Monthly Archives: October 2012

Bows and Tutus and Rompers, Oh My! {Review and Giveaway}

Written on October 8, 2012 by Bridget in Review
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Until Alden got old enough to express her opinion on clothing and accessories, I thought that Lydia was a girly-girl.
Oh, but no…Miss A is somethin’ else!
She even has teeny tiny “high” heel sandals (which she wears like a boss, I might add).
So when Girls Crochet Headbands contacted me about reviewing their products, I turned my priss on and took a look.
And y’all? This is some cute stuff at great prices.

I mean just LOOK at this sweet baby all dressed up.

  

This is the first headband she’s ever kept on. Ever.
It’s really stretchy, but holds on to the hair.
And? Best part? Only $0.50!
The flower clip? $2.55!
(That’s cheaper than the ones that I saw at a big box store last week!)

The bows and clips are top quality and you can wear it as is or pair it with one of their four types of headbands.

And even though the romper was sized for 18mo-4T,
we made it work for a little bitty baby that I did pictures of last week and Alden and even Lydia!

  

When I was ordering, I let Lydia help me pick a tutu and matching flower clip for her.
At first we planned on letting her wear just a little white tee with the tutu…

  

…but then we realized that she would fit in the romper for Alden!  She was thrilled!

  

Lydia’s already asked if we could get a few more things.
I’m hoping to get a few cute things for Christmas pictures, and I don’t have to feel bad about spending lots of moolah!

What about you?  Take a look at the GCH website and see which things your little girly girl would love.
And then come back here and enter to win a $30 gift certificate from Girls Crochet Headbands!

So how can you enter to win the $30 gift certificate to GCH?

  • Mandatory: Head over to the Girls Crochet Headbands website and look around.
    Then come back here and leave a comment telling me what your favorite GCH item is.
Once you’ve let me know what products you love from GCH, you can enter three different other ways, too!
  • “Like” GCH on Facebook, then leave a separate comment letting me know you did.
  • Follow GCH on Pinterest and leave me a separate comment letting me know you did.
  • Follow GCH on Twitter and leave me a separate comment letting me know you did.

Entries accepted until midnight(EST) this Friday, October 12th.

And if you don’t win the $30 gift certificate to Girls Crochet Headbands or just can’t wait, you can use the code iveyleague to save 10%. The code is only good for 30 days, so go ahead and order clips and other adorableness for fall, football, Halloween, Thanksgiving, AND Christmas. At these prices, you can get a few for each occasion!

Raised To New Life

Written on October 5, 2012 by Bridget in Our Photo Gallery, Parenting
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Carter started asking me about the details of Christianity a few years ago.
A little over a year ago he began asking me what exactly it meant to be a Christian.
He decided that yes, he did want to make a commitment to God that he would try to live a Christ-like life.
But he wasn’t quite ready to make that commitment in front of other people.

He and Lydia share a room and she listened intently to what we were saying.
She’s a quiet thinker, but I could see the wheels turning.
A few months later, she started asking questions as well.
Some really hard questions.
(I told you she was a thinker.)

Then this summer Lydia went to a summer music camp at another local church.
She loved the music and we listened to it on repeat for months.
(It’s still in rotation, but we don’t listen to it every day.)
What I really loved about this musical is that almost every song is straight from scripture.
My children have all (even the baby) learned a handful of verses through music.
What better way to learn about God than through music?

Soon after camp was over, the questions began again; this time about baptism.
A few weeks later, two of their friends joined our church.
The week after that another friend (the sister of the first two) joined.
And their enthusiasm was contagious.
Now that they’d seen the others go before the church, it wasn’t quite as scary any more.
Carter joined one week.
Lydia the next.

This past Sunday, they were all baptized.

 

 

I am proud of them.
I am excited for them.
I am inspired by them.

 

The Words of Our World

Written on October 4, 2012 by Bridget in Bridget Blogs, Parenting
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I knew it would happen eventually.
They know that I share our lives online.
First it was Facebook, asking if I would share this or that about them.
Wanting my friends, their teachers, our family to know about this or that.
But today he snuggled up next to me as we logged on for his morning school session,
“I almost typed out the whole iveyleague.com thing but I didn’t.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. You know you’re only allowed to go to the websites I set for you, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s why I stopped.”
“But you can read my blog if you want to.”
“I can?!?!”
“Sure! It’s kinda like my journal.
I read your writing everyday so it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t share mine with you, now would it?”

I wondered if it would change anything, knowing he would be reading.
I always said that I write for me and for them, but in my mind ‘them’ meant ‘grown-up them’.
I never imagined my 7-year old would want to read my words.
But he does and so I’ll share it with him.
And I hope that in reading my words, he will find his own.
This week we have been working diligently on writing and he’s come a long way.
Adding dialogue and using descriptive words.
Telling a story instead of just stating facts.
It is one of my biggest hopes for them all, that they will be story tellers.
I hope they will know this joy that I know.
And if it’s not with words, I pray that they will learn how to express themselves somehow.
Because, for me, it is in creating that I find myself.
It is in the words I write, the colors I paint, and the moments I capture
that I discover what it is that truly moves my soul and makes me me.

Photographic Memory

Written on October 2, 2012 by Bridget in Photography
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So many of my memories are tied to the photos I hold in my hand, hang on my wall, see on my screen.
I scroll through image after image and re-ride the roller coaster of my life.
I have thousands of images categorized and cataloged chronologically.
Sometimes I wonder what will happen to them all when I am gone.

I don’t print enough of them.
If I did, I tell myself, that’d be just another thing to store, to organize, to save.
And I can’t pick my favorites and print just those.
When I’m in Mommy-mode, they’re all my favorites.
But when I’m in photographer mode, I find flaws in each one.
Not of the subjects, but the lighting or the angle or the color.
I should have seen this.
I should have changed that.
I should have shot that from above.
I should have, I should have…

Taken with iPhone4S.
Edited with Magic Hour app.

The past few months I’ve favored my phone to my camera.
I love that it is always with me.
I love that it is easy to use.
I love that I can edit quickly and share with others.
I told myself that I was trying to be more in the moment.
I was trying to live it instead of capture it.
And sometimes I was glad I did,
But there are also times when I wish I’d taken ‘real’ pictures.

Take with Canon 40D.
Edited in Lightroom 4.

I scan through our lives and see our life beautiful, but grainy.
Each shot brings back the moment, the emotion…and yet, it seems insufficient.
And I worry that maybe I should have made more effort, maybe I should have tried harder.

But in the end, my pictures are for me and for them, and will we look back and care that the lines are a little blurry?
Or that we don’t see the catch light in our eyes?
Or that you can’t blow it up to colossal sizes?
Or will we just be grateful that time allowed us to stop it, if ever so briefly, and savor it for a lifetime?

Taken with iPhone4S.
Edited with Magic Hour app.

I want to capture everyday.
I want to capture everything and nothing.
And although I love the sharp lines and brilliant colors,
I don’t think it really matters how I do that, but that I do it.

Looking Back

Written on October 1, 2012 by Bridget in Our Photo Gallery
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I’ve been working on “the baby’s” baby book.
She’s hardly a baby anymore, but we’ve had a lot of fun going through all of the pictures from the past few years.

I posted a few of these on her birthday, but not all of them.
How adorable is she?

 

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