My baby is officially 1 - Cupcake style!

I am officially the proud parent of a 1 year old, and we did it up right... in cupcake style! It's hard to believe that I should be calling her a toddler soon, but for now - she's still the "baby".

We had a little get together at the house for a few of her play group friends and family friends, and celebrated with family while we were over in Illinois the week after her birthday. I'm still behind from all of the party planning, partying, and traveling we did in May -  but hoping I can get back on track with things around here in June!

We even found a fun way to incorporate cupcakes into her 1st birthday pictures...

We took her 1st birthday pictures two days before her actual birthday at Olan Mills, I was happy with how they turned out!

Her party was on her actual birthday, and we had fun watching her (slowly) tie into her cake, open presents, and play with the other kids that were there.

She was actually fairly dainty about eating her cupcake, and we didn't even have to change outfits! :)

In summation, it's been a whirlwind month, and I realize that most of my blog posts have been about our personal family life - as I've just been too tired to hunt down any good shopping finds. Now that I'm onto the second trimester in my pregnancy, I'm feeling more energy and a bit more up to the task of doing more than "just making it through the day"! 

I've got a few things I'm excited about, that I'm going to share with you in future blog posts. One being her cupcake room items that finally all arrived (the company sent me some wrong items at first, but made it right) - and also some fun finds that I've found.... like the necklace company Cassia de Shanghai, where I'm anxiously awaiting a gorgeous necklace from that is on its way to me.

Other than that, hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday weekend! And if you shop at Old Navy and like sales... they are having a major sale this weekend on summer items! I'm hoping to head over there later this afternoon to check out the baby items!

This 'n' That!

Well the cupcake-themed birthday supplies have arrived, and it's hard to believe that in a little over a week we'll be celebrating Cupcake's 1st birthday!

I also ordered some personalized party supplies, but you're going to have to be surprised and wait until after the party to see pictures of those. ;)

There are a few beauty things that I need to do separate reviews on once things settle down around here... I've been using the Make Up For Ever HD Foundation for the past week - and I have to say, I am loving it! It goes on really well and once it is on, it gives a nice look that isn't overly done. The best part is, I don't "feel" like I'm wearing liquid foundation, which is one of my biggest gripes about a lot of too heavy liquid foundations... when you feel like they're actually adding weight to your face!

I also received my Zoya Earth Day promotion nail polish order, and never shared my haul from that. I still need to swatch each individual color - but I do have to say that I found some gems! I absolutely loving Areej, Lillith, and Reece!

 

From left to right: Rihana, Kierra, Hope, Charisma, Lillith, Areej, Dana, Reece, Tallulah, Adina, Brizia, Uma, & Anne

My favorites: Kierra, Hope, Areej, Reece, and Brizia

And a bonus close up shot of my absolute favorite... Zoya Reece

I was excited to receive them all and get my nail polish stocked full of new summer colors! (As well as getting rid of some old polishes that just needed to get tossed anyways.) I hope that Zoya continues to do this promotion in the years to come, because I'll just make the Earth Day promotion my yearly nail polish stock-up time, instead of buying it here & there throughout the year!

Cupcake's New Class - Swimming!

It's been a whirlwind few weeks and we're starting to count down the days until Cupcake's first birthday! 

I'm planning on just having a little get together at our house on her birthday (not an actual party... just a get together) - and then having cake with her family when we're in Illinois the following week for a graduation. It's too hard to plan anything here in Michigan with us being such a distance from the majority of our family, so I resigned myself to the fact that we would not try to throw a big birthday party this year... And maybe try to do something when we have less going on over in Illinois, so that relatives over there can come this direction.

So I've got myself busy with planning the birthday "get together", getting a few decorations (cupcake themed - of course) and planning what she'll wear for 1st birthday pictures, etc.

One new fun thing that we've started the past few weeks though, is swim class! And she loves it!

We signed up for mommy & baby swim classes at the YMCA, because I thought it would be a fun activity that we could do together - and also be good for her to start learning how to move in the water. I love swimming and pool activities - so it seems that she has taken after me in that respect. She loves the kicking, trying to push her arms across the water to get to a toy, and doesn't mind keeping her body horizontal in the pool.

On the way to swim class!

Getting ready in the locker room!

Before class, checking out what the older kids are doing in their class.

Warming up after class!

I think it's something that we'll keep doing for a while and sign up for the next session as well, because we're both getting a lot of enjoyment out of it!

Mommy's New Bag(s)!

So I did a little collection "re-organizing" while I was on blog hiatus, and a few new bags arrived at my house! If you're here for a Louis Vuitton reveal - sorry to disappoint, but they are actually both Balenciaga bags! If you know me or knew me about some 3 or 4 years ago... I was a 100% Balenciaga girl. It was the only brand I carried. After I had Cupcake, I felt like they were maybe too delicate to carry all of the time, and that Louis Vuitton would be a more durable and long-lasting choice.

Well, I haven't given up on Louis Vuitton (I'm still considering it my "main" brand), but I did feel like I was missing having just a FEW Balenciaga bags in my collection, since I sold off a vast majority of them. So I had some Vuitton accessories just hanging around that weren't being used like they should be, so I decided to turn those into a Balenciaga bag! (Or two!)

The first bag I hunted down was a 2007 Anthracite Work. I used to have this color in a First (the smallest size Balenciaga well-known bag currently in production), but the size was just too small for me, so I let it go some time ago. I always missed the color and leather, so when this bag became available and I had an opportunity to re-home some LV accessories that weren't being used - I jumped on it!

2007 Anthracite Work

The leather is scrumptious, 2007 was the last year for Balenciaga to use their signature chevre leather, and 2007 bags hold a special place in my heart. (2007 also happens to be the year I found a love for Balenciaga.) Anthracite is a beautiful color that can look gray, blue or a dark teal depending on the lighting. It is, in my humble opinion, the best Anthracite that Balenciaga has ever released.

My second surprise purchase happened while innocently searching bags one day, I found a bag in a color that hadn't really caught my attention before that, but I couldn't get it off of my mind. I ended up having a bit of an overage leftover from the sale of my LV accessories, so I decided to go ahead and make it a two-for! 

 Even though it's agneau (the material used post-chevre starting in 2008, and on a few 2007 bags, like Violet, came in both materials) - I don't mind it. I do actually like the leather on this particular bag, and the color is another great chameleon color, that changes depending on the lighting and what colors are around it. It's a deep red burgundy, with purple and brown undertones that - even for a non-red wearing girl like myself- is surprisingly wearable. 2008 Black Cherry is truly a magnificent color.

2008 Black Cherry Work - Most representative of the true color

So those are my new bags for now, don't worry - I haven't given up on Louis Vuitton! Just trying to add a little of variety back into the collection! ;)

Easter Fun! And what we've been up to!

Well, I've been remiss in blogging, but it's been a busy past week or so, with family in town visiting and trying to keep the house going. Hopefully I'll be back to my regular routine in the next few days! Some fun exciting things have been going on though, all of which will be the topics of future blog posts... Cupcake starts her first Mommy & Me swimming class today (so excited!), lots of pictures to follow of that... I actually DID get a new bag finally, which I will be excited to share with you in a future blog post, and the Great Cupcake Remodel is going well! I actually found the PERFECT bedding set to go with the theme I had in my head for the Cupcake Tea Party theme, and it is on its way to me! Lots of pictures of that to follow as well!

For today though, I just wanted to share a little Easter fun we had over the weekend... It will be one of Cupcake's "last first" holidays, since she'll be turning 1 year old soon! Then she will have "been there, done that" for all of them!

She opened her Easter basket first thing...

And also had a few packages from grandparents waiting for her as well...

Later in the day, we decided to play a little dress-up - and make sure one of the outfits I've had for a while in mind for her 1st birthday pictures still fits. (It does, hooray!)

Not actual shirt I'm planning on using... but we just had it on so she wasn't in the buff!

Her first pair of "designer" shoes... :)

Then we took some time to swing outside and play with her new bubble gun...

All in all, it was a great day! Hope that you & yours had an awesome Easter as well!

Zoya Earth Day Nail Polish Exchange Promotion!

Zoya is doing another great nail polish - this time in honor of Earth Day! This one has been the long-awaited promotion, for those that took part in it last year!

Here are the details from:
http://www.zoya.com/content/38/category/Nail_Polish_Exchange.html

ANNOUNCING THE 2011 ZOYA NAIL POLISH EXCHANGE

Out with the old - in with the new! In honor of Earth Day from April 20, 2011 - April 27, 2011(11:59PM EST) Zoya Nail Polish will exchange* your old, out-of-style, unwanted nail color and replenish your nail polish supply with fresh Zoya fashion colors. All you pay is $4.00 per bottle for shipping and processing. Choose from over 300 formaldehyde, toluene, camphor and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) free, long-lasting, award winning, healthy colors to replace your old color! Zoya will properly dispose of your old polish.

Here's all you need to do!

1. Go to Zoya.com and pick out the polishes you would like and add them to your cart. You must select at least 6 bottles  and no more than 24 bottles of polish (Salons accounts minimum 12 maximum 48 bottles.)
2. Apply the code:  EARTHZOYA
3. Your order value will be adjusted to reflect the promotion
4. SUBMIT your order!

As the information from their website states, you simply have to place your order, put in the code, and then wait to receive your nail polish! Once you receive your nail polish, you're on the honor code to send in (approximately - according to their Facebook page) the same amount of nail polishes of a DIFFERENT brand back in to them!

I've already placed my order and I will share the colors I ordered with you when they arrived! I'm very excited to be updated a portion of my nail polish collection with Zoya polishes!

Britax B-Ready Double Stroller Review

The first item we purchased with "two kids" in mind has been the Britax B-Ready Stroller, which can be used as a single or double stroller and has multiple configurations that it works in. Cupcake's convertible car seat happens to be a Britax, and it was our first product that we had tried from the brand. Once we purchased her Britax Marathon 70 and LOVED it (for the safety, as well as aesthetic reasons), we knew that all new car seats that we purchased from here on out would be the Britax car seats.

With that in mind, once we found out we were expecting again - we realized not only were we going to have to find a double stroller to accomodate an infant and a toddler - but we were going to have to find a stroller that accommodated a Britax infant car seat, if we didn't end up using the Graco infant car seat that we already owned.

So we did actually look into a number of brands, and did comparisons - and also considered that we might not be able to use a Britax infant car seat when we first started out. After looking at them all throughly online and a few in-store... the Chicco Together Tandem stroller (I have the Chicco Cortina and LOVE it, btw), Baby Jogger City Select, even the Sit 'n' Stand strollers and some Graco double stroller models that Babies'R'Us had on the floor... I knew it was going to be the Britax B-Ready. I was pleasantly surprised when my husband also agreed!

He suggested we go over to Buy Buy Baby to see one in person, and go ahead and pick it up while the "get a free item" sale was going on, if we liked it. Once we got to the store and tried it out, it was a YES. The demo model at the store had the second toddler seat attachment, and Cupcake sat in it no problem. She was happy to peak at the world from the sides of the seat - and was particularly entertained by the zipper on the back of the top toddler seat.

Since Britax was doing a giveaway of an infant carseat, second toddler seat, or bassinet attachments with the purchase of the B-Ready - we had to decide what our free item was going to be. We had a Graco carseat that we used with Cupcake and could have used it again... but we decided to go ahead and get the infant car seat as our free item, and we will purchase the second toddler seat (to fit on the lower level) at a later time.

So this is what it looks like!

We got it in red, because it was one of the few stock colors that Buy Buy Baby had in stock. One of the things that we really loved, was that you have the option of putting the infant seat on the lower level or upper level. We purchased the infant lower level car seat adapter so that the infant seat could be used with the regular toddler seat in the upper level position.

Regular toddler B-Ready seat attached, with infant car seat adapter on lower level. Infant rear facing.

Regular toddler B-Ready seat attached, with infant car seat adapter on lower level. Infant forward facing.

Every time you click one of the pieces into the configuration you want the stroller in, it makes a "click" noise to let you know it's locked and is easy enough that I would be comfortable changing the configurations myself - if I was on the go out on my own during the day.

Here is a list of some of the configurations you can use on Britax's website:

http://www.britaxusa.com/strollers/b-ready-configurations

I've been using the B-Ready as a single stroller for the past week since we made our purchase, and I can honestly say that I love it! It's easy to maneuver, and easy to get in and out of the back of my car. (One of the biggest considerations for a double stroller for us, was making sure it would fit in the back of a Honda CR-V!) It's footprint isn't much larger than a regular single stroller (even when being used as a double stroller), and I really like that. In fact it became one of the biggest selling points about the B-Ready as to why I liked it so much.

We don't have second toddler seat yet, since it will be awhile before we need it... but I will be sure to update once we purchase the second toddler seat on how I like using the different configurations and what it seems like our most used ones are.

All in all, I think is was a solid purchase and definitely the best stroller purchase for us! We needed a double stroller that didn't have a huge footprint, wasn't so heavy that a pregnant lady (or otherwise wimpy when lifting lady) couldn't get it out of the car, and was easily maneuverable in a variety of locations (i.e. the grocery store, mall, Target, theme parks, etc.)... and we found that in the B-Ready. I can't wait to try it out with two little munchkins!

(This review was done independently and the reviewer did not receive any compensation from companies mentioned to do the review.)