toss

Because we live in a tiny space sorting the mail immediately is pretty crucial. So we forgo the basket idea proposed in the book. I suggest immediately throwing away junk mail and shredding anything that may contain personal information (or in our case rip it up).

File important mail

8 Minute organizer recommends action files labeled “Pending, to call, to do, to file, to pay, to read.” That’s sounds like a great idea. We are not that organized yet. For now we each have individual files. The kid’s don’t get much mail other than medical documents, but they do have homework.

This system has been a tremendous help to us. Since the files are up on a shelf it saves floor space. We do have a filing cabinet where we keep critical documents, but for the pending everyday stuff we use these Ikea cardboard magazine files in the kitchen (they’re only 99 cents for a 4 pack!).

4. Stay on top of the old mail

It’s not about just sorting incoming mail. If you file something that needs to be paid, or a form that is supposed to be filled out you should schedule it on your calendar immediately so that you don’t forget about it. You should also go through your pending files regularly. For me I go through each family file monthly. I am not saying I have mastered all this, but I have come a long way!

5. Go paperless as much as possible

Direct deposit, ebills, and AutoPay are our best friend. For one, you are automatically more organized because the computer is paying things on time for you. Also, you are helping the environment by trying to be as paperless as possible and lastly you are saving space because all of those letters and envelopes are no longer floating around your home.

Most of these mail organization tips can work for anyone that wants a better system for mail organization, not just those living in small spaces. Still, there is a lot of information out there about organizing mail and not all of it works when you don’t have a home office, or even an average size home.

I have to give credit to my husband because he is the one that gets the mail and pays the bills, but I did the filing system. And together we learned that keeping the mail in the box until you are ready to sort it, filing right away, going through old files regularly, and doing online bill pay has made all the difference.

Hopefully these 5 mail organization tips have been helpful for other small space families. For more tips, tricks, and advice about living in a small space check out Lots of Hope in a Little Home here on Messymom.com.

Good luck with all that mail!

By Natalie|2016-04-29T14:20:30+00:00April 28, 2016|Lifestyle, Simple Living|3 Comments

Look Back and Laugh 003 {Broken Glasses}
Gallery
Look Back and Laugh 003 {Broken Glasses}

Laughter

Look Back and Laugh 003 {Broken Glasses}

This post was originally from March of 2009! I only had one child at the time. Talk about Time-Warp Tuesday (sorry, I guess that doesn’t have quite the same ring as Throwback Thursday.). Thankfully this embarrassing moment never happened again.

I was pretty exhausted and feeling a little brain dead after having just gone grocery shopping with my one year old (need I say more?). When we leave the store I throw on my sunglasses and head home. I felt like one lens was really dirty, but I was driving so I didn’t want take my hands off of the wheel to fix it. It was a beautiful day and a lot of my neighbors were outside. I smiled and waved as we drove past. Even J was outside doing yard work . As I pull up he starts motioning to me. I thought maybe he was gesturing for me to park somewhere else so I rolled down the window to ask what he wants and he says “your glasses” and points to his eyes. I then looked in the mirror to see that I had been driving around with one lens missing.

I looked utterly ridiculous. Z had thrown my glasses on the floor in the grocery store and one of the lens busted out. I just popped it back in and thought they were fixed, but apparently I was wrong. I think this deserves a face palm.

By Natalie|2016-04-26T09:21:44+00:00April 26, 2016|Laughter|2 Comments

Home Stretch for This School Year

It’s official. I turned in re-enrollment forms for both of my school age kiddos. SJ will be going into 1st grade and Z is going into 3rd. I’m really excited about this next milestone for these two.

Not a lot will change for SJ because her school uses a montesorri type format. So she will be in the same classroom with a lot of the same students next year, except now she won’t be the youngest. You would think this would be an easy transition (for me), but I get anxious almost every year.

The schedule is the same for SJ which means she spends about half of her time doing academics and the other half is speech and language. This year I felt great about that because even her hearing peers were only doing half day kindergarten anyway, but in 1st grade I have to worry about her getting a “full day” of curriculum in half the time. I worry so much about her being behind. I practically had to have a voluntary intervention at the parent teacher meeting last week.

Thankfully we have the most amazing team of teachers, directors, even the audiologist was in there at one point. They all encouraged me by answering my questions and telling me what an incredible job SJ is doing. They also reminded me to remember how far she has come and she really has! I feel 100% better after going to this meeting and now I am ready for next school year. I make it sound like I am the one going to school. I know I’m not, but I might as well be. We’re in this together!

Z is going to be switching classes for the first time when he starts back up in the fall. He said he is a little apprehensive about that, but I know he’ll be fine. I am beyond excited that he gets to be at this school for the 4th year (new building, but same school by the way). I love his school so much and we weren’t sure if we were going to be moving, but we’re not. We are staying in our rental home another year. After that we’ll try to become home owners again and we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

The funny thing is, even though I don’t have to worry about Z falling behind I worry about him being challenged. With Z he has shown a lot of signs of being at the top of his class and he’s really great with technology and math. He wants to be an inventor and I want him to be able to do that. How do I harness his abilities without being pushy or overbearing? I know I sound like such a worry-wart, but I prefer the term over-thinker. The other day he had to remind me that college is still 10 years away. I am that mom.

Regardless of my tendency to fret I can assure you that these aren’t thoughts that constantly pervade my mind. With 4 kids I don’t have time to obsess. I am all about kids being kids and learning trough play, yada, yada, yada. I think all moms want their kids to succeed and reach their fullest potential. That’s what it boils down to.

I am genuinely excited about wrapping up another successful school year. The last day of school for both Z and SJ is exactly 5 weeks away!

Look out summer, here we come.

By Natalie|2016-04-21T11:45:28+00:00April 21, 2016|Schooling|1 Comment

Look Back and Laugh 002 {Switching Seasonal Clothes}

Sorry I’ve been so absent lately. My website is still down way too often and so for those not on Facebook you may think I have abandoned ship, but this is not so! Please don’t give up on me. As for today’s link up, this isn’t an embarrassing moment, but it is a funny exaggeration so that’s why I am posting it for today’s Look Back and Laugh. Maybe some of you will relate.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————

Now that we finally have some spring weather it’s time to pack up the sweaters and bring out the shorts. This is always a big task to tackle, but this is the first time I have done it with 4 children. And let me tell you, it is a NIGHTMARE!

I have been working on it for daaaaays. Maybe there are people that have containers and storage for all this, or their closets are big enough to fit winter and summer clothing year round. None of this is the case for me. We have hobbit closets and live by the philosophy if it wasn’t worn by 8 different children then someone didn’t get their money’s worth. So clothing rotation in our home is an art form and one that I have yet to master.

One problem is how to group things. There is the obvious grouping by size and season, but we have up to size 10 and both genders. If I had a bin for each size, gender, and season we would have forty bins of clothes. So I try to scale down as I go through everything.

Let’s start with the first son. I have to decide if it’s something that will fit him next year. If yes, I put it in the size “8ish” winter pile. If not then it is either a future dust rag, donation, or I hang onto it for when the next son is in size 6 or 7.

See that’s the other problem, just because something says it’s one size it doesn’t always fit that way so you may have everything from a 6 to a 9 in a closet at one time. Then you have things that you want to pass on or give back to a specific family. That’s another pile. There are always a couple items that look like they need to go through the wash once more before being packed up, so you’ve gotta throw those in a pile. Or maybe it’s something you feel is valuable enough to sell. Start a pile for that too. Do this four times over and you have 23 piles and house that looks like an episode of Hoarders Buried Alive.

I do realize in hindsight that there is no 5T or 6T, but after going through so many toddler clothes I got carried away with the T.

Then heaven forbid your child realize you are getting rid of one of their prized possessions. Oh it’s all over! Go ahead and bring in a professional counselor for this part. Yesterday SJ wanted to know what the letters on the trash bag spelled and I told her it said “Donation” and she gave me a quizzical look. Donation? What is donation? She asked. I dodged the question. We’ll talk about it later.

Then Z saw a pair of jogging pants in the trash pile and he freaked out on me. I told him they are a size six and too small, but he began to protest.

Z: That’s just a label mom. They still fit me.

Mom: They have holes in them. They are going in the trash”

Dad: You could cut them and make them into shorts.

Mom: He has plenty of shorts! You stay out of this.

This conversation went on for a long time and I kid you not he wore them to school today. Sigh.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I am just as much a culprit when it comes to clothing attachment issues. I see a vest that Z wore for Easter of ’09 and I react like my 13 year old dog is being euthanized.

It’s all just too much. I mean, I understand why we have clothes I guess, but sometimes I wonder if they are overrated. Maybe unisex rompers will become a thing. Until then I better get back to sorting or it will be winter again before I finish.

By Natalie|2016-04-19T11:28:57+00:00April 19, 2016|Laughter|1 Comment